The weather has been quite cool lately. In fact we have had to use the wood stove on and off for a few weeks now! We’ve had the odd nice day, but over all it’s been rainy, windy and cool. One night recently it went down to 5C. I don’t think we had a frost, but I wouldn’t be surprised to get one soon.
We have dug up some of our potatoes to see how they did. We didn’t have high hopes for them after the terrible drought this year. Sadly, they have not produced well at all. After digging some from different areas of the gardens, we found that some didn’t have anything under them. Others had one or two tiny, tiny potatoes. The plants close to the compost pile had larger ones, naturally. lol But we noticed something very odd. The potatoes are light as a feather. As we picked them up, we were wondering if they might be hollow inside! No they are not hollow, but they are spongy and pithy. They will not be good to eat, so we are going to just till the gardens and try to pick up what we can for seed. Hopefully they will store ok, and not rot.
Like everything else this year, we’ll have to buy this years potatoes. Frustrating, but it could be worse.
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The weather has been cold here too. Actually had frost the other night… much too early! It has been rainy off and on the last few days. Sure makes from gloomy times.
I have dug some of our potatoes too. Like you, some of the plants did not produce at all. The ones that do have potatoes are few and small. I managed to can some of the tomatoes early on, but most after that ended up going to the chickens because of blight. Definitely was a strange year. Peppers did really good though. I have a 5 gallon bucket filled full of small peppers to chop and freeze. Think I may even make some Jalapeno pepper jelly….very good on pork chops!!
Wendy recently posted..Fall Is In The Air
Oh, I’m glad your peppers did well!!
After all this heat I am LOVING the cooler temperatures! It’s been such a bad year for gardens I didn’t even bother trying this year. Once the early spring rains stopped it got so hot and so dry I didn’t think anything would survive it. Only weeds survived most of the summer (but some are edible so can I still call it a garden?? LOL). Now that the outside isn’t an oven and we’ve actually had some regular RAIN again, at least the grass looks and feels like GRASS again instead of like straw!
Amanda recently posted..My Kitchen
Yes, I’m enjoying the cooler temps to! Looking back had I known what a dry year it would have been, I either would not have put in a garden or done a very small one with deep mulch. We wanted to mulch the whole garden but couldn’t find any free/cheep mulch this year.
Yes, fall is starting. We have lots of maples turning yellow and orange. Really noticed it on the way to town today. Garden got hit by light frost last week but we are in for possibly some 20s on Saturday night. Oh well. I know some of your gardens didn’t do anything this year but there is always hope for next year. I know when the first seed catalog comes we will all be excited. Right?
Cindy recently posted..Fall Is In The Air
Well our total yield from the gardens was half a grocery bag of tomatoes and a few squash. Pretty pathetic from a 1/4 acre garden. lol But we were still grateful to get what we did. I’m hoping the fall spinach I planted might do something.
I’m looking forward to a winters rest, but yes I know when the seed catalogs come in I’ll be happy to!
Wow, I have never heard of you having to buy potatoes since I’ve started reading your blog. You sure had some drought.
We don’t have cable anymore…so I don’t get much of the news around the globe. I know my parents said how dry.
We have always had city water so was never an issue for watering…and of course living on the west coast, it ALWAYS rains LOL.
But having woodchips sure made a difference. I never watered once this entire summer. Granted, this was my first garden (and not very big) on our new homestead. But when we finally did get some days without rain, the garden did much better and I got tonnes of zucchini, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, carrots and beets. This has never happened before for me…so it was exciting.
I’m so sorry your gardens suffered so much…and I sure hope your grocery bills don’t sky rocket because of the loss.
Many blessings dear friend.
Connie
Connie recently posted..Fall Is In The Air