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Post Info TOPIC: Indian Summer...good or bad


The Forum Celestial Advisor

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Indian Summer...good or bad
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September in the Great Pacific Northwest was a dream. Probably
25 days out of 30 were blue sky and temps in the mid 70's. In
a normal September, right after Labor Day the weather turns to
shit. Fog, weather systems with rain, very chilly nights, grey days.
I've been gardening for 15 years now and with our mild climate,
 2 to 3 harvests of some vegetables are possible. This year was
basically a write off as I couldn't plant the things I normally do in
March-April until late May-early June. My wife passes away in mid May
and the garden goes unattended for a good stretch of time.
Many of the things I plant every year didn't get planted. Fortunately
the stuff I did get planted in late May early June did alright. I have
lots of Zucchini, acorn squash, butternut squash, green beans,
cukes for pickling, potatoes, chard, strawberries, blueberries, peaches,
and all the perenial herbs. The apple tree looks like the usual 2 boxes
worth.
   My biggest guessing game in the fall is my tomato and pepper harvest
which are planted in my growdome. It doesn't offer the temperature
protection of a typical greenhouse. Yes it gets quite warm in there during
the day but doesn't offer much protection at night when fall temps can
hit the low 40's and upper 30's. Tomatoes always get hit hit with some
sort of blight in September and it's the begginning of the end for them.
Peppers usually keep growing until a good hard freeze. Decided today
October 1th, to harvest all the tomatoes even though most were still
green. I've learned the hard way that tomato plants can be hazardous
to your health when stalks and stems are covered with mold and any
movement of the stalks or stems releases this cloud of mold. Mold is
the main cause of colds/illness. Seems every year after messing with
these tomato plants I get a fucking horrible cold. Even though the
weather has been great lately, there really isn't any great payoff in
seeing how long into the late fall/early winter you can keep a tomato
plant going. Tomatoes will still ripen on the blighted, moldy plant until
it really gets cold. Harvested green tomatoes will ripen and turn red
eventually and there is a ton of recipes using green tomatoes. I've got
about 35lbs of green tomatoes that will be useful for a month or two.
Who knows when this great weather will end. Let you know in a week
if I got sniffilous or I picked a good time to cleanup the tomato mess.

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If you are in a horror movie, you make bad decisions, its what you do.



Cured

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It has been cool enough around here at night. But at least the moon has been bright enough to get some corn from the local fields

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Gentlemen, we all must realize that neither side has any monopoly on sons of bitches.
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The Forum Celestial Advisor

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Posts: 14175
Date:
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That reminds me, I need to procure some local sweet corn
and get some canned. Canning corn is a messy worthwhile effort.
Corn needs almost an hour in a pressure cooker, one of the longest
of the vegetable group. Looks like the Indian Summer is over as the
Jet Stream is going to be camped out over us this weekend.

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If you are in a horror movie, you make bad decisions, its what you do.

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