Happy Halloween October Episode 4
Monday, October 29th, 2007
Halloween is in a couple of days and most everybody has youngsters around.Let’s work together to make it a safe Halloween. Did you grow pumpkins in your garden or haul them home from your local farmers market or grocery? Pumpkins will fool you on how much they weigh.
Gardening Tip #1 Remember, alway lift with your legs.
Make sure your children use a safety pumpkin knife to begin carving or watch you carve from a safe distance.
Gardening Tip #2 Never allow your young child to run with a sharp object.
To begin carving, cut a 4 to 5 inch diameter circle around the stem. Make sure to angle the knife handle away from the stem, so when you replace the cap it won’t fall inside. Remove the cap and scoop out all of the pumpkin guts. Draw a face on your pumpkin with a pencil or washable marker. Carefully cut out sections to make your own special Jack O Lantern.
After you finish carving your pumpkin, clean and dry the seeds. Toast the pumpkin seeds for an interesting snack.
Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
1 cup pumpkin seeds, cleaned
1 tablespoon butter or margarine, melted
1/4 teaspoon salt
1. Heat oven to 350°F.
2. Combine pumpkin seeds, butter and salt in medium bowl.
3. Place mixture onto ungreased 15 x 10 x 1-inch pan.
4. Bake for 30 minutes, stir every 10 minutes, until seeds are dry and begin to brown.
Makes 4 (1/4-cup) servings.
Altenate Flavor: Garlic Roasted Pumpkin Seeds; Omit salt. Prepare as directed above except use 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt. Bake as directed above.
Gardening Tip #3 You can place a light source in your Jack O Lantern on Halloween. It’s best to use a tea light candle in a protective cup. Use a battery powered light. If you use an electric light, make sure the cord is located so that it won’t trip anyone when they are walking up to the door. The new light source on the block is using a glow stick.
Make sure the pathway to your front door is well lit. If you have outdoor lighting, make sure all of the lights are working properly.
Gardening Tip # 4 Make sure your child has good visibility when wearing a mask. Painting their faces is fun and just as effective. Use the mask when they are in the safety of your home.
Have a safe and Happy Halloween.
Don’t forget to save some pumpkin seeds to plant next year.
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Preparing Your Garden For Winter October Episode 3
Monday, October 15th, 2007This week we are going to talk more about preparing your garden for the winter.
After raining for a couple of days the shrubs and trees are sure to appreciate that extra water as they prepare to go dormant for the winter. The leaves are changing color and are starting to drop. To properly prepare for winter, rake up the leaves regularly to prevent smothering the grass.
We don’t recommend completely shutting off your irrigation system, but continue to monitor the amount of moisture you have in your soil and water each area of your lawn and gardens as needed. Your shrubs, trees, and grass need strong roots to bring them through the winter.
It is time to start removing dead and dying plant material from your beds and gardens. This will remove hiding places for pests. Place this material on your compost pile as long as it is not diseased. Adding twigs and woody material to your compost pile is not recommended because it takes longer for this material to decompose.
Ideally, it is best to get a soil sample in the fall. The soil sample will give you a recommendation of what the soil needs for optimum results. Add the recommended amendments such as lime, compost, and manure to your gardens this fall. This will give the organic material plenty of time to break down so it is be ready for use by your plants in the spring.
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October Episode 2 Ready For Winter
Monday, October 8th, 2007
Winter is just around the corner, the fall air is crisp and leaves are changing to their brilliant colors. There are a lot of things you can do to ready your garden for winter.
By performing a few tasks now you can better prepare your garden for the coming winter and spring.
Make sure your new plantings and perennials have sufficient moisture. Just because the weather has cooled down doesn’t mean that they quit requiring water. Apply extra water if it doesn’t rain enough for your plants.
Plant your flowering Cabbage, flowering Kale, fall mums, and winter pansies. Depending what your winter climate is you will have color all winter or until a hard frost. You can protect from a killing frost by covering your Chrysanthemums and Asters, this will keep them blooming for quite a while longer.
Adding mulch to your gardens will keep the soil warmer, but you need to harden off your plants by spreading a thin layer of mulch, until after frost then spread a thicker layer after the ground has frozen.
Pick the seeds of wildflowers so you can sow them next spring.
It is time to plant a cover crop of clovers, cow peas, soybeans, or vetches. This will produce “green manure” when plowed under next spring. These plants produce nitrogen and organic matter for next year’s crop, they will help to control weeds over the winter.
Lawn - Mow your grass as long as it keeps is growing….
Last week we talked about aerating your lawn. The first week of October is a good time to over-seed and fertilize your lawn. Use a good fertilizer with a low amount of nitrogen, this will slow the top growth and build up root growth.
Rake or mow your leaves each week. Your grass needs sunlight as it is creating sugars to store for good growth next spring. If you leave them on the lawn it will smother the grass and kill it. When you remove the leaves add them to your compost pile. You can mulch in a few, but too many even mulched will smother your grass.
Various tasks
Slugs - Slugs and snails start moving through your garden as soon as the fall rains begin. Apply an application of slug bait will eliminate a lot of slugs and prevent them from reproducing this fall and reducing the spring population.
Weeds will start growing again, so remove all you can to reduce the number of seeds in the spring.
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