2024 October Musings
October greetings fellow gardeners,
Some spots shaping up.
Sizing & gathering tomato cages to disinfect. One of many wheelbarrow loads of garden debris.
There’s a definite chill in the morning air; welcome to fall! Gene and I refuse to give up our porch, so pre-dawn today finds us huddled in coats with our hands wrapped around steaming cups of coffee. We sip and watch. The cardinals are already up “chitting” away and waking the entire bird neighborhood. As light creeps in, I can tell it’s a bluebird in the birdbath… Bbrrr. Whitethroat, Chipping, and Song sparrows duck in and out of leaves on the lawn in search of some delicacy. I look to the more distant nut feeder to spot below it, the silhouette of two mourning doves bobbing about picking up fallen treasure. I cast an eye to the empty golden safflower feeder only to discover a goldfinch plunked on the seed tray. I know he’s staring at us, but it’s still a little too dark to see his angry face. Jeez guy, give us a few moments, will ya? Close by to the porch, two nuthatches spiral the elm trunk plying cracks and crevices. That brings to mind that the juncos arrived here on the 15th but remain unseen this morning. In the nearly 40 years of living here, we have borne witness to a nascent landscape in the beginning to, over the years, a mature and diverse one now. This habitat surely seems to us to be an audubon haven.
Once again birds have distracted me from the point of this blog—the garden. So October is usually the big clean-up month. It still is—but a bit more intensive this year. We had our first frost here October 15. That should signal the end of the growing season, right? But my frost covers kept the late crops going. I’m still grinding paprika, deciding whether to make another batch of sweet pepper relish, making pesto, and drying herbs. Why do I do this to myself—just let it all go, girl! Nope.
It’s possible paprika pepper production may be coming to an end. Others not so much!
As I clear out squash, potato, and tomato vines, I am weeding and then applying leaves that I purposely mow. Because we use no pesticides in our lawn care, I have no qualms about using this free, semi-ground-up organic matter in the veggie garden or anywhere else. Then, of course, there are the 30+ tomato cages, bamboo poles, and stakes that all need to be disinfected with a solution of bleach. Quick, find the place to store them before Gene does, or else…At least I have all the houseplants back inside in the south windows of our cellar, so Gene can’t claim any of that space. By the way, do you remember in a previous blog that I planned on having the perennial borders all weeded, fertilized, and mulched? Well—not gonna happen!
Yes, it’s time to plant garlic. Everyone is clamoring for it, and it just hasn’t arrived yet. We have heard that it was a wet spring for the growers, thus delaying harvest and subsequent certification. It appears as of now that some substitutions will occur. We expect to receive Organic Music, Eco-grown German Extra Hardy, and Eco-grown Red Russian. We love our Maine source and are willing to wait. Shipment is soon to arrive. Please know that it is not too late to plant. It’s true that mid-late October is optimal, but later is still fine. These are wonderful varieties, well worth the wait.
It is also time to plant fall bulbs for spring bloom. I am a tulip lover and plan on planting around 10 clumps to complement other spring bloomers. For each clump, I dig a hole at least 8” deep to accommodate up to 10 bulbs. I apply a generous 1/3 cup of organic Espoma Bulb-Tone to the bottom and arrange the bulbs atop. Most importantly, I then layer in granular Bonide’s Repels-All and crushed oyster shells all the way to the surface. Because voles love to devour these bulbs, I have found that this strategy has proven most successful.
Truckload Sale: November 14th-16th!
Lastly, don’t forget to join us for our Annual Truckload Bird Seed Sale which runs Thursday, November 14 through Saturday, November 16, 2024. Remember this ever-popular sale begins only after the tractor-trailer pulls into our parking lot and ends if we sell out of item(s) or at 2:30 pm Saturday, whichever comes first. Don’t miss this. It’s fun, and you get to stock up at the best prices of the year with new-crop seed! We truly appreciate your patronage.
That’s it for now.
Judy