Gardening, Flowers and House Plant Care

There are 66 days and 7 hours left until Winter! What should you be doing in your garden right now? Check our October gardening guide here.

Autumn Gardening

I hope that you have had a successful growing season and are enjoying a bountiful harvest from your vegetable garden.
If you produced more of certain types of fruits or vegetables than your family can consume, share the abundance with friends and neighbors, and please don't forget to share some with your local Food Bank orother organization!

Gardens in the Fall

As Summer winds down into Fall, and the current growing season is coming to end, there are still a multitude of gardening tasks and projects that will need to be taken care of in the garden. It is time to clean up the garden and plan for next Spring.

Remove spent annuals and compost them. Keep after the weeds and the slugs!

Mark your deciduous perennials with permanent tags or stakes, or create a map showing their locations
so you'll know where and what they are when they die back at the end of the season.
This will help you to avoid accidentally digging up something you intended to keep when you work
in the garden this fall and next spring.

Fall is the time to plant seeds of many different perennial plants and spring flowering bulbs. Perennial plants that have overgrown their space or have become crowded should be dug and divided or moved to a new area of the garden.

New and replacement perennials can also be planted as long as the soil is workable Depending on your growing zone, tender bulbs like Dahlias may need to be dug up and stored in a cool, dark area after first frost.

Protecting Plants from Frost

If you kept any of your house plants outdoors for the summer, be sure to bring them back indoors before temperatures drop below 50° or if any frost is predicted in your area!

Weather conditions can bring about a frost, even in supposedly frost free areas. It is important to heed the warning when your local forecaster announces 'a chance of frost', and take precautions to protect your garden. Often times it is possible to extend your growing season by several weeks if you are able to keep your plants alive through an early frost!

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Gardening for Beginners

If you are a new or less experienced gardener who wants to start a new garden for the first time, I suggest that you begin here...

• Gardening 101: Garden Basics: Zone maps, charts, guides and more.
• Gardening 101: Deciding what kind of garden you'd like to grow.
• Gardening 101: Preparing the planting site to grow your new garden.
• Gardening 101: How to plant container grown plants into the garden
• Gardening 101: How to sow and grow new plants from seed.
• Gardening 101: Planting and Growing a Vegetable Garden.
• How to grow, maintain and care for your House Plants