Thanksgiving Monday Potager Palaver (Garden clean up, storage potatoes, winter tomatoes, spring bulbs)

Happy Thanksgiving Monday! What a lovely sunny day today, perfect for walking the dogs and puttering about. 

As I walked the pups around the property this morning, we found frost on the ground in the shaded areas of the yard. I guess that means I have to accept, much as it pains me, there will not be an Indian Summer this year. Means I need to get the yardwork finished sooner rather than later!  

This is proving to be a challenge with the new puppy and hubby out on an emergency job but I try to get a bit of weeding done on our walks about the acreage. 

My trusty Winged Weeder sits up by the front door, ready and waiting for it's 5 or 10 minutes of use at a time, knocking down the new little weeds that seem to pop up each fall as soon as the rains start. 

Trying to keep up with the weeding now, while the weather is nice, so they don't have a chance to go to seed later and make more weeds. It is a constant battle. 

My winter storage potatoes are still in the garden bed! I have been waiting and waiting for the vines to start yellowing and dying off but though they are leaning all over the place, still not much yellowing. For winter storage potatoes, generally one waits till the vines die back and then give no water for a couple of weeks so that they form nice thick skins that allow them to keep well in storage.

This year, I stopped watering them already in September but the rains seem to have kept them going, still green and relatively happy looking. I am going to have to trim back the leaves and foliage today to get them to start making those thicker skins so that we can harvest them in a week or two. 

There are all sorts of different ideas on how to store your potatoes but we find that the easiest way is to pop them into a cardboard box and store the box in the (unheated) garage, fold over the tops to keep the spuds from going green.    

Long Keeper tomatoes still going strong in the unheated hoophouse. 

Kumquat is loaded with fruits! Finally! Three years of barely anything and now, wham, a couple of hundred of them : )  

Lat but not least, here are some fun links that I enjoyed reading, hope you enjoy them, too. .... 

Check out this post for great bulb ideas and gardens that will make you happy. 

I just want her wall of buckets! 

Check out this super cute Parsley Box Garden! 

Love this list of ideas for maintaining the yard organically. Prune, weed, lawn, yard, flower, and garden care.  

Are you crazy about composting? This podcast will give you tons of information to help you make your own great compost. Sadly. I am a bit apathetic about composting, totally happy to let it take a couple of years to break down, but you all may enjoy this ; ) 

This is a fantastic podcast about the vegetable garden in autumn from David Mattern, the overseer of the veggie beds at Chanticleer. So much information and ideas. This is something I am very passionate about.  

I have saved the very best till last. Are you always looking for gardening programs but not finding anything worth watching? Like me, tired of HGTV being all about flipping homes but nothing about gardening? Check out this series! Many seasons worth of garden renovation watching time : ) 

....and this gorgeous, inspirational picture from the internet. 

Hope you are having a fantastic fall ~ Tanja