May Lotito

Those white dots don't seem to be on the surface, but from hollowed mesophyll tissues. If you look closely, are there leaf miners inside the white spots?

Thanks for the recommendations!  I only tried black mission figs from the store before and home grown figs are much better. I am really interested in adding more figs with different flavor profiles.

Do you have tips to speed up the ripening process? I lost 1/4 unripe figs when the freeze hit. I am hoping a fast regrow from protected crowns would get the fruits to set and ripen a few weeks early.

I harvested over 150 figs from the two bigger bushes and a couple of other small plants had fruits unripe when first freeze hit. Hopefully those will grow stronger and faster to actually produce.  It is going down to teens /-10C this weekend so I made each fig a 6" deep soil mound to protect the crowns.

I left some garlic unharvested two years ago. Since each bulb contains 7-9 cloves for this variety, by this year, dozens of skinny plantlets came up in each clump. I transplanted some to a bed for spring greens and it only took 5 clumps to cover 100 sq ft. It's been three weeks and they just looked the same. Maybe they are regrowing some roots and will then go dormant for the winter. I also potted one big clump to bring indoors so I can harvest fresh leaves throughout the winter.

Good to know it's working. One difference in my jar is that the skins are on, where plenty of lactobacteria dwell on. Leaves of soil grown brassicas have healthy colonies of beneficial microbes too, so they lacto ferment spontaneously without any starter (just salt added to keep kahm yeast down). Maybe your cabbage leaves are from hydroponic farms and have lower LAB to kick start the fermentation? Do you still have some fresh leaves of rutabaga? Try those as if making sauerkraut and use them to kick start future pickling.

I actually had some brassicas seeds sowed in winter. On November 18th, I double dug the bed tomatoes used to grow and amended with shredded leaves, gypsum and biochar and transplanted several bunches of crowded garlic. In between the rows I sowed a mixture of brassicas, flax, carrot and lettuce seeds. I was hoping they would sprout quickly as living mulch. The cold airs hit early this year and we had multiple days below freezing plus snow down to 22F/ -5.5C. Today the snow thawed and I got to check the seedlings finally. Most of them emerged unharmed! They probably will grow very slowly through the winter but this is a good opportunity to test their hardiness. If they do make it, I will pull the garlic geeens and mix in compost in the vacant furrows. If not, they are easy to start indoors anyway.

Hi Ian, welcome to the forum. What zone are you at and how cold does it get in winter? You might see the seedlings sprouting in the next couple weeks if your ground is not frozen.

Back when I was a kid in kindergarten, it was common for the moms to pin handkerchiefs to the kids' clothing in winter. The fabric was folded longitudinal in 1/3 or 1/4 and attached with a safety pin to the chest of the outer clothing and replaced daily for washing. Solve the problems of littering, missing hanky and dirty sleeves all at once.

I repurpose used good quality cotton into hanky too. In the simplest version, Just pull some threads off all four sides to create frayed edges that no longer unravel.

LiuI usually grow just a handful of daikon in the spring to renew my seed stock and sow more in late summer for the main root crop. Direct sow in ground 60 days ahead of historically first frost date. I couldn't plant as scheduled in mid August this year due to the drought and postponed until late September. The young plants had to be protected from hard freeze once. After 50 days or so, their roots sized up quickly after that. The past week we had a prolonged cold snap and it finally killed the plants. Roots aren't super big but still sweet and delicious.

What are growing in the spot now? If there are lots of crabgrass around, how does your neighbor plan on getting the seed mix established?