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From faithful commentor Marvel:
I guess it’s really Fall in the Willamette Valley — the first Canada geese of the season flew overhead as I pulled up our tomatoes yesterday. There’s no turning back now.
The veggies in our Fall & Winter garden are enjoying their first taste of blue-sky freedom (we removed their summer-weight fabric row covers and will wait a few weeks before installing their 6-mil poly cold-season covers). We’ll try to pick the apples (Jonagolds) before they fall this year — our dog Sally has a sweet tooth and can really put on weight if she gets to too many of ’em.
The cabbage and kale matured a bit early this year, but unless we get an unusual blast of Fall warmth, I think they’ll wait in-place for harvest as needed. About half of the cauliflower have ripened (and we’ll pluck them from the beds soon); the rest will over-winter and fruit-up next Spring.
The carrots and beets are coming along nicely, but of 70-some parsnip seeds sown in the same bed, I see only about a dozen plants — these were all planted at the same time [8/1] using a tried/true seed tape method, so I’m not sure whether I should blame myself or my seeds.
And we’ll see how the shelling peas fare — they have a c-h-a-n-c-e of producing a bit if the warmish weather holds.
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What’s going on in your gardens this week?
raven
Very nice! We’ve gotten some nice rain so the green should be making a nice comeback.
JPL
Marvel’s garden pictures never disappoint me. They are beautiful. Something is eating my arugula, ugh.. I still have a few tomatoes on the vine and a garden of sweet potatoes. I’m going to give the sweet potatoes a few more weeks and then I’ll pull them and let them dry.
navarro
all i have left are a habanero pepper plant and a ghost chili plant. but since i live in texas and it was in the 90s a few days ago i will probably get a few more from each.
JPL
The Caucus at the NYTimes lists the Sunday talk shows and their guests. They were able to get all the whackos on. Mike Lee will be on Fox Sunday, maybe they will ask him about short sales. Cruz will allow David Gregory to kiss his ring and both Rand Paul and Marsha Blackburn appear on CBS. There is one show that might be worth watching. Bill Clinton is going to talk on This Week with Stephanopoulos.
Punchy
I wish all things Canadian would just fly the fuck outta here.
/wags finger at Rafael
OzarkHillbilly
Nice pics, very nice indeed.
Raven
@JPL: did you see the tomato /potato plants?
Elizabelle
I like starting the day with an apple-eating dog. Name of Sally.
Always enjoy hearing from Marvel.
@JPL:
Nahhh. They’ll seed it with some kind of poison pill.
Read a book or watch some old movie.
Baud
@JPL:
MSNBC has been putting the wingnuts on a lot too. I’ve wanted to watch but I’m not interested in just hearing lies.
Botsplainer
I’m going to take the dog for the start of his obedience training shortly. The trainer will explain everything I’ve been doing wrong….
Geoduck
Still have tomatoes coming along here in the Pacific Northwest, and probably some potatoes to dig up. Looks like I’ll have one pumpkin to carve at Halloween, and a couple of smaller ones to make into pies, which is what I was hoping for. Still, next year, I’ll make a more intensive effort.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I see your Dawgs put on quite a show yesterday.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Krugman said on his blog that he will be on Stephanopoulos’s show today.
Elizabelle
@Baud:
I wonder if it’s the MSM hoping viewers will see the crazy, which MSM has avoided calling out.
Chris Hayes had GOP congresscritter Renee Ellmers from Dunn, NC on his show the other night to spew the GOP lie about Obamacare.
The woman is a registered nurse, married to a surgeon. She used to run a wound care clinic.
It’s unbelievable to me that she can’t see how much better her constituents would be with meaningful, accessible health insurance. I would guess she and her husband don’t like the low government reimbursements, or refuse to take them.
She was repellant enough I did not stay to watch. The whole Chris Hayes show was kind of screechy. I fled.
cleek
our poblano plants have caught a second wind and working on dozens of peppers right now. everything else is dead.
PsiFighter37
Not a gardener myself (kind of hard to do that in the concrete jungle of Manhattan with a north-facing apartment), but I love the Union Square Greenmarket that’s out 4 times a week. I noticed this week (at least relative to previous weeks) that there were a lot more beets out relative to previous weeks. Feel like the haul of sweet corn (which I love getting 5 ears for $2) is getting lower, and pumpkin/squash made their first appearance as well…heading towards the harvest of cooler months.
fuckwit
I’m scared. I have a bunch of medical issues, sparse income, and no insurance. These teabagger terrorists are fucking with me personally.
JPL
@fuckwit: They are probably fucking with their own issues also. They just don’t know it.
Violet
Got my fall tomatoes in late. I was really busy in August/early September and wasn’t around to garden. I need to go to my local garden store and get some seedlings, but it’s been raining and I haven’t done it. Don’t know if they’ll have anything left today anyway. They often sell out of the good stuff on Saturday.
WereBear
@Botsplainer: The favorite thing I ever heard a trainer say:
It’s my favorite way of saying puppies have very small attention spans. Loving them is one way we can never go wrong.
Walker
Unfortunately, I think we have another year before the new apple trees bear fruit. Which is a shame, because this is going to be an amazing apple year.
Yatsuno
Apparently FYWP is missing its Sunday morning coffee.
Chris
@fuckwit:
Yeah. I don’t have medical issues, but I do have very little income, and I turn 26 in December. Let’s say that if I have to wait over a year before there’s affordable health insurance, I’m going to be pissed. (Contrary to a common perception, not all people my age are idiots when it comes to health care).
Baud
@Yatsuno:
Just paying homage to the House Republicans.
schrodinger's cat
@Yatsuno: Probably drunk on Bloody Marys and mimosas.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: Come to think of it I have not really met these hypothetical young people IRL who don’t want insurance. My old neighbor who was a roofer was so happy when Obama Care passed because that meant he could be on his mom’s insurance till he was 25.
ETA: If young people forgo insurance, its usually because what they can afford is so crappy as to not make a difference.
Anya
I am so glad President Clinton said delaying Obamacare is a non-started. I must admit, I was a bit nervous when I found out that he was going to be on one of the Sunday shows. I was expecting him to say something like “can we get along,” or that he was going to make a comment that will be used against Obama but he didn’t give them anything.
Via: TPM
wenchacha
I’d like to send Bill Kristol a bag of salted dicks.
Anya
@Chris: I hate the way the media and the politicians portray all young people as uninformed idiots. We’re actually more politically aware than the olds.
Baud
@Anya:
There is so much speculation, like in a pre-game show. No one knows what will happen until it’s ready to happen.
Baud
@wenchacha:
Don’t waste your money. He already has several.
WereBear
@Anya: The youngs have an advantage in some ways, and I think living after the Civil Rights revolution, and not before, is part of it.
Sometimes, the only way to progress is to let the stupid, unchanging, minds die off. Isaac Asimov did a famous essay on that point, in how science advances. Society is the same way.
Chris
@Anya:
LOL! I never thought of it that way, but based on voting demographics, you might just be right.
JPL
I blame Obamacare for not being able to access Balloon Juice when I want.
Felonius Monk
@Yatsuno:
And FYWP hasn’t had its brain delivered by UPS yet.
geg6
Not much left in our garden. A few beets and a couple kabocha squash and still lots of apples. Glad, because I’m sick of canning at this point.
I’m feeling very fall-ish, so I’m going to use up some of those tomatoes we canned and make some sauce and meatballs. Spaghetti and meatballs is my most favoritest of comfort foods and my upcoming workweek is nightmarish enough that comfort food is a necessity. Pretty much every minute is scheduled and one of those things on my schedule is the meeting to go over our new health insurance options. Another is a meeting to discuss what the hell it is that they want me to talk about in the 12 freshman seminar classes they have me scheduled for this week. They scheduled this in early August and this is going to be the first meeting to tell me what I need to present starting Wednesday. This is the kind of crap that gives me a massive headache.
pseudonymous in nc
I’m going to try and get the remaining pickable apples. The ones at the very top of the tree can go to the birds and squirrels. Then I’ll see if I can take down the poor old peach tree that’s not coped well with being denied the sun by a tall spruce; there’s another young tree growing near it in a better position to thrive. Some ivy clearing, perhaps. Finally, I hope to get some timber so that I can build a proper log rack before this season’s wood gets delivered.
This time of year is when it’s finally cool enough to put in some concerted effort around the garden.
JustRuss
Fall in the Willamette Valley is supposed to be crisp and somewhat dry. Feel like we skipped straight to winter, after a very weak summer. But I’m not bitter.
Munira
I just got the turnips into the root cellar – still have to do the beets. And I’m still dealing with the thousands of tomatoes the garden produced this year – making green tomato salsa and red tomato sauce and eating tomato everything. It’s also time to cut wood (today’s task) – a busy time of year.