Jen Fulkerson

I have kind of changed my thinking on when I should plant both seeds and transplants. I used to go by time of when the seed pack would say as to the frost date. This spring I planted by temperature. I ended up planting a lot later than I would have planted in the past. We had a much cooler spring them normal.  I waited until the night time temps were 50 degrees.  I worried I wasn't going to get any veggies. To my surprise everything grew well and produced faster than ever before. It may have been a fluke, but I think the right temperature is more important than frost dates.  Unless it proves otherwise I will be planting when the temps are right from now on.

My house is old and basically no insulation. It's cold in the kitchen especially at night. We drink a lot of tea, so there's usually Hot, or warm water in the tea pot. If it's hot I add a little cold. It feels warm, but not hot. That's the only thing I do, and it's doing well. Good luck, it's worth the effort, there's so many wonderful things you can make with sourdough, and supposed to be healthy too. I have only scratched the surface of what can be made. If I didn't make anything but pancakes it would be worth it.

I'm a busy, lazy person, so I don't put my sourdough in the fridge. I want  it usable  on the spur of the moment.
I really don't like waisting the discard when I feed it every day. I let my sourdough go a while ago, so I started it again.  To reduce waist I started small. 1/4 cup flower, and a little less than 1/4 warm water. Each day I added 1/4 cup flower and a little less than 1/4 cup warm water. A week later I have a beautiful active sourdough starter.  
We are a family of adults. 3 of my 4 children still live at home. Even though we don't use the starter every day, when we use it we use a good amount, and  we do  use it several times a week. We don't replenish same amount of flour/water as we used, but  a smaller  amount. This way it's always useable, and doesn't overflow.  So far this is really working for us.  We aren't going through nearly as much flour, it's a lot less messy, and I'm not feeling bad about waisting, or feeling obligated to try to use the discard, because there isn't any.  This may change come summer, but for now we are enjoying lots of sourdough recipes. Delicious goodness without the guilt.

This is how I think of 2024. It's been a very challenging year. In the garden I have battled gophers, rats burrowing into and living in my raised garden beds, eating almost all of my melons, and some tomatoes, and squirrels digging and bearing/ planting walnuts, which causes squashing and uprooting many of my fall seedlings.
Late spring I lost all but 3 of my chickens to a dogs. They broke through the chicken wire fence.  We got that repaired, and managed raise a new flock.
A couple nights ago my son heard a commotion in the coop in the middle of the night, and found two raccoons making a meal of one of my chickens.  My fault really, I get lazy and don't close the coop at night, and that's what I get. So I'm back to closing them in at night, and opening it before work, which is still dark for a bit. I'm thinking about having a light come on about 6:30 am. Maybe it will be safer, not sure, but so far they have been ok.  It makes me feel bad because it was probably preventable, making it my fault.  It's the circle of life, but I feel bad for the poor chicken who had a short life.  The stranger thing was they ate the silky, but my oldest chicken has a broken leg, in the hip. She sleeps on the coop floor tucked in under the nesting boxes. You would think she would be easy prey, but she was untouched.
On a side note I'm sure a lot of you think I should dispatch my lame hen. In total honesty I have worried about it.  I don't want any of my animals to suffer.  She seems to be perfectly functional. No one picks on her she still seems to be high if not top of the pecking order, she eats, drinks, and get all over the coop and chicken yard. She doesn't lay eggs anymore, but until recently was still getting into the nesting boxes, it's where she sleeps. I don't know if she can no longer get up there, or it's just warmer for her to burrow into the wood chips.  Besides hobbling around, she acts like a normal chicken, so I just keep an eye on her, and hope I'm not causing her pain and suffering.

Gardening is a constant learning experience, it's one of the many things I love about it. In the past I have had terrible luck growing pumpkins. I would get a scrawny vine, that if I was lucky would produce 1 pumpkin. My method was to add about 10 days to the days to produce, and plant then. My thinking was I wanted pumpkins for Halloween, and didn't want them to rot before then, so plant with just enough time.  This was where I think I went wrong.  This year I planted pumpkins at the same time I planted my melons, and all my heat loving plants, because my daughter needed pumpkin (she gives it to her 17 year old cat to help with digestion)
Wow what a huge difference a few weeks made.  My theory is I was starting the pumpkin when it was very hot, and those little seedlings were in survival mode, never having the chance to thrive.  
This year I got so many pumpkins. I wanted to pick them all and take a picture, but it didn't happen. There were pumpkin vines everywhere. We had record breaking heat this summer, and still they thrived.  We have been using them for a couple of months now, my daughter bakes them, and freeze's it for her cat. She has made bread, and pie, I I have given several to the chickens. I counted 30 out there the other day, I don't know what the total was, but it was way more than I could believe, from about 4 mounds of 3 seeds, pretty amazing. I have left them I'm the patch, so picked, some on the vine, and only one has rotted, and I think that was munched on by a critter, so my fear the heat would make them rot, was wrong. They seem to be fine.
I grew all but 1 group on new raised beds. They were over what used to be my hugelkultur, and filled with soil that was on and in the hugelkultur, with organic compost and organic soil on the top 4" to 6".  The other group I wanted to try "David the good style" in a compost pile. I dumped some unfinished compost, and some almost finished compost in a pile and planted in that. It did produce 3 or 4 pumpkins, but the ones planted in the raised beds did a lot better.
I learned a lot this year. Plant early, so they can thrive during the summer heat. Don't plan so many, at least not with melons. The melons did produce, but I think they would have done better if not being smothered by pumpkin vines.
I will probably plant more than I need next year, because I want to make mini raised boxes maybe 2'X 2'X6" to 8" and put them by my your fruit trees. They are small enough not to give any shade, but there's space there, so the vines can grow as much as they like, and not interfere with anything, while providing ground cover for the trees.  It could be a win, but  who knows, time will tell. I will plant a group in one of the raised beds in case the mini boxes don't work.
Growing pumpkins was a blast this year. It was so thrilling to find so many pumpkins.  They have so many great uses. We don't really enjoy them as a straight veggie, but they more than make up for it with their versatility. Just gotta love those plentiful pumpkins.

Riona I don't know a lot about your zone, but the one of the challenging things about the fall/ winter garden is you have to start the veggies in August when it's still hot to get a harvest before cold weather comes in.  With all my critter problems mine were started much later, so most will do exactly what you said. Once it's cold enough most of the veggies just hang out until it warms up. Kale and Swiss Chard grow year round for me, and maybe for you too. Plant them in the spring, and you can enjoy them next fall and winter with little effort (at least for me). It tastes the best in the cool seasons.  
At the moment the only things producing in the garden are tree collards,(planted  3? years ago) Swiss chard, and nappa cabbage. (Planted this fall) The lettuce and spinach still seem to be growing, so I hope to be eating them soon.
My critter problems continue to plague me. I have what I think are rat holes in two beds that didn't have them.  I put down cayenne pepper all over the place. I will have to dig them out now.  A couple of beds I haven't done anything with yet. I plan to lay chicken wire over the top when I clean them up to keep the critters out.  I really don't want to cage all my beds, but if things continue this way it may be what I have to do.

This is one of the first YouTubers that caught my eye. He does have some good content, but to be honest, he just talks to much for me. I found myself loosing interest, or fast forwarding.
There's no one size fits all. So I tend to enjoy people who practice a permaculture way of growing, grow in a climate similar to mine, and are fun and interesting without taking to long to deliver their messages.

Yeah, I love clearance. When it comes to flowers, the more the marrier.

I love pansies, with there pretty colors and cute faces.  They  were  also my grandma's favorite, so I think of her when I see them.  In my climate they will bloom fall through spring.  I have had them self seed, which is always cool.  
This year I decided to start them from seed.  It's not going very well.  I guess since I had them self seed I thought it would be easy. Germination rate is not great, and they are growing quite slow.  Next year I will start them in the summer.  I bought some to enjoy.  I do hope the ones I started from seed bloom before it gets hot.  Live and learn I guess.

I have also read tea is one of the highest pesticide used crops.  I no longer use tea in bags.  I buy organic loose leaf tea. In total honesty I don't know if I can trust "organic" considering the tea comes from other countries.  I've also read things can be labeled organic, that aren't really.  As long as the farms certified organic and follow the rules, a certain percentage can be nonorganic, I think to keep the farmers from loosing their livelihood if a problem occurs.
Unless you have the capability to grow everything you need/want you have to do the best you can, and let what you can't control go.