The Garden Gate

Garden tips for every month of the year!

October

Winter’s coming! Winter’s coming! If Paul Revere were still about, this might be the cry he would spread to gardeners in Wakulla County. The question of course is - when? Be assured that it will be in in November or December, so now is the time to get your gardens ready. Among the vegetables that can be set out this month are Beets, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Collards, Chinese Cabbage, Garlic, Kohlrabi, Leeks, Mustard, Onions, Radishes, Spinach and Strawberries.

If one is to plant strawberries, October is considered a good month to do that. This is because those plants will have time to develop a healthy root system and lots of leaves, before the cold comes to slow them down. People that plant strawberries in the spring, usually see fewer and smaller berries because those plants have to not only grow large, but try to produce flowers and fruit at the same time. Planting strawberries now makes not only for larger fruit in the spring, but an earlier crop as well.

Special Note: One of the greatest failures with strawberries is either planting them too deep (so their crown rots) or to shallow (so their stem dries). Plant them at the right level.

Among the annuals that can be planted are Carnation, Foxgloves, Pansy, Petunia, Shasta daisy, and Snapdragon. These will flourish through most of the winter.

For those Partial to bulbous, tuberous, or rhizomous, flowers, try the African lily, Aztec lily, Amaryllis, Calla lily, Hurricane lily, Kaffir lily, Easter lily, Paper White, Shell lily, Spider lily, and Zephyr lily.

When planting these, choose a well-drained site. Remember that the bulb itself is going to be underground, which means that even though water might not be standing above ground, if it stands underground and the bulb is in that super-saturated zone, it will not be standing above ground, if it stands underground and the bulb is in that super-saturated zone, it will rot. It is wise to plant bulbs so they set 5-6 inches above (at their bases) the saturated water zone.

The water table in a yard may be determined by where the layer of hard clay, or compressed soil is encountered as one digs a hole or where water begins to seep from the sides of the hole as you dig during the rainy season. In some yards, it is within 12-18 inches of the surface making the actual "zone of saturation" at 10 or less inches under the ground. In those instances, a raised bed to plant bulbs in is critical. Rather than just adding more soil to create it, turn in compost, rotted leaves, or sphagnum peat moss. Bulbs do better if they are planted in a highly organic soil mix.

Don’t panic if the lower foliage of your Gardenia is yellowing and dropping off. This is a seasonal happening. Plants choose distinct seasons each year to drop leaves. Even an evergreen, such as the Gardenia, has major drop periods throughout the summer. One of those is now.

As cooler weather comes on, a common weed we begin to see in our shrubbery beds is called Florida Betony. Hand pulling this weed is usually impractical due to the fact it has a deep fleshy root that easily breaks off. The root looks much like the tail of a rattlesnake and therefore this weed is sometimes called Rattlesnake root.

This weed is very invasive and spreads rapidly even in mulched beds. The best product to use against it is sold as Glyphosate under the names of Roundup, Kleenup, Glyfos, etc. This is a non-selective weed killer (which means it injures anything it is sprayed on), so spray only what is to be killed.

Glyphoste works by being absorbed into the plant but not through roots. It must enter through the leaves or green stems of a plant. Once it hits the soil, it is tied up and not absorbed by plants which make it a safe product to spray around the base of trees where leaves will not be hit. Because it is often difficult to treat weeds that are mixed in beds with plants such as Juniper and Border Grass, another option is to wipe on the Glyphosate rather than spraying it on. A simple method for doing this is to pull on a pesticide resistant rubber glove over top of this, pull on one of those sponge gloves used to wash cars with. You can then spray the glove with the Glyphosate until it is damp and using the ungloved hand to hold aside the desirable plant, wipe the weed you want to kill.

Once in a plant, Glyphosate slowly causes the plant to shut down by traveling down to the roots of the plant and killing those. Unfortunately, plants with a massive storage organ as a root (such as Greenbrier and Florida Betony) don’t die all at once and a second treatment after 2-3 weeks may be necessary.

While we begin to cut back now on the amount of lawn mowing, end lawn fertilization all together for the next few months, we should also be cutting back on the amount of irrigation we are giving the lawn. As growth begin to slow, it is likely that lawns can survive now with as little as ½ inch of water every 5-7 days, but be sure to take into account rainfall. If it rains a half inch (every yard should have a rain gauge to check this) then wait 5-7 days before you irrigate again. Don’t let your timer do the thinking for you in fact, work your finger into the soil up to the first joint and feel if it still feels damp-just as you would to check when it is time to water a house plant. It’s better to keep grass on the drier side this time of year, than to over water it as temperature cool because this would lead to more root rots. Note: As if November, we can cut back irrigation even further on our lawns through the rest of the winter. Once every 10-14 days is enough for most landscapes.

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