Hi Gardeners
When it’s nice outside this time of year as it was
yesterday, I feel I need to savor every minute of it. Already my mind is picturing snow swirling
across hard frozen ground and scraping off ice from the car windshield. I think
about gloomy grays day like today, only with cold biting winds and having to
trudge through piles of slushy snow.
So, when it’s still sunny and mild- I’m out there. I’m
going to soak up every ray I can and hoard it. It’s not the prettiest fall we’ve ever had,
color is sadly lacking this fall, but if the sky is blue and the sun has some
warmth, I’ll take it. I even sat on the deck last night as it got dark and
listened to frogs and killdeers calling. And surprise- there was a mosquito
buzzing around still!
Is fall as busy as spring for you? It seems so to me. I keep finding one last
thing I need to do before the hard cold sets in. This weekend I dug up the
dahlias and planted the last of the bulbs I had purchased. I repotted a rhipsalis
cacti in my kitchen window, which was a major undertaking. And there is still lots to do.
We had some temps down in the 20’s late last week so
Saturday I was out digging the dahlias. I had a neighbor ask if I was digging
up that big beautiful yellow flower and I told her yes, dahlia bulbs had to be
stored inside over winter. She was disappointed because she wanted to buy some
but didn’t want to bother digging them up every year. I explained they were reasonable in price and
she didn’t have to dig them if she didn’t want to. That made her happy.
I am too thrifty, (cheap) to do that, just let the
summer bulbs die. In fact, as I was digging the dahlias in the front bed, I
found 2 more geraniums that hadn’t been killed by the frost yet and dug them up
and repotted them. I then had to juggle
things around in the windows to make room for them.
There are a few things still blooming outside.
Petunias, snapdragons, some of the salvias and wax begonias are still
blooming. Toad lilies, one mum and the
landscape roses are still in bloom.
While things may not be blooming too well outside
anymore there is a lot blooming inside.
My Texas hibiscus is in bloom, along with the pink double hibiscus,
Kona. The pomegranate is blooming. The gerbera daisy is still blooming as well
as the geraniums, cane begonias, diplodenia, streptocarpus and penta. And two
of my “Thanksgiving” cacti are in bloom already.
The deer have been up fairly close to the house again
in my veggie garden and in one flower bed by the driveway. They ate every leaf
off one hosta, but it’s so late in the season it doesn’t really matter. And
there’s nothing left in the veggie garden- maybe they are eating weeds there. I
had removed the electric wire for winter. I came out the door just after dark
and saw their big white butts leaping over the fence.
In today's blog I’m covering a lot of shorter topics.
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| Pomegranate flowers |
Bulbs
If you haven’t bought your bulbs yet you are cutting
it close. You can plant until the ground
freezes, but a few weeks of non- frozen ground help bulbs get established. So,
buy those bulbs soon- there are lots of sales- or plant the ones you have that
are sitting around waiting.
If you want to force bulbs like paper white narcissus
or hyacinths you should be buying them now too, especially if you want them for
Christmas. Also, if you want Amaryllis
for Christmas presents or to have in bloom for the holiday buy them now. If you get them potted right away, you may
get blooms by Christmas. For more
information on amaryllis here’s a link; https://gardeninggrannysgardenpages.blogspot.com/p/houseplants-amaryliss4-amaryllis-did.html
Fall rose care
Even in my zone 5 climate some roses are still
blooming. I have had landscape roses
blooming at Thanksgiving. It’s fine for
roses to continue blooming through fall.
What you don’t want to do is prune roses now, if they are still green
and/or blooming. Pruning will sometimes
encourage new growth which will soon die and may make the rose less likely to
survive through winter or experience more die back.
Once leaves are gone from the rose plants and the
ground is frozen you can then prune them back enough to fit into rose cones if
you use them, but don’t do any more pruning than that. Also, if you mulch rose
plants for winter protection you want to do it after the ground freezes.
Should you use rose cones? Hybrid tea roses would probably be the only
roses to really benefit from these. Any rose grown on its own roots, such as
landscape roses, old fashioned shrub roses and many climbers doesn’t need the
protection of a rose cone.
Mounding soil over the graft union of many roses is
also a pretty good way to protect them. Don’t dig the soil from around the
rose, bring it from somewhere else. You might want to dump your summer
containers around them. Do the soil
mounding just before you expect the ground to freeze.
Mow, don’t blow
Its
convention, not necessity that keeps people raking and blowing leaves instead
of leaving them alone as nature intends. Instead of thinking about leaves as
being a beautiful, natural blanket of fertilizer and comfort for the plants and
soil, there is a compulsion to uncover the grass by raking or blowing the
leaves away. And what would happen if a flower bed collected a covering of
leaves or a fence corner caused a pile up of blowing leaves? Certainly not the disaster some people worry
about.
Ugly is
in the eye of the beholder. If leaves on the lawn bother you too much take your
lawn mower and run through them, chopping them into small pieces and
distributing them more evenly. (This works best when the leaves are dry.) The
chopped pieces will soon disappear into the burrows of earthworms or by decay.
If you mulch leaves into your lawn you don’t need to add a fall fertilizer to
the lawn.
Piles
of leaves or really thick layers laying on the lawn would harm the grass through
winter but a light layer or chopped leaves will do more good than harm. If
leaves still cover the lawn in the spring, bring out the mower and chop them
up.
Leaves
are fine to leave in flower beds. I actually rake leaves off walks and decks into
my beds. If the ground looks bare, I add some leaves. Bare ground is unnatural.
Six inches of leaves are fine. You wouldn’t want to put deep mounds of leaves
over most garden beds, but they could be mounded over certain less hardy plants
for protection. If in spring, you think a mat of leaves is preventing plants
from growing or keeping the soil too cold and wet you can gently remove any mats
from around the plants.
Leaving
the leaves on the ground, on the lawn and in flower beds, provides a place for
insects, frogs and toads and other critters to overwinter. They shelter seeds,
keeping them moist through winter. Birds search among the leaves for those
hidden critters and seeds. If you like helping nature, leave the leaves.
If you
want to remove leaves from walks, gutters, decks and driveways, which don’t
need fertilization or protecting, rake them up and dump them in the vegetable
garden, or into a compost pile. Don’t waste a valuable resource by placing them
in plastic bags and sending them to the landfill.
The
leaf blower is a noisy, environmentally unfriendly machine. They use gas, emit
fumes, and annoy neighbors while damaging your hearing. Good gardeners don’t need leaf blowers or
want them.
Stop
thinking of leaves as messy and ugly. Thank nature for being so resourceful in
recycling precious soil nutrients. Work with nature instead of against it. All
it takes is a change of attitude. Sell your leaf blower and buy more plants.
Plant
garlic now
Planting
hardneck garlic is much like planting spring blooming bulbs, you do it in fall.
October and early November before the ground freezes are good times to plant. Hardneck
garlic is the best choice of garlic for gardeners in planting zones 3- 7. People in higher gardening zones can plant
softneck types. Hardneck garlic has
flowering scapes, which many people find delicious.
Buy
your garlic for planting from a nursery. The garlic in the grocery is usually a
softneck variety and while the cloves sometimes grow your chances of getting a
good harvest are slim. Garlic “bulbs” are a cluster of segments called
cloves. Carefully separate these just
before you are ready to plant.
Plant
garlic in a full sun area where the soil is well drained. Plant the cloves 2-3
inches deep and make sure the pointed end is up. Space cloves about 4 inches apart. Water after planting unless the soil is really
wet. Then mulch the planted area with straw or chopped leaves, about 3 inches
should do.
Your
garlic won’t emerge until spring. During
fall and early winter, it will be growing roots and getting established. Make
sure to keep garlic mulched as it grows because weed competition makes smaller scapes
and cloves.
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| Garlic scapes |
Drying Gourds
Gourds
come in many sizes and colors and make wonderful fall decorations. You may have
grown gourds in your garden, but if you didn’t, gourds are often found at farm
markets in the fall. The small, colorful ones require little more than drying
to turn them into decorations, but the larger plain ones can be painted and cut
and turned into many craft items, including bird houses.
Gourds
can have holes cut in them and small plastic containers set inside to hold
flower arrangements, candy, candles, or small snacks. Make a child’s rattle by
drilling a small hole and inserting small jingle bells or beads, then seal the
hole with a bit of putty and paint over it. Children enjoy decorating gourds
with paint and small glue on decorations such as macaroni shaped as letters,
brightly colored beans and seeds and feathers. Your imagination can find many
uses for gourds.
Pick
your decorative gourds before a hard freeze. You can leave them in the garden
until then; it is better for them to dry on the vine. Light frosts are fine, they will continue to dry
after them, but freezing may turn them black or mushy.
Let the
gourds dry in a sunny location a few hours after picking. Then brush off all
surface dirt. Mix a solution of 1-part household bleach to 3 parts water and
use this solution to wet rags or paper towels and clean the gourds surface.
Then allow to air dry. This helps prevent mold.
You could also use some of the handy “wet wipes” with bleach to clean
the gourds.
After
cleaning dry the gourds in a warm, dark place with good air circulation, until
you can hear the seeds rattle inside.
The drying process takes from 2-4 months depending on the gourd and the
conditions of the drying area. Unfortunately,
you cannot hurry gourds by drying them in the oven or microwave.
If you
want the gourds for a fall display this year, they can dry where they are
displayed if they are not subjected to freezing or moisture and aren’t piled
too deeply. If you have gourds layered
in a basket for example, you may want to rotate them from time to time. Gourds
that you intend to keep for a long time can be sprayed with craft sealing
finishes, varnish or wax after they are thoroughly dry.
If you
are using larger gourds for crafts wait until they are completely dry, and you
can hear those seeds rattling before cutting them or painting them. A drill with a small bit is good for starting
holes. Gentle use of a saw or drill is required to keep the gourd from
shattering. If you are making a bird
house or something with a large opening, shake the seeds out.
Gourds
can be painted with any acrylic craft paint.
If they will be outside, they should be covered with a waterproof sealer
after the paint dries. Gourds that are to be left in a natural color should be
sprayed with a sealer also. If the bird houses are just decorations use black
paint to fake a hole. If they are for actual use as bird houses research what
size hole the bird species you want to attract likes and use that size hole.
Knowing When Nuts Are Ripe
There’s a lot of gleaning and harvesting to be done right
now. If nuts are something you have
access to here are some tips to know when to harvest and how to store them.
Pecan and hickory nuts are nearly ripe when the outer husk turns
brown and splits. Gather the nuts and
spread them in a thin layer in a warm dry place for about 2 weeks. Make sure
that the nuts are protected from hungry animals. After 2 weeks, peel off the
husk and crack the nutshell. Remove the meat from the shell. If the nut meat
snaps easily the nut is ripe and dry enough to store. Pecan and Hickory nuts can be stored in the
shell or the meats can be removed and stored in dry clean containers.
Walnuts, black or English, are nearly ready when the husk turns
black. Collect the nuts and store in a
warm dry place for about a month. Remove the husks using gloves as they stain
the hands. Crack open the nutshell and check the nut meat. Ripe meats are firm and white. Some people put the walnuts on a driveway and
run over them with a car to remove the hulls and crack the shells. This will
stain the driveway. Others have used old
washers that have a bucket of sand put in them with the nuts. Agitating will then remove the husks. Never
do this with your good washer!
Almonds are seldom grown by homeowners, but they are ripe when the
husk splits open and reveals the nut. Crack a shell and see if the nut meat
snaps easily. If not let the nuts dry longer.
Nuts will stay fresh tasting longer if refrigerated or
frozen. Make sure containers are closed
tightly as the nuts will pick up flavors of things stored near them.
Pumpkin
stuff
When
English settlers came to the New World, they found Native Americans growing a
variety of pumpkins and squash. Pumpkins were easy to grow and stored well so
they became a favorite of pioneers too.
Early
pumpkins did not look like the smooth, bright orange fruits piled outside every
store in the fall. They were flatter and heavily ridged. The color was more of
a pinkish orange or red. If you look at the illustrations in an early copy of
Cinderella, you can get an idea of what early pumpkins looked like.
Today
most of the pumpkins you see in the fields are for fall decorations and Jack- O
-Lanterns, although Americans still like their pumpkin pie. But the pumpkin in
pumpkin pie usually looks more like squash when it’s in the field. Some winter
squash and pumpkins are nearly identical genetically and identical in flavor. So, farmers grow “squash” for commercial
canning as “pumpkin” because they are easy to grow and process. You can still use
your homegrown pumpkin for pie if you want.
Jack O’
Lantern and other decorative uses of pumpkins
Don’t
settle for carving a scary face on a pumpkin; instead carve a scene or random
shapes into the pumpkin. Use a drill to follow a pattern drawn on the pumpkin,
instead of a knife. White pumpkins can be coated with glitter for a different
look. Many people now make patterns in a pumpkin by simply peeling off the
outer “orange” layer and exposing the white layer underneath.
After
cleaning and carving, soak the pumpkin in a mix of 1 teaspoon of bleach to a
gallon of water for a few minutes. Pat dry inside and out, or dry carefully
with a hair dryer, and then coat your carving cuts with a thin layer of
petroleum jelly.
Some
people opt to paint the pumpkin instead of carving it. Most acrylic craft paints will work and are
non-toxic. The pumpkin could be rinsed off after Halloween and used to make
pie.
Black
duct tape can be used to tape a face on the pumpkin. If you can’t find black
duct tape you can color regular tape with black marker. Cut the tape into
shapes that make a scary or happy face and apply to a dry pumpkin. Note: electrical tape won’t stick to
pumpkins.
Another
alternative to carving a pumpkin is to pin things like buttons, felt shapes,
flowers or seed pods to the pumpkin. You can still find straight pins in the
sewing notions section of stores and toothpicks can even be used.
Want a
new, environmentally friendly and safe way to light up your Jack O’ Lantern? Use
solar lights. Solar lights use no electricity, and are perfectly safe, they
won’t start fires or burn anything and because there is no heat with the light
the pumpkin stays fresh longer. They turn on automatically when it’s dark and
most solar lights will last many hours after a sunny day and will even come on
for a while after a not so sunny day. And they can be reused year after year.
A
pumpkin can be hollowed out to hold a glass or metal container in which a mum
or dry floral arrangement could be placed. It could also be filled with dry
corn, beans or rice to hold things like cattails, turkey feathers and dried
grasses. Inside as a table decoration, small green plants or other flowers
could be inserted. Halloween candy or other treats can be served from a pumpkin
lined with a plastic bowl.
Native
Americans used every part of a pumpkin. They were hollowed out, dried and used
to hold seeds and other foods, even to carry water. Some were elaborately decorated. Pumpkins
were used in soups and stews. The flesh of pumpkins was cut into strips and
dried over open fires for storage. Dried
pumpkin could be pounded into a form of flour. Young green pumpkins were eaten
like we eat zucchini. Seeds were dried and used for food and medicine. Pumpkin
flowers were also eaten. Even the leaves
were used in some areas as a cooked green.
Pumpkins
have seeds which make an excellent tasty and nutritious snack. Clean the seeds
out of one or more pumpkins and try to remove as much of the orange “goop” as
possible. Place the seeds in a colander
and wash with cold water.
Drain
and spread the seeds on a foil covered cookie sheet that has been sprayed with
cooking spray. Lightly spray the seeds with cooking spray or toss with a bit of
olive oil, and salt to your taste. Put the cookie sheets in an oven set at 325
degrees and roast for about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally and keep checking on
them, don’t let them get too brown. After roasting they can be stored in sealed
containers.
For
spicy pumpkin seeds try this recipe. Mix
1 ½ tablespoons butter, ½ teaspoon seasoned salt, 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
and 2 teaspoons of Worcester sauce in a bowl and toss the seeds in it before
roasting. It will coat 2-3 cups of
seeds.
Garlic
salt, red pepper, Parmesan cheese, and cinnamon are all good seasonings to try
on pumpkin seeds. There are various flavored popcorn seasonings on the market,
caramel, cheddar, ranch and so on, that can be sprinkled on the pumpkin seeds
also.
To
prepare raw pumpkin for use in a recipe: wash the outside of a pumpkin and
clean out the seeds and “goop” inside. Cut the pumpkin in chunks. Scrape any
stringy matter off. Place the pumpkin
chunks on their side and slice off the rind (skin). Rinse well under running water. Place the chunks in a pan and cover with
water. Cover the pan and simmer until the pumpkin is soft. Drain in colander, and
then mash the pumpkin smooth. Freeze what you don’t use.
Pumpkin
fudge
Want to
use some of that prepared pumpkin? Here’s
a recipe for pumpkin fudge.
2 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup
(5 fl.-oz. can) evaporated Milk
3/4 cup
granulated sugar
1/2 cup canned pumpkin (not pie
filling) or pumpkin prepared as above
1+1/2
teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/4
teaspoon salt
2 cups
miniature marshmallows
1 - 11-oz.
pkg. butterscotch flavored morsels
3/4 cup
chopped walnuts
1
teaspoon vanilla extract
Combine the butter, evaporated milk,
sugar, pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice and salt in medium saucepan. Bring to a boil,
stirring constantly, over medium heat. Boil, and stir constantly, for 8 to 10
minutes. Remove from heat.
Stir in the marshmallows, butterscotch
morsels, nuts and vanilla. Stir until the marshmallows melt and the mixture is
well blended. Pour the fudge mix into a lightly buttered pan (9 x15) and
refrigerate until firm. Cut into bars. Makes
about 48 bars.
Left
over pumpkins can become great food for wildlife and livestock. Chickens love pumpkins and placing a whole
one in the coop is great for relieving boredom while providing a healthy treat.
Cows, goats, sheep, pigs and even horses love pumpkins but introduce them in
small amounts, so you don’t make the animals sick.
Split a
pumpkin in half and leave the halves near your bird feeder. Many birds enjoy
the seeds as well as the flesh of the pumpkin.
I don’t like the idea some sites promote- using a pumpkin shell to hold birdseed,
I think this makes moldy birdseed. Deer
love pumpkins and they can be used in bait piles.
If you
have no animals to feed and no longer need harvest decorations, you can compost
the pumpkins. But be careful, if they
still have seeds inside and you toss them in the flower bed, on the lawn or
compost pile, you may get pumpkin vines growing there next year!
Remember to set the clock back 1 hour Sunday Night.
"...I cannot endure to waste
anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have
spent almost all the daylight hours in the open air."
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
Kim Willis
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