Anchorage Garden
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Gail's lemonade stand (Store of Cool Stuff)
Cool Stuff
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Brought in all he sungold tomatoes from the deck
Topic: tomatoes

Although we haven't had a hard frost yet, the nights are in the high 30's F and the days aren't warm enough to develop more tomatoes, so I picked all the remaining sungold tomatoes from the deck pots.  I left them on their stems in the hopes they'll develop a little more.  There are lots of green ones.  But I've found that these tomatoes in all stages of ripeness add a unique sweet flavor to homemade chicken soup, so they will not go to waste. 

Yesterday I drove north to Palmer and helped a friend build a couple of compost piles with the remains of her garden, and leaves from under alder bushes (alders fix nitrogen so those are rich for compost).  My garden is still mostly out there unmolested.  I'm letting the kale and potatoes continue to grow until there is a frost.  I'd better get the chard and lettuce, what's left of it after the slugs, pretty soon or it will be wasted.  The sugar snap peas have dried up although the sweet peas are still blooming mightily. 


Posted by gail_heineman at 8:05 PM YDT
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Monday, 17 September 2007
Emptied the greenhouse bump windows
Topic: greenhouse

I finished cleaning out the bump windows today.  The tomatoes in there produced poorly this year.  There was an aphid invasion from a plant I brought home from Seattle.  The plant, a Danova primrose, survived and bloomed outside, but the aphids weakened the tomatoes.  The Stupice and Sungold lived but all other varieties withered and died.

Luckily the tomatoes outside did ok so I didn't feel too deprived this summer. 


Posted by gail_heineman at 8:21 PM YDT
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Brought the fish inside
Topic: fish

I brought in the fish from the "pond".  There were four live ones and one recently deceased.  They are old for Tanichthys albonubes so I choose to believe it was old age.  The live ones are brilliant green and red.  They are always so disappointed to come inside and share an aquarium with guppies, eating flake food.  No worms or mosquito larvae until Spring!


Posted by gail_heineman at 6:42 PM YDT
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Rescue apples sauced, first frost
Topic: apples

We've been making applesauce from the Rescues and the Dolgos. The Rescues are a very small but sweet apple. It's a dwarf tree that needs pruning and is shaded by two other trees, yet it yielded 12 quarts of applesauce and still has more apples on it that I'm letting ripen a bit more. The Dolgo is 20 or more feet tall, completely unpruned and going wild, but covered with apples. We're barely started harvesting its oval, deep red, extremely tart fruit. A batch of Rescue sauce needs 2 to 3 cups sugar, a batch of Dolgo maybe twice that. The Dolgo sauce is a pretty deep pink, pinker than the Rescue, and more acid. Ideally I'd mix them 50/50 in a batch but the Rescue was in a hurry this year.

There was a very light frost last night. It may have nipped the tomatoes on the deck. Last night we picked all the remaining Norlands, some as large as a red delicious. Ads by AdGenta.com


Posted by gail_heineman at 9:22 AM YDT
Updated: Monday, 17 September 2007 2:03 PM YDT
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Sunday, 16 September 2007
May be last Chard harvest,
Topic: chard

It may freeze tonight so I ran out and gathered all the zuchinni (poor puny little things) and a grocery bag packed full of chard.  I didn't have the heart to pull the chard plants so as usual I just picked off the biggest leaves, just in case it doesn't freeze hard tonight.  It's been a good year for chard.  Many of them were transplanted on top of salmon carcasses.  The largest plants were in the sunniest bed.  I think in previous years I've been starving and shading my chard. 

The kale this year is doing fantastic, whereas in past years it just did well.  It seems to be less picky than chard.  It enjoys a light frost so although I have much more to harvest, blanch and freeze, I didn't pick any more.  I have enough chard now to keep us fed for a few days.


Posted by gail_heineman at 2:07 PM YDT
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