# My Northern Minnesota garden.



## Dick Hanks

I've been doing a lot of prep work getting the garden ready, and now it is finally planting time. 9 days ago we had 2 nights that were 28 degrees or slightly lower. Fortunately, the only plants in the garden at that time were radishes, onions, and potatoes that had not sprouted yet.


The soil is still a little cool, but I've planted Tomatoes, Broccoli, Cauliflower, and some more onion (sets this time) over the last 3 days.. The original onion planting was about 50 Walla Walla plants, not sets.


Peppers, green beans, and all of the vine plants will get planted in the next few days. The veggie garden is on the south side of the barn so that it benefits from some heat reflection and protection from the north winds. It still gets fairly full sun. The fruit garden is on the northwest side of the barn.


The Blueberry blossoms are at their peak right now so I wanted to include a picture or 2 of them as well.


I'm going to try to update this thread as the season progress


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## fishingtwo

Looking good


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## jm423

Looks to be off to a great start, Dick. Hope the "weather stars" all line up right for you. We are in a typical feast or famine rainfall situation here in Texas--right now feast+ after several years of famine. But had taters and maters and carrots and shallots out of the garden today.


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## Rubberback

Looks good! Your on the right side of the barn. I'm going back to black plastic on my maters, peppers , & few others. Wish I'd used it this year. Could of used the heat on my maters. 
You shouldn't have a problem with cut worms.


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## SwampRat

Looks good. Seems like ages ago when my tomato plants were that smalll, some are 7' now.


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## Meadowlark

Very nice. Do you get much shade with all those trees close by?


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## Dick Hanks

Meadowlark said:


> Very nice. Do you get much shade with all those trees close by?


 The shade situation really isn't too bad Lark. Those pictures were taken
about 7 AM. By 9AM and on to 7PM It gets pretty full sun. I had to take down 3 mature trees to get that much sun, but Ya gotta do, what Ya gotta do to get a decent garden!

I've never felt that the garden suffers from lack of sunshine since the trees came down. Getting enough BTU's for the heat loving plants can be a problem some years. As Randy said "your on the right side of the barn".

Today and tomorrow we have high winds so I'll have to hold off on planting the rest of the started plants until Tuesday. Rain is also in the forecast for Monday, and we really need it bad. Very dry here. I've had to start watering my fruit plants and it's still May! Ugh!


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## Dick Hanks

Its been just under a month, so I guess it's time for an update. The rain has been fairly regular, but never over 3/4" at any one time. The lack of warm temps has been the biggest issue. The peppers are barely bigger than they were 25 days ago. The tomatoes have also been slow to grow. The Spuds, Broccoli, Cauliflower, and even the Cucumbers have done much better.

The tomato cages all have a common wire running through the top of all of them. I use wire ties to hold each cage to the common wire. This keeps the cages from moving when hig winds hit the tomato plants when they fill the cages. There is a fence post every 6 cages to stabilize the wire.

The picture of the onions, are the Green Onion (Scallion, Spring Onion) Bed. In a few weeks I'll post pictures of the Walla Wallas that will become bigger onions.

The tomato plants are still small but are starting to bloom. I'm letting them keep their blossoms and hope that we get some warm nights to get the plants to take off.

The plants on the blue plastic are Cantaloupe, Zucchini, Butternut Squash and Pumpkin. In about 30 days, the plastic will be completely cover with plant vines & leaves.

I get the blue plastic free. It is used to cover pontoon boats over winter. In the spring, the boat storage places are eager to give it away so that they don't have to pay to have it hauled away. I trim it to size and make free weed barriers out of it. It is fairly heavy material, and has a UV protector in it so it lasts several years.


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## Dick Hanks

Potatoes! Last year, rather that "hilling up" my potatoes, I put on a 2" layer of 1 year old, chopped, partially composted, leaves. This was very effective at suppressing weeds and it kept potatoes at the surface from getting green skin caused by sunlight. What doesn't get decayed this summer will get turned under this fall. Helps a lot to build a better soil. Leaves contain a lot of micro nutrients that trees pull up from deep in the ground. The leaves get these nutrients back to the surface. The leaves also stop a lot of evaporation from the top of the soil.

The smaller Potato plants were planted 2 weeks later that the other plants. This will stagger the production some. We don't have to get the Spuds out of the ground as fast as you do in Texas.

The red potatoes are just starting to bloom. The Yukon Golds haven't started yet.

The little Anaheim pepper plant is barely over a foot tall but making peppers. We really need some warm nights to get them growing like they should be.


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## Wado

Looking good! My older sister lives in New Jersey and said they had some unusually cool weather and her plants have been slow to wake up. We went shopping in Victoria yesterday and the dashboard thermometer hit 100 degrees about two o clock. The row crop farmers were shredding the turn rows yesterday in their corn fields getting ready to run corn pickers in the coming weeks. All I have left in my patch is okra and cream peas that are just about ready to pick. It's supposed to cool down here into the low ninety's, what a relief.


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## The Driver.

DH, With all that mulch do you get a nitrogen deficiency problem?


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## Dick Hanks

No nitro deficiency was created with what I did. Actually, a bit to the opposite. These are 1.5 year old leaves that are getting close to being done composting. Last fall I poured about 10 gallons of left over fish emulsion on the pile. This raised the nitro content a lot. 

However, your thought process is correct. Had they been .5 year old leaves, and received no nitro supplement, they would have been a slight nitro drain until they fully decomposed.


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## cva34

I be Jealous 97 today and heat is on to finish off what too much rain didn't kill..Worst garden I had in 50 years...Yours looks Beautiful and cool


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## The Driver.

Dick Hanks said:


> No nitro deficiency was created with what I did. Actually, a bit to the opposite. These are 1.5 year old leaves that are getting close to being done composting. Last fall I poured about 10 gallons of left over fish emulsion on the pile. This raised the nitro content a lot.
> 
> However, your thought process is correct. Had they been .5 year old leaves, and received no nitro supplement, they would have been a slight nitro drain until they fully decomposed.


Do you make your own emulsion or do you purchase it?


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## Dick Hanks

The Driver. said:


> Do you make your own emulsion or do you purchase it?


I make my own fish emulsion. About 20 gallons in a full batch. This is a very stinky process and I don't recommend it to anyone unless they can do this quite a distance from anybody's home. For the 1st 3 or 4 weeks of the process, it has a very "dead animal" smell. After that, it starts to take on more of what I would describe as a "manure" smell.

The reason that I make so much is that I use it on my fruit bushes and trees as well as the veggie garden. There is a lot of space devoted to the fruit side so it take a lot of emulsion.

This is it in a nut shell. If anybody wants more details about how or why, let me know and I will give more details.

1st: A layer of fish carcasses. I have a good source for lots.
2nd: Enough water to cover
3rd: 1 cup of agricultural molasses per 5# fish (Ag molasses is cheap)
4th: Stir
5th: Cover with 2 inches of aged sawdust. I have a dump truck sized pile from when they logged on the property years ago. 
6th: Stir every time that you add another layer. Add more water when you have finished adding fish layers.
7th: Screen cover to keep the flies out. I'm going to start putting Golden Malrin right next to the emulsion process to kill all of the flies.

The sawdust and molasses are both supposed to help with the decomposing and odor control.









Lordy... It does stink. I do think it helps keeps some of the deer, rabbits, woodchucks, squirrels, and chipmunks out of the area, but it does attract skunks.

The finished liquid is diluted a lot and used as a liquid fertilizer. The solids are usually mixed in the compost pile to make it break down faster, and have a higher nutrient value. Sometime they are just rototilled into the soil.


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## The Driver.

Appreciate the info DH!


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## Dick Hanks

My garden needs some heat! The high temp today was 72 and the forecast low tonight is 45. Tomorrows high is forecast at 75 with a low of 47. The pepper plants are still midgets with all of this cold. It's been a very cool start to the growing season. Global warming?????

Other plants are doing pretty good without much heat, and I'm really surprised. The Zuke in the foreground on the blue plastic is setting a couple of squash. The others on the blue plastic are Butternut Squash, Spaghetti Squash, Cantaloupe, and Pumpkin. I'm hoping that in another 2 weeks, you will see very little blue plastic. 

Some the Potatoes are almost done blooming and the Walla Walla onions are really starting to "bulb up". All of the Scallions (green onions) are ready to pull at any time., and the 1st planting of Beets looks good. The Romaine and Carrots are looking good. 

In the next couple of days, I'll be doing second plantings of Carrots, Radish, Romaine, and Beets.

The Cukes are just start to set some little guys. Broccoli is setting heads but the heads are small. At least they will continue to set more little heads after the 1st one is cut. The Cauliflower looks to be a couple of weeks from setting any heads yet.

Been picking lots of Strawberries. Birds have been stealing most of the Cherries. Blueberry and Raspberry picking will start in about 2 weeks.


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## Meadowlark

Those temps are just amazing....and the long sunlight hours really help those plants along as evidenced by the broc head. Very interesting. 

How do tomatoes perform in your summers?


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## Wado

I had to get my AC guy out Tuesday to add freon to my main unit to get my house down to 75 degrees, sheesh.


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## Dick Hanks

Meadowlark said:


> Those temps are just amazing....and the long sunlight hours really help those plants along as evidenced by the broc head. Very interesting.
> 
> How do tomatoes perform in your summers?


If we get some warm nights, like in the mid to high 60s the tomatoes start to really grow. I seem to get my best tomatoes in the years that the plants top out around 5 to 7 feet tall.

The picture below, from a previous year, was taken around mid July. This year is way behind that kind of growth rate.

The tomato below was part of a 3 tomato cluster. The 3 together weighted 5.5#s. Each tomato was shaped a bit odd because of the pressure put on it by the other 2 tomatoes in the cluster. That was the biggest 3 tomato cluster that I have ever had. They were excellent flavor as well.

The longer days also seem to enhance the tomatoes flavor. 
So, I guess to answer your question Lark, most summers we have very conducive conditions for growing great, tasty tomatoes.


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## jm423

Pretty is for nice, taste is my priority. I can buy pretty and tasteless maters at the store!


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## Meadowlark

jm423 said:


> Pretty is for nice, taste is my priority. I can buy pretty and tasteless maters at the store!


Couldn't agree more!!


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## Dick Hanks

*Some more pictures*

The temps are coming up and things are starting to grow faster. Still needs to be warmer though. The last couple of nights have managed to stay in the low 60s. That helps a lot.

The spuds have developed very nice tops... I hope they are doing as well underground. I'd like to steal some new reds from under the mulch in another 2 weeks.

The squash, pumpkins, melon and Zuke are doing well. The blue plastic is disappearing quickly.

The green leafy plants are romaine. Carrots are on each side of the romaine. I'll start thinning the romaine for salad in a couple of days.

I'm already getting lots of Cukes and Zukes.


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## Dick Hanks

Its a week later than the last pictures. Weather has still been pretty cool. Haven't turned on the air conditioner at all this year. Most nights are high 50s or low 60s. Tomatoes and Pepper plants are growing slower than last year. We did get a bit over 4" of rain in this last week.

Raspberries are hitting their peak about now. Blueberries are just starting to get ripe.

The 1st picture is of my 1st Cauliflower about ready to pick.

The vine plants are really kicking along. The 2 cream colored globes partially cover by leaves are spaghetti squash. There are 5 of them that are barely smaller than a football.

There is 1 Cherry Tomato plant that has finally reached the top of it's 5ft cage. None of the rest are even close.

All of the Romaine is ready to cut or pull out. They are starting to crowd out the carrots on either side of them.

The cucumbers have over grown their cages. The beets will be ready to start being pulled any time after this weekend. Going to have some very nice onions, but not Texas size. The are about tennis ball size now and still have a lot of time to grow. Will get a picture of them next week.


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## jm423

Wish we could swap you a little of this 95-99 degree with 109 or so heat index for some of your cool, Dick! Maybe your maters and peppers would grow and ours wouldn't burn up! And as usual we're on the famine side of rainfall now after the feast earlier. But that's South Texas weather! Regards.


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## Dick Hanks

The squash, pumpkin, and melon have finally taken over the blue plastic weed cover.
The spaghetti squash is very aggressive and fast growing. It is choking out some of the other vine plants. Some of the squash are very big. Maybe 10#s and not ripe yet.

Tomatoes are starting to turn color. Actually have been picking Cherry tomatoes for a couple of days now. One Cherry plant is over 6 ft now but the rest are all shorter than normal.
Looks like the crop will be just so-so. I'd guess less than average. 

Onions are doing good. Sizing up much better than expected.
Some are at least 4" in diameter and still growing. They are the Walla-Wallas. Sweet and mild... But not good keepers. Very much like Vidalia onions..

Cucumbers are going crazy. Picked 20#s of 4 plants today. We were lucky enough to have lots of company this weekend. We made them take the Cukes with them when they left..

Still picking broccoli, and starting to pick peppers, and scratching out red potatoes.


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## peckerwood

Your garden looks almost too perfect to be real.What a beautiful job you've done.I gotta say also,your metal on your shop done in contrasting colors is sure unusual and I really like the looks of it.A new shop is heavy on my mind and I may steal your idea.Nothing but compliments and praise for you this morning Mr. Hanks.Thanks for the pics.


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## Meadowlark

Looking good...and I'm partial to onions. 

When do you expect first frost?


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## Dick Hanks

Our 1st killing frost is usually between Sept 15th and the 30th. Getting past October 15th is fairly rare. I've seen it as early as Labor Day weekend but that is also fairly rare.

My pumpkins got off to a very late start this year, and they may not make it to ripe before the frost comes. The Cantaloupes might be iffy as well. All of the squash will be fine. The spaghetti squash will be coming out in wheel barrow loads. I had read that they only have 3 to 5 squash per plant. It's more like 12 to 15. Several are already full size and just need a week or 2 to ripen.

The Aji Dulce peppers are going to be very late as well. The frost will have to come late for me to do well with them. These peppers look and taste a lot like Habaneros, but have very little heat. My Habaneros are ahead of them, but both of these peppers need a lot of warm temps and a long season. All of the other pepper varieties that I grow do just fine up here. I'm already eating Yum Yums and Anaheim peppers.

Everything else has plenty of season to do well, but my tomato plants never fully recovered from their long cool start. I do over plant these so we should be fine for what we need for fresh and canning anyway. Just will have less to give away.


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## The Driver.

Looking Good Mr. Hanks!


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## Dick Hanks

I have been forgetting to take pictures in the fruit garden. I took a couple of shots of my low-bush Blueberries today. I have 36 Blueberry bushes, and the picking started about 10 days ago. The green netting in the pictures is to keep the birds out. Birds LOVE Blueberries.

I picked about 10#s of Blueberries today and did a very light pick on the raspberries. I've been averaging about 4# of raspberries/day for the last to weeks. Still about 10 more days to pick summer raspberries. Fall raspberries start in about 20 days. The fall raspberries are bigger, but not as tasty as the summer variety.

We have made a couple of batches of raspberry jam, but most fruit is going into the freezers. We may run out of room in both of them!:dance:


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## Dick Hanks

Almost everything is finally producing. 

The tomatoes are getting ripe on the cherry and medium size tomato plants. The large tomatoes on the Super Steak plants are about full sized but haven't started to turn yet. I can see lots that will be over 1.25# and some that should be 1.5#. Since I didn't plant any Belgium Giants this year, I don't think that I'll get any 2#ers.

All of the pepper plants have some full sized peppers, and some are already getting ripe. The varieties that aren't in the picture are the Habanero and Aji Dulce varieties, but they are doing OK as well, but none are ripe yet. 

On the vines: Cucumbers are coming on so fast, they are hard to keep up with. Will be picking the 1st Spaghetti Squash by the end of the week. 1 Cantaloupe is full sized, but needs time to ripen. Pumpkins aren't quite 1/2 size yet... They will barely ripen before the 1st frost.

Green beans are thick. Bush beans ... Ugh. The kind that CVA34 sez that he stands on his head to pick. At least I don't have the Copperhead snakes to deal with. Carrots and Beets are full sized now too, but I haven't pulled any yet.

Pulled a bunch of the onions today, and more to pull tomorrow. Had a couple that went 1.7#s. Those will be the biggest. No TEXAS sized onions.


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## Dick Hanks

We have started canning. Canned 6 quarts of pickled green beans yesterday and did 7 quarts of tomatoes today. If you guys haven't tried pickling green beans, you may want to give them a try. We make ours with a lot of dill some garlic and 1 or 2 slices of Jalapeno. Good crunch and they are a winner in a Bloody Mary.

We had our 1st Spaghetti Squash 4 days ago. It was a 10.5# squash so we gave 1/2 away to some friends that gave us some dill for the beans. Looks like about another 25 Spaghettis will ripen before the 1st frost. Most of them will be in the 6 to 8# range.

I really need to get a bunch of my potatoes dug up. It's been raining every 2 or 3 days here, and I don't want to dig spuds in the mud.

Cucumbers are winding down, but I think that we have picked close to 80 to 100# of them off of 4 plants this years. They just went crazy. Rain came with perfect timing for them, plus they get some of the run-off from the barn roof. As WR Ranch once said "The neighbors are pulling their drapes closed when they see me with a basket of cucumbers now"

Biggest Tomato is at 1.7#s. Several others are close, but none will be bigger. I was afraid that they might be watery this year with all of the rain. This 1st batch that we canned were meaty and not watery at all. Good flavor too. All of the rain and high humidity has caused the early blight to get out of hand. My tomato season could end by Sept 1st because of the blight.

Pumpkins are just starting to ripen. will pick the 1st cantaloupe at the end of next week. Most of the garden is starting to wind down now, except for the peppers. There is still a butt load of them to pick over the next 3 or 4 weeks.

Oh... the beets and carrots are big now as well. I've got a bunch of digging to do when things dry out.

If my season is close to ending, your fall season must be close to starting.
Hoping to see lots of your reports.


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## Meadowlark

I love a good bloody Mary, LOL and those pickled beans are very intriguing. If you get some time, post your recipe and I'll try it next spring. Thanks. 

Its amazing to read your posts....with everything backwards to here. It sure would be fun to switch places sometime. 

We are buried in okra, peas, and peppers, and have a steady ongoing low production of tomatoes and the last of our continuous corn crop. My main concentration right now is on soil re-building....with 8 rows planted in legume peas and another four rows of second generation peas building that soil for fall/winter.


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## cva34

Jealous lookie like you got a cool front today..thanks for all the info and photos..always enjoy


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## Dick Hanks

Lark... Here is the recipe for dilled green beans:

Mix 1/2 water and 1/2 white vinegar and bring it up to just under a boil. It will take more than you think. Even with your jars looking like they are very solid with beans. 
If you are canning 6 quarts, you will need close to 3.5 quarts of this mix.

Hold jars on their side and pack as tight as possible with beans, plus 1 or 2 spears of jalapeno, a clove of garlic, and dill weed and seed to the amount that you like. I add a couple of dill sprigs. Beans need to be trimmed so that they are 1/2" less than the height of the jar.

Ladle hot vinegar/water over then beans to fill the jar to about 1/4" of the top. Wipe jars and then cap. Place in a boiling hot water bath for 12 minutes.

This recipe is also in the Blue Canning Book.

Here are some more pictures of yesterday's pick. Some of each for pictures:

1st picture has Spaghetti Squash on the right. One was picked a little early so it will have to sit in a sunny window for 3 or 4 days.


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## Its Catchy

This is one of the best threads of the summer. Your garden is amazing.


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## peckerwood

Its Catchy said:


> This is one of the best threads of the summer. Your garden is amazing.


Yep,one of the best and most interesting!


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## Dick Hanks

Thanks guys for the comments in the above 2 posts. I really appreciated them.

A lot of this post is about correcting guesses that I made, about what would be happening in my garden.

1) I was worried about my pumpkins not getting ripe before the 1st frost. Well, dang near all of them are already ripe, and there isn't any frost warnings in the 10 day forecast. They weren't very big when I worried about them, but I had forgot that I didn't plant the large variety this year. They are about 40% of last years size. I couldn't find my seeds for my big pumpkins this spring so I planted a buddy's seeds. They will be good for pies or ornamental, but kinda small for carving. In about 2 weeks I'll post a last picture of the pumpkins and spaghetti squash. 

2) I had guessed that it would be only a fair year for tomatoes because of the lack of warm nights early in the season. In spite of that, and the plants getting very ratty looking because of the early blight, they gave me a very large, tasty crop. We canned as much as we had space for, and gave boxes of them away. I will be picking the last of them over the next 10 days.

3) I had stated in an earlier post, that my biggest tomato for the season would be the one that was 1.7#s. I'm sure that one of my plants deliberately hid the one pictured below, just so it could make a lair out of me. It weighed just 1/2oz short of 2#s. It was mega ugly, but tasted wonderful.

4) I think that it was about 3 weeks ago that I stated that my cucumbers were winding down, after the 4 plants had produced way too many. Well, they got a second wind. Thankfully, I kept finding new people to give them too. I picked about 8#s yesterday, and even though these plants also look extreme ratty as well, more cukes are still coming.

Potatoes, beets, and carrots all did well. How ever some animal got into the garden an ate all of the beets that were exposed above ground level. Dang. Red potates were perfect, but some of the large Yukon Golds have dark areas near their centers that need to be cut out when prepping them. 

There is going to be a good apple crop this year, and the fall raspberries are producing strong now too.

I think that the reason that it turned out to be such a good year in my garden was because of the steady rains. I can't remember ever having rains come almost every time that they were needed, but never too much. A rare year indeed. We all deserve those once in a while!


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## Dick Hanks

There still aren't any frost warnings in the 10 day forecast. Parts of the garden are still going like the Ever Ready Bunny, and other parts are giving up.

The tomato plants are almost dead, but there has to be 40 to 50#s of ripe, or almost ripe tomatoes hanging on them. I need to get them all picked in the next day or 2. 

All of the vine plants look terrible, but the cucumbers just won't quit. All of the pumpkins and spaghetti squash are done growing, but they will ripen better on the semi-dead vines. They will be in my last pictures before putting the garden to bed for the winter.

Peppers are starting to get ripe in larger quantities and green beans a still over producing.

1) These are my fall producing raspberries. They start to ripen around mid August and continue until the 1st frost. Most of these are the Autumn Britten variety, but I also grow some Carolines as well. I'm thinking about cutting back on the Autumn Brittens and adding more Carolines because the Carolines seem to have better flavor. Both produce large berries. However, neither of them have the incredible flavor of my summer variety "Boyne". The Boyne are smaller, but taste the very best. It is the only variety that we make jams from and freeze to make smoothies in the off season. Out of all of the varieties of raspberries out there, only about 20% or less can survive northern Minnesota winters. 

2) The grouping on the left are Aji Dulce, the longer, middle 2 are supposed to be Ajis but aren't, and the grouping on the right are Habaneros. Aji Dulce taste a lot like Habanero peppers but have less heat than a Jalapeno. I'm not sure what the middle 2 are, or how their seed got in with my Aji seed.... I do know that they set my mouth on fire though. Everything looks to much alike, and mistakes are painfully HOT. I make a Habanero/carrot hot sauce that is wonderful.

3) Some of my carrots got missed and got much bigger than I wanted them to. The little one in the bunch is the size that I normally like. The big guys can be used in venison or beef stew and roasts though. The big ones can also be used to make the Habanero hot sauce. 

4) Lots of Anaheim and Sweet Yum Yums are getting ripe now. The Anaheims can be roasted over hot flame or charcoal and then peel off the burnt skins, and remove seeds. There are lots of recipes to use these in, and they freeze well after this process.


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## Goags

Its Catchy said:


> This is one of the best threads of the summer. Your garden is amazing.





peckerwood said:


> Yep,one of the best and most interesting!


I agree!! The variety and quality that you have is an eye-opener!!


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## Dick Hanks

Well the weather gave me a surprise attack. In my last post on the 11th, the predicted coldest night for the next 10 days was 41 degrees on Tuesday night. On the 12th, they dropped that prediction to 36 degrees. Tuesday night, the 13th, was a HARD frost. No survivors.

I am currently visiting family in Arkansas, but a friend went by my garden and told me that it's gone. When I get back to MN, I'll salvage the pumpkins and spaghetti squash. 

My apples will still be good even though this frost hit. Over all, I very happy with the results of this year's garden. I'm looking forward to following the fall Texas gardens. Keep your hands dirty guys!


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## jm423

Guess I've "got started starting"--planted carrots, beets, spinach and set out couple tomato plants. Not gonna mess w/ fall taters and still too warm imo to start the cabbage family but may try a few anyway. Good luck on your salvage efforts. (BTW, the Yum-Yums are still producing like crazy!)


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## Dick Hanks

I'm back from Arkansas, and there are more survivors than I expected. For some reason the east end of the veggie garden was hit worse that the rest of it. The fruit garden was entirely missed.

All of the leaves on the pumpkins and squash were killed. 

The Habaneros on the east end of the pepper row, lost about 75% of their leaves. At the other end of the row, the Aji Dulce peppers still had all of their leaves.... Strange!

In the fruit garden, raspberries will loose their leaves to a frost. All of their leaves were untouched and intact. The apples will actually start to sweeten more with this cooler weather.

The little tree frog on my raspberry leaves also dodged the bullet. He is so small that his whole body would fit on your thumbnail.


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## peckerwood

If it had dropped 50 more degrees,I'd be losing what's left of my garden.Glad you had some hold-outs.Those apples and berries are beautiful.Are you coming to Texas this winter?


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