Yes, I'm hoping for fall to last at least three weeks. I carried houseplants back out (from porch where they sheltered for two nights) and hope for that long for them as well.

Not horrible weather, I'm not complaining yet.

I'm sure Dawn would recommend https://www.wildseedfarms.com/search?q=poppies Give them a try, Larry. Good luck. Yes, they were out of the mix I wanted, so I ordered from BBB Seeds in Colorado-- they have a wildflower mix for TX and OK, and the shipping was cheap. But they just had a mix, not separate flowers.

I'm home from work and have just sat down. Maybe I'm a little hungry so will look for something to eat in a minute.

My garden looks like crap. We were covered in frost Friday morning....or was it Saturday morning? I can't remember now. Either way, my garden is toast for the most part. The strawberries still have blossoms. The herbs, other than basil, and pansies/mums/violas all look good. So there's that. Oh, and the brassicas. They have bug holes but are living. We haven't had much rain so I need to give them a good drink tomorrow. A few other things survived like the milkweed and LB petunias. The veggies are mostly gone, though. Sigh. I really didn't want this so early.

So...my garden chores for this week are clearing out all the dead plants and tossing them on the burn pile. There's somewhere between 30 and 40 Seminole pumpkins in varying sizes and colors. I need to grab them and do something with them.

I need advice here please! What do you do with your Seminoles in all their varying colors? Like...the full sized ones that are still green? The littlest ones, I'll slice up and maybe bread and treat like summer squash.

I had some time yesterday to process the veggies that I grabbed before the harvest. I still have quite a bit to do, though.

Unfortunately, I am working tomorrow, but will come home in the mid afternoon and can start on these chores.

I am hoping to not work on Tuesday, but if I get called to sub, I will.

I took Friday off, but a friend needs me to babysit her son. He's not a baby, so it will be easy enough. I can still do stuff while he plays, etc. He's 9. Our cat Juno used to be his cat, Olivia, and he's always asking about her, so hopefully he will enjoy seeing his former cat.

I still feel bad. But, I prefer to be busy when I'm sick because it's a distraction.

I think I've basically failed at fall gardening. This is my first attempt and quite honestly the weather hasn't made it easy. It was super hot until just recently and then we have a freakin' frost. My greens and lettuces look awful. They are stunted. My fall tomatoes were killed in the freeze. Dumb. It's really getting to be too late to get a decent size on the greens before Persephone. Oh well. I will try again next year.

Only three days in and I'm loving our new coop set up. I scoop the droppings boards each morning. It takes about 4 minutes. This is a good thing. I like a clean, sweet smelling coop. However, I'm afraid our roosting bar space isn't as plentiful as I had thought. We might need to add a few more feet. It's fine for the 14, but once the 8 come over it could be tight. it appears that all of our hatched chicks are female. Of the two purchased ones, one is female and one is male. Those two are bantams so they won't take too much room. I never planned to have over 20 chickens. Chicken math is a real thing.

Our weather forecast looks amazing for the next several days. It's really too bad my garden is dead.

Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh. I got lost between last week's post and this new one. DAWN!! I had totally missed your Wizard of Oz post. I am SO glad I got lost, so I just now saw it. Thank you!! Oh my YES it would be fun for little ones.

HJ--it is so weird that we had NO frost, Dawn had little damage, and you lost everything. Not fair, is it!? Well my black elephant ears are a little the worse for the wear, but they were the ONLY things. I was at school today, and the only thing there that got bothered were the sweet potatoes, but even they weren't killed, just wounded. I took lots of pictures there AND in our yard. I started to dig up the sweet potatoes there--I got three hills, and then remembered how much fun the kids had getting the first ones off the top of the soil, so I told John I'd wait til we could have some kids help. We didn't have school today, since Wagoner Schools did. It's a make-up day since fall break begins Thursday. So we'll finish with the sweet potatoes next Monday.

I also planted several milkweed seeds, echinacea, and wildflowers, but had to plant them in one of the raised beds since John's going to raise the big center bed. We have a lot of plants to move out of there to temporary homes in the raised beds, and so I was limited on how much area I could use for new seeds. Oh well.

I lied. The gulf fritillaries didn't leave at all. I got home and GDW exclaimed to me that the butterflies were lousy out there--he said there were a hundred butterflies. LOL There weren't. He said there WERE before I got home. There were, however, lots. Mostly gulfs, a few variegated ones and a few sulphurs. Lots and lots of skippers of various kinds.

Yes, Dawn, my hollyhock zebrinas have also rebounded. Now to think with my plants of putting in mostly natives, looks like I'll be saying goodbye to many others.

I'm with Tim. Not so crazy about winter.

Jennifer, my fall garden didn't amount to much, either. But then, I didn't plant hardly anything. The long beans were/are fun, as were/are the Seminoles. You just had bad luck with that freeze. And I'm thrilled the cilantro and spinach are happily coming up. And, I cannot believe how big your chicken flock has gotten! FUN. I'm happy your new coop set-up is working so well.

I'm hoping for the same thing, dbarron. Need 3 more weeks. I'll leave garden clean-up until early spring.

about this time last year mid Oct , I planted some spinach . It came up a little and just sit there stunted through the winter because of the low sun angle and shorter daylight . Didn't have to cover it much except for a few bad artic cold fronts where it got down into the single digits.

When the daylight and sun angle started getting higher in Feb/Mar the spinach started getting bigger and later into April I had the best spinach I've ever grown.

For anybody wanting to plant something now this late in the season I recommend planting spinach for overwintering.

okmulgee boy

Same with cilantro, HU--fabulous spinach AND cilantro!

Larry, I ordered poppy seeds from Wildseed Farms. I ordered on either Sat or Sun, they shipped on Mon, and I got them in the mail on Thursday. Here's a link to their poppies:

Red Corn Poppies

I ordered a pound of regular red corn poppies for the main front pasture area, and 1/4 pound of their mixed corn poppy (white, red and pink ones) for a different area. The regular corn poppies were on sale for 1/3rd off if you bought a whole pound, which I thought was a great deal compared to their regular price. I don't know if they're still on sale.

Jennifer, In past years, I just lined up the green Seminole pumpkins on a board in the garage (so if they rotted and leaked, the board would catch the mess and I maybe wouldn't have to scrub the garage's concrete, but they didn't rot and leak....) and left them there, and they slowly colored up over a month or two.

For recipes, I pulled up an old thread from 2009 that has some recipes in it, and also a link to another old thread is in it that will lead you to a couple more winter squash recipes, including one from Amy Goldman's book, The Compleat Squash, for a winter squash soap that is so incredibly good. You should be able to see that old thread on the front page somewhere near this one. It is the one on Upper Ground Sweet Potato....

I hope you are feeling better soon.

YOU have not failed at fall gardening. The wild and wacky fall weather failed you. It is hard to get a fall garden going in the heat, and this year's heat hung on forever with either no rain at all or periods of flooding rain that are hell on seedlings. Hopefully next year will be better (famous gardening words if ever there were any).

Nancy, I just adore that Wizard of Oz garden. One of these years I want to plant one for the girls....maybe next year in the back garden. Or, the year after. I keep telling myself that I need to remain focused on renovating our home landscape in 2020. Honestly, it will be a chore...just removing all the bermuda grass in the south side yard be a killer task. Every time I tell Tim I want to take out "all the bermuda" in that area and have hardscaping and raised beds, with no grass, he gets such a pained expression on his face, even though he always says "you can do whatever you want with the yard". I don't know why the thought of removing the grass bothers him...he'll still have the front yard, the side yard on the north side of the house, and the dog yard west of the house to mow, along with about 2 or 2.5 more acres further away from the house.

We still have a large number of butterflies too. That doesn't really surprise me---they often seem to find a way to hide from the cold, and come out on the warm days. We often see them well into December, but then don't see much of them in January and February. I try to have something in bloom year-round for whatever bees and butterflies come out of hiding looking for nectar.

In the kitchen today: veni, vidi, vici.....Latin for "I came, I saw, I conquered"....and all the roselles now are canned, preserving their luscious fresh-from-the-garden flavor in the form of syrup, jelly and jam. I made at least one batch of each (1 batch of syrup, 2 batches each of jelly and jam). Tim already is drooling over the thought of roselle syrup on pancakes and waffles. Next to home-grown tomatoes, he might appreciate the roselles more than anything else that comes from the garden because they can be preserved so easily in jars. The hardest part about canning was simply being on my feet on the hard tile floor for so many hours on end. I think I need to get one or those GelPro kitchen comfort mats for the kitchen before I do another all-day canning project. Oh, and to amuse me, my FitBit kept saying 'feed me' because, obviously, I was mostly standing in the same place and not walking, so it wasn't recording a lot of steps. lol. Never mind that I had almost 9,000 steps (long morning walk with Jesse before I started canning) logged before I began canning, so it wasn't like my Fitbit was starving!

I find roselles among the most interesting things to can because a lot of the canning recipes for them are rather vague, so I can just wing it and alter the amount of water and sugar I use, depending on how runny the roselles cook down and on how tart their flavor is to begin with once they are cooked and ready for me to add sugar. And, I vary what I do depending on whether I cook down the green seed pods to give me natural pectin (I did with 2 batches, and I used commercial pectin with the other 2, so I could compare the results) or use a commercial pectin product. So, there's lots of uncertainty and guess work, but the products always turn out decently enough. Tim about halfway roots for the jelly or jam to be too runny so we can use it as syrup on pancakes and waffles, though I already make syrup for that purpose. He just thinks I don't make enough syrup.....

My garden looked pretty yucky today. The plants that showed only minor damage after the 27-degree morning, killing freeze and heavy frost, are continuing to go downhill. Normally, I'd prune off all the winter-killed/winter-damaged (well, not winter, but that's what we always have called it....winterkill) foliage, but since there is healthy foliage underneath, I'm going to leave it alone and hope that if we get another night like that anytime soon, the damaged upper parts of the plants might protect the still-thriving lower parts of the plants. I also noticed that the plants at the west end of the garden, sitting beneath the foliage of the adjacent trees, particularly a very large pecan tree and a large mimosa tree) had little to no damage, indicating that more of the visible damage can from frost than from cold air. Even the annual periwinkles that I didn't cover up have no damage.

Tomorrow it is back into the upper 80s for us. I think this weather is insane. We'll suffer from weather whiplash tomorrow with a high around 86, and then after the cold front passes through, our low will be almost 40 degrees lower than our high. There is a decent chance of rain, but only a very small amount of rainfall actually is expected. I'm hoping to harvest whatever roselles still are on the plants tomorrow, but of course, it depends on when and for how long the rain falls. Life is different with a puppy who expects to go for a long walk every morning and every evening....he is eating into my gardening time. If we don't walk him, he has so much energy that he is hard to deal with indoors...just bouncing off the walls. A 2-mile or 3-mile walk wears him out pretty well.

The grass fire in our neighborhood today was on property directly adjacent to the land that belonged to Tim's best friend, Ken, when we moved here. His widow sold their place to someone else a few years after he died,but I do not know who owns this little sliver of land beneath Ken's old place and the section line road. Anyhow, there was a very old house, I'm betting it dated back to at least the 1920s, still standing (barely) on that property---just bare, unpainted wood and a corrugated metal roof and all but collapsing anyway. It burned down during the grass fire. That made me sad....I wish these little old shacks/tiny farmhouses that still are barely standing and once were somebody's home could talk and tell us their stories and their histories before we lose them. But then, on the other hand, that sliver of property that sat between Ken's place and the road was badly overgrown. In all the years we've lived here, I've never seen it mowed or cleared or anything---I know someone owns it but they do nothing to maintain it. It was mostly badly overgrown woodland with a bit of grassland, and the grass fire did burn up a lot of grass and brush, and I bet next year there will be some excellent new growth there that might include some wildflowers and native plants previously crowded out by the undergrowth of invasive stuff like poison ivy, greenbrier and sumac.

The fields here are an interesting mix of forbs burned out of bloom by the cold weather and grasses, some damaged by the cold and some not damaged significantly. It is sad that so many, though not all, of the wildflowers are gone. We were having such a glorious wildflower year after all that rain.

All that rain left us muddy and with standing puddles, but we're back to cracking clay soil now, which means I am having to water. I was hoping that watering the garden was over for this year, but clearly it isn't.

Dawn

This isn't really about gardening, other than the conversation happened at the school garden. We had a volunteers' meeting, so there were several folks there. I asked one of the younger ones if she knew any people around her age in my church who garden. She couldn't think of any and asked why they had to be around her age. I said I wanted to start a garden at church, but need a younger person to keep it going in the future. She asked why and I said because old people die too fast. She sighed and said, "Yeah, that's their only down side."

One more old people story. One of my (younger) friends was having a really bad week a month ago. Three people she was really close to died, all within a week. She was lamenting/ranting, having a really tough time, telling me she was so SICK of death. I put my arm around her and said, "Honey, YOU need to find some younger friends." We both just burst out laughing. She was re-telling that yesterday, and we all laughed.

I got up super early today. Gotta deliver GDW back to the eye place for second cataract--speaking of age! I didn't go with him last week to his check-up with the regular eye doctor. Yesterday I looked at the calendar and saw his appt is at 8:10 a.m. today--in Muskogee. Which means we need to leave here at 7:30. I don't go ANYWHERE at 7:30 since I retired five years ago. I snorted and said, "I KNEW I was screwing up by not going with you to your eye check-up last week." He asked why and I said, "Because we would NOT be having an appointment at 8:10 a.m.!" We laughed.

As I was doing a walk around at the church, of course I noted it's all Bermuda. I can't even imagine taking it out there--or here, for that matter. Hate hate hate it, and am not happy with the person/s who came up with it.

Thanks so much for the squash info, Dawn. I copied it into a Word doc. I think we're going to end up with several sweet potatoes, too, and am thinking the recipes can be applied to them as well. Right?

Madge is getting ready t leave, she will be going to northwest Arkansas to help her daughter. This may go on for a few weeks because the son-in-law has to work. Madge is taking 7 bags of peppers and 2 bag of sweet potatoes with her to give to her kids. That wipes out the peppers, but we still have a lot of uncured sweet potatoes. This weather is not great for trying to cure sweet potatoes, but that is one thing I like about the covington sweet potatoes, they seem to be dryer and easier to cure. I do not have a good area to cure sweet potatoes.

The deer are after my north garden now. That is the one I have my fall and winter stuff in. I think they are getting back at me for mowing and disking most of their garden. I will try to work on the deer garden today. It looks like rain and I think I will try to burn another brush pile, it is much harder to burn a damp pile, but the risk of uncontrolled fire is less. I will have the sprayer and disc on the tractor to Increase the fire break I have around the pile, if needed. I will also be doing more prep work for the fall cover crop over there in the wildlife garden. It is crazy for a guy to work so hard to grow stuff to feed to friends, family and wildlife, but I enjoy doing it.

Larry, That's a lot of peppers! I think it is so sweet that Madge is going to go help her daughter. I hope she has a pleasant visit during the weeks she is there.

I usually cure sweet potatoes on a table on the patio underneath its cover. I have, at times, cured them on the porch, but curing them outdoors like that works best if I harvest early while the weather still is really warm. I've also set up seed-starting shelves in the spare room some years, minus the lights, and cured them on those shelves in the spare room if I harvested late and it is too chilly to cure them outdoors.

Those deer must be hungry, and appreciate of the fact that you grow food for them. I haven't seen our deer lately, but they always get more scarce as hunting season approaches.

It isn't crazy if you are happy growing all that stuff to give away. It would be crazy if you hated doing it. My dad grew tons of tomatoes just so he could give them away. Our family probably would have done fine with 4-6 tomato plants, but he always grew 12-15 plants so he could give tomatoes away to everyone he knew. Sharing like that made him happy, and it sounds like you enjoy sharing in the same way.

It is warm and muggy here this morning, and they've raised our forecast high from 86 to 89 degrees, so I think 90 is not out of the question. It is ridiculously warm for mid-October, and fairly windy.

A straggler hummingbird showed up at the feeder outside the kitchen window a few minutes ago. That tells me that this bird has been here before because the migrating ones that haven't been here before all go straight to the 3 feeders hanging on the front porch and never find the feeders in the side yard or back yard. I'm glad I've kept the feeders out and filled with fresh nectar for the stragglers. There's lots and lots of butterflies out today---apparently they got the memo that said we were having warmth and sunshine today.

Have a good day, everyone.

Dawn

Dawn, you know I had never even heard of roselles until you started talking about them this year. :)

The cool front should be to you by now. It was muggy and hottish here and then around 4, it all changed.

Today, I just chopped up peppers to put in the freezer, made pesto from the basil I grabbed before the freeze, and pickled some jalapenos. I have other jalapenos ready to make "bread and butter" jalapenos.

Most of the melons I harvested before the freeze weren't ready, so I chopped those up and took them to the chickens. It was a busy day.

I didn't get any garden clean up done except pulling up the dead basil plants and throwing them on the burn pile.

I have a dumb late day tomorrow at work, so won't get to do much as far as gardening goes.

Jennifer, Roselles are the easiest fruit I grow and, unlike peaches, plums, strawberries, etc., I don't have to fight squirrels, birds and turtles (they like strawberries) for them. However, processing the roselles to remove the seed pods from the calyces can be tedious and time-consuming, so I tend to only grow and preserve them once every few years. To be honest, we like roselle jam so much that it is the only thing I've ever canned that I keep entirely for us and never give away. I'm going to surprise Tim with breakfast for dinner tomorrow because he's dying to have roselle syrup on pancakes. He was hoping the roselle jam and jelly wouldn't firm up and we'd have an endless supply of roselle syrup, but they are fine so if he wants them on pancakes or waffles, he'll have to spread them the way you spread jam or jelly on bread (and he'd do it, too.) Sometimes, when I grow roselles, we get such a early freeze that they do not produce a crop, so even in a year when I do grow them, I'm not guaranteed a harvest. That's one reason we hang on to every roselle product that I can, dry, or freeze, even if we think we'll share some with our friends and give it away. Once we start eating it, we are greedy and keep it all for us.

The cool front finally rolled through around dinner time, but we still stayed really warm and muggy until after dark. Perhaps that is not so surprising. They raised our forecast high temp from 86 to 88 to 89 today, and we ended up with an actual high temperature of 94 degrees and a max heat index of 98. I. was. not. a. happy. camper. It was too hot to spend any time working outside this afternoon. I am so tired of these highs in the 90s. Every time I think it is over, I learn that it is not! This heat is making me grumpy.

Still, the early morning hours are nice and on the cool side, and I've been walking the new dog, Jesse, trying to teach him how to behave while on a leash. He loves walking so much he would walk forever and forever if I would just keep going with him. At some point, I tell him we have to turn around and go home and he pouts for 3 or 4 minutes and then gets over it. I take him for that super-long walk early in the day, not too long after sunrise, and then Tim takes him for a medium-sized walk as soon as he gets home from work. We're doing our best to wear out this dog so his hyperactivity doesn't drive all the other animals insane. He has puppy energy in a house where the other dogs are no longer puppies.

We have found a few surviving wildflowers---the ones along fencelines where taller fenceline plants sheltered them from the frost.

Today my second order of wildflower seeds came. The Wildseed Farms bulk seed order arrived last week. Today's seed order was from Prairie Moon and was individual seed packets of various wildflowers I want to grow for various reasons---mostly as host or nectar plants for the butterflies, or as plants for hummingbirds or bees. After watching the hummingbirds for ages, I've learned that they adore plants with purple and blue flowers, so I ordered several of those. I realize that we've all had it pounded into our heads that they like red flowers, which they do, but for some reason the ones in my garden seem to like purple and blue as much as red if not more.

Ironically, the free packet of seed they included with the order was for partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata), a plant so common here in our area that it borders on being a weed---the pasture next door to our south, just about 15-18' from our front garden is wall-to-wall (or, fence-to-fence) partridge pea and I'd never plant it here because I know how aggressively it spreads. We religiously mow the strip of grass between our driveway and the southern fence line every week because if we don't, partridge pea plants start popping up there. One year a partridge pea plant popped up in the veggie garden in mid-summer and I decided to leave it. After all, in the pasture next door they got about 2' tall, weren't too spreading and the sulphur butterflies love the flowers. Well, in a garden with well-amended, rich soil, that plant got huge and spread every which way. I finally pruned it back to a small tree trunk type thing and disposed of all of it (not on the compost pile for fear it would sprout) and dug out the 'trunk'. It shouldn't have gotten that big, but apparently rich soil and plentiful water turns this ordinary pasture plant into a big giant. So, I have no plans to plant the partridge pea seeds on our place. : ) I like wildflowers as y'all known, but some of them are too aggressive for me to willingly unleash them on our property.

I'm looking forward to having cooler weather tomorrow in the wake of this cold front. Hopefully we've now had our last day in the 90s and we'll start feeling more like it is autumn. I noticed that some of the elms are really getting yellow leaves now...not just yellow-tinged leaves like they've had for the last month, but fully yellow leaves, so those elm leaves should begin falling soon. Shockingly, our smaller red oak at the SE corner of our woodland is taking on a reddish hue. It does turn red almost a month earlier than its adjacent mother tree, but I still was surprised to see that red tinge to the green leaves this morning. Tomorrow morning is going to be so nice---long-sleeve weather!

Dawn

Who got their Dixondale catalog in the mail?! Me!

I sure am hoping for a better onion harvest next year. It's annoying to have nothing in storage!

Okay. Roselles are in my future, Dawn. Probably not next year because we are probably looking at an October wedding (so the garden will be kept to a minimum)....but the year after.

Brrr--it's chilly! Oh, well I stepped out and it's slightly warmer now, at 52. I went out to the garden an hour ago and got back in quick order. I just wanted to see how the spinach and cilantro looked--good, except I didn't plant enough spinach.

I don't think the roselles here are going to do anything; I got them in too late, I suspect. However, if it doesn't frost for another couple weeks, we should have them at school. They're a good-looking plant, aren't they! Jennifer, you must have been busy at work when the group was going on about roselle about 3 years ago, because from then until now, I had intended to grow it.

And I had to look up partridge pea plant, Dawn. I believe I must get it. Thanks. What else must I get that I don't have! I have to be careful, with my mostly part sun/part shade situation. But the way you described it caused me to think it must be a tough customer, so should survive here if not be at its absolute best. And will work great in town.

I've been reading since I got up. I felt guilty as I typed that so jumped up, ran out, and mowed the lawn. Ha! I wish the gulf fritillaries would leave so I could tear the beat-up tithonia out and get things going for next year. I'm having fun looking through Edible landscaping and coming up with colorful veggies and combos for the gardens next year.

And I've been on a binge with books. I got Bringing Nature Home by Douglas Tallamy. WOW. I loved this short review in Goodreads (although were many other longer and equally positive ones.) "Don't read before bedtime. This book makes you want to go outside and plant hackberry trees in the middle of the night." Amen! I laughed so hard. It is NOT a funny book--but that comment was perfect. I am predicting that this book is going to be a game changer for the way I garden--even though I was headed that direction anyway. And I got a couple from Kindle, too.

I'm glad to hear Jesse is adapting so well, Dawn. Sounds like you found a good one. Okay, I will admit. It turned out to be a really nice cool fall day. However, I was laughing as I mowed the lawn. Can certainly tell the this is a different season, as I was mowing all the SUNNY spots so I could stay warm enough. Dramatic reversal from a few weeks ago.

Seven bags of peppers! Do her kids know how to pickle them? Ha! I'm excited to try Dawn's recipes for the squash. In fact, I think squash is what's on for this evening. I'm so confused. . . . sweet potatoes!

Jennifer, I got my Dixondale catalog too. I always consider the day it arrives as the start of the next gardening year. So, I guess it is 2020 now. (grin) I'm completely over 2019's weather whiplash from hot to cold to hot and from wet to dry to wet, so 2020 sounds really good right now! lol. Hopefully when the real 2020 gets here and we start seeds and get ready to begin planting, the weather will be more cooperative than 2019's weather was.

There is a part of me that swears I am not growing an edible garden in 2020 because I'm going to be focused on the re-design and re-planting of the landscape, especially all the backbreaking work of removing bermuda grass and existing shrubs, groundcovers and vines, and then amending soil...and then planting....but I suspect I'll be unable to resist planting veggies somewhere, even if only in containers. This would be a idiotic decision of course, because just the work involved in keeping weeds out of the new landscape beds will require a massive investment of time, but I think it would be worse to be longing for veggies I didn't plant than to be moaning and groaning about having too much to do. I've planned all along to have peppers and tomatoes in pots, but then there's that nagging voice in my head saying "what about herbs...what about beans...what about melons...." so, y'all know what inevitably will happen. Perhaps I'll work in veggies in the landscape in the style of Rosalind Creasy, or perhaps I'll line up every container I can scrounge up and convert the back garden to a big container garden. The front garden is reserved for an informal cutting garden and butterfly/bee/hummingbird garden so I won't plant veggies there, I don't think, but I'll leave all the existing herbs as well as any that reseed and pop up as volunteers.

And, speaking of hummingbirds, we had another straggler migrating through today, eating for a long time at the hummingbird feeder just outside the living room window. I hope this little one hurries up and heads south before the weather gets persistently cold.

An October wedding sounds delightful! Yes, it will interfere in your gardening plans I'm sure, but it will be worth it.

Nancy, Roselles are tricky that way. I hope y'all get blooms and calyces on some of the plants but even if you don't, at least you've seen how they grow, the space they require, etc. and know what to expect. Because I was planting ours as succession crops to follow tomato, onion and bean plants, I planted them pretty late and we were lucky to get any harvest at all. The harvest would have been so much better if we'd had another 3 to 5 weeks before the first frost and freeze, but we didn't and that's life in the garden.

Partridge pea is a great butterfly plant for various sulphurs. Today I had the sleepy orange sulphurs on mine. You can have the packet of free partridge pea seeds they sent me if you want it. I won't be using it, and I don't want for the seeds to go to waste. You also can use poor soil for it as it tolerates it well, and deer don't seem to bother them either, so you could plant them in an out of the way semi-wild to wild spot if you want. I'm not sure how much shade they'll tolerate as the ones here are in full sun, but they grow with pasture grasses that get several feet taller than them, and the shade from the grasses do not seem to impede their growth in any way. Really, they are an ideal native plant----not picky about anything at all.

It was chilly when I walked Jesse this morning. I had worn a light flannel jacket, but the wind was really blowing this morning and I wished I'd worn a heavier coat and a hat and maybe even gloves because that wind was cold. Tomorrow I will wear that heavier coat. So, we're cool now, and then we warm up again for a couple of days and then we turn colder again. What a roller coaster this month has been, especially for areas further south. Poor plants! I wonder if the constant changing of their growing conditions bothers them at all? I have tall, older zinnias that were damaged on top by the cold but have great-looking growth lower down on the plants. Then, I have new, younger volunteer zinnia plants from 3 to 12" tall that are untouched, and some look just about ready to start forming flowers. Every morning is a surprise in the garden and the weather is to thank (or blame) for that.

I received 3 books in the mail today that I had ordered from Amazon on Sunday---and they reflect my interest in redoing the landscape. Two of them are by one of my favorite Texas garden writers/bloggers: Pam Penick. She is all about waterwise plants since she lives in the hot and thirsty Austin, TX area, and he uses a lot of native plants, so I'm looking forward to reading these two books of hers and learning from them. They're entitled: "Lawn Gone: Low Maintenance, Sustainable, Attractive Alternatives For Your Yard" (2013) and "The Water-Saving Gardener: How To Grow a Gorgeous Garden With A Lot Less Water" (2016). I've been wanting to read both of these books for so long and now I finally will. Of course, there's a billion other gardening books I want to read.....I read a lot of the gardening-with-wildlife types when we moved here because I did not want to accidentally destroy native plants and wildlife habitat that existed when we bought the place, but now I want to landscape our yard to make it less like a fairly traditional yard and more like the native landscape around us. The one exception is that I won't plant tall native grasses in our yard area around the house because grass fires and wildfires are too frequent here and I have no desire to grow more fuel for them, at least not close to our home and other structures. I might grow some of the shorter ones. Pam Penick uses a lot of hardscaping as grass replacement in her landscape, and I intend to do the same. None of y'all want to be within hearing distance when I tell Tim I want to buy rocks. lol. The third book is a Texas landscaping book by Creative Homeowner that has the legendary Texas plantsman Greg Grant as one of the co-authors. It includes actual designed landscapes and beds with suggested plants, at least some of which are native. I read the first edition when we moved here, and now I've got this one---the third edition. I remember it being a really useful book way back when, and I'm sure the third edition will be even better than the first edition was.

For the next four days we are birdsitting Chris and Jana's tropical birds while they take Lillie on a fall break trip to New Orleans. It will be the first time ever for Jana and Lillie to fly, and Lillie is especially excited about getting to eat her first beignets in an authentic New Orleans establishement. I think Chris has one of the famous beignet restaurants on the agenda for Friday morning's breakfast--he's one of those vacation people who plans every bit of the trip. I'm not looking forward to twice-a-day trips to Ardmore to feed and care for the birds, and to give them time out of their cages to hang out together and to hang out with humans, but it seemed easier to us to go up there to them (we suggested this option ourselves) than for them to pack up all those birds and their cages and move them down here just for a few days.

Today most of our Halloween outfits arrived in the mail, so we are ready for our friends' costume party at the end of the month. (This does sort of relate to gardening....). I am going as a bee (I even have wings as a part of my costume) and Tim is going to be the beekeeper---I bought him a real beekeeper outfit as a costume since he wants to start keeping bees after he retires. All we have to do is put up the beekeeper outfit after Halloween and then manage to not misplace it or lose it between now and whenever he retires and starts keeping bees.

Dawn

Oh Dawn, so much in that post to comment on! I loved the post and will try to ask questions and comment. . . but GDW and I can't stay up too late tonight; he has his other cataract surgery tomorrow.

Finally got my birthday shopping. Since I made the mistake of putting my gift card on my Amazon account instead of Cliff's (he has prime so free 2 day shipping) I had to wait a week to get it. Y'all have talked about hori knives so much so I got one. I can see where it'll be useful to have. I also got an herb drying tray (a gizmo with 4 round mesh shelves, so I can put the herbs in, zip it up & leave until they're dry). I've already harvested most of the herbs but I have some left to get. This should be better than random plates lying around on top of everything.

I grew a partridge pea one year, and discovered the seed pods pop open and shoot those seeds everywhere. So this year I had several pop up randomly. Next year I should have a bunch more volunteers, plus whatever seeds I start. Dawn's right, they seem to grow anywhere you plant them.

Jen, there is some way for you to be included on Cliff's prime. I'm on my daughter's. I will ask later how that happened.

H/J, roselles are a beautiful plant in October and they are easy maintenance. They are big plants in the ground. The better the soil, the bigger they get. If you're not doing a big garden, use them to screen areas you don't want to deal with.

Looking forward to hearing ideas about low water landscaping. I could never convince Ron to put in hardscaping. I've been scouring catalogs for short tough heat resistant ground covers for years looking for something that could replace bermuda. I've thrown lots of white Dutch clover seed on our yard, hoping it would take over. It has not. I think it likes more water than bermuda, so thrives in the low spots in the yard.

You all are binging on books, I'm thinking about easy spirit shoes. Books are cheaper.

Gotta go.

I have a day off on a lovely autumn morning and came here to ask a question before tackling my trusty list. That was an hour ago! It’s easy to get lost in all of the posts, so fun and so much knowledge! So here’s my “quick“ question! I have a female asparagus plant among my others which have red berries now. I also have an annoying bare space where the plants decided to stay put and never show their faces. Should I dig up and discard that plant? Can I harvest some berries first? I’ve read I can start them indoors about 14 weeks before the last frost date (mid April) but that’s 26 weeks away. Will the berries store until mid January? I’d love to fill in the bare spot! Any advice?

I've tried to post twice and they disappear. There were roselle pictures I think were causing the problem. maybe I'll try posting them on FB.

Hailey, my supposedly male asparagus have lots of berries, which the birds replant all over. You can still eat female asparagus, it is just a question of if you want asparagus weeds in your garden. My original plants were winter sown from seed. They are easy to grow from seed. It depends on your variety. Mine was a hybrid I thought might be sterile, but they're not. It certainly won't hurt to try. I, in my old age, tend to throw seeds on the ground and hope for the best. So, throw some berries in your bare spots and save some to start in spring.

Let's see if third time's a charm.

My pics are on FB. I made it a public post.

Hi haileybub. . . Yes, so much knowledge! Dawn, for next month's budget, I'm buying Lawn Gone! Thanks for the tip. Which Creative Homeowner book? I saw Annuals, Perennials, and Bulbs that looked like something I could use/might need. :)

Amy--depends on how many books. I think it's safe to say the total on books so far this autumn would be very competitive!

Garry's in sawing logs after his other cataract removal. I will probably be at some point, since I've been up since 4.

Amy, I think I'll buy some white clover to sprinkle generously, too. Maybe. I think I'll read Lawn Gone first. I see white clover thriving here where trees have been cut down, but then it kind of dies out. I am just sick about the Bermuda grass here, and at church, and at the school. There is just no way to get it out. All three properties are too big--but especially the church and school.

I LOVE your Halloween costumes, Dawn! Inspired. Next year you can go as a Monarch and a Monarch cat.

I need to go research some stuff. Best to you all.

Nancy, I hope that Garry's cataract surgery went well and that he is pleased with the results.

Jen, Hori-hori knives are immensely useful. I hope you enjoy yours and your new herb-drying tray as well. Happy Birthday to you!

The good thing about partridge pea is that the butterflies love it. Oh, and as a legume, I am sure it does improve the soil. If not for those two qualities, maybe we all would say it is too invasive and about as unwanted as bermuda grass. lol. Our neighbor's pasture is more sandy that our adjacent soil downhill, and I will say that partridge pea holds that sand in place really well and helps it resist erosion, so that would be another reason to love it. Oh, and it not only grows everywhere you plant it, it grows where you didn't plant it. It likes to pop up in our gravel driveway but Tim mows it down there.

haileybub, It is good to see you here. I hope your year is going well. I've had all-male asparagus make seeds too, perhaps because it is crossing with my other variety that is not all-male. I'm not sure. I have left the female plants if they are in the asparagus bed, and dug them up and discarded them if they pop up outside the bed. There's not a right or wrong here....you still will get asparagus from a female plant, it is just that the male plants direct all their energy to producing spears while female plants divert some energy to forming seeds, so male plants generally produce more heavily. I have reached the "I am sick of being the only one who eats all this asparagus stage" of life and have been trying really, really hard to kill all my asparagus plants (non-chemically) and am beginning to think it cannot be done. I'm going to try this winter to dig up the plants, which must be about 10-12 years old by now. I'd love to use that bed for something that either produces all season or looks good all season instead of for asparagus. When I ignore those little seeds and they fall to the ground, they make new plants everywhere, so I'd think you could collect your seeds and sow them if you want to. People grow asparagus from seed all the time. I can see that Amy and I have become much more casual growers now than we used to be. In my case it is because I've observed that most things reseed abundantly and resprout when the temperatures are right....all over the place....with no help from me. So, why gather the seeds, dry them, store them, sow them in flats, and nurse them along when Mother Nature does it just fine without us? If you choose to collect your seeds, just spread them out on a plate or something and let them dry really well before you store them so they won't mold.

I'm linking Tom Clothier's Seed Germination/Temperature data chart for you. The number in red is the soil temperature at which he got the highest percentage of seeds to sprout in the shortest amount of time.

Tom Clothier's Garden Walk and Talk

Amy, A lot of people on other forums have been mentioning having trouble posting photos here on Houzz. I have no idea why---lots of folks have questions, and no one seems to have answers. I did see your roselle plants on FB!

Nancy, The Creative Homeowners book is called: "Texas Landscaping: 48 Landscape Designs" and it also says "200+ Plants and Flowers Best Suited to the Region." Now, here is the funny part...on the map on the front cover of the book, it has OK and TX lit up in yellow on a green map, so clearly they are lumping OK in with TX although the title doesn't really specify that. lol. Then, on the back of the book, it says "Texas Home Landscaping, Including Oklahoma". As a native Texan who has chosen OK as my permanent home, this just makes me laugh. Really? Can we not just say "Texas and Oklahoma Landscaping"? However, this is common with many regional gardening books---the Texas books often include OK data but the title is aimed at the much larger market of gardeners in TX, which has a population The authors are Roger Holmes and Greg Grant, and its publication date is 2016. I love this book. It gave me lots of ideas when we first moved here, but I couldn't implement some of them because of the deer. So, I've been waiting a long time to put up a fence to keep out the deer so I can plant some of these plants. I'm pretty sure that my planting of crossvine (we did have it in Texas), trumpet creeper vine, chaste tree, salvia farinacea, crinum lily, verbena bonariensis, Russian sage, several different oaks, and coral honeysuckle all came from seeing them in the first edition of this book, which came out around the same time our house was being built here.

It is funny you mentioned the Monarch costumes. I already had bought my bees costume, but it didn't have wings. So, while searching for wings online, I found Monarch costumes at the same time and had the same thought about next year.

The kids are on the ground in New Orleans, in an Uber on their way to their AirB&B, etc., and Lillie is tickled pink...sending me new photos and text messages every couple of minutes. I'm not going to get anything done the rest of the night because I will be commenting back to her on her photos. lol.

Dawn

This is the one I landed on, Dawn! https://www.amazon.com/Annuals-Perennials-Bulbs-Step-Step/dp/1580118151

It seemed to be the most appropriate one for me. I'm excited to get both of these new books. And I received an email today from my favorite bookseller friends with a comprehensive list of sustainability books. (Most are approached from a Christian stewardship and strong commitments to sustainability.) I'll be drowning if I order even a few. They looked awesome.

Garry's procedure went well, we think. Thanks. There's really nothing to it anymore. He was in discomfort the first nearly two days last time. I DID make him stay away from outdoor work and bending a lot for longer than he thought he should. I'm going to wait til January to see about my eyes. I figure by then I'll be wanting to stay indoors. :)

Haha re Lillie, Dawn! What a great place to go for a trip. I've never been and always wanted to. Until I moved here.

Dawn, are any of those asparagus crowns able to be transplanted? I’d take a few off your hands if so.

Dawn, I'm sure you can manage a few veggies next year....for fresh eating at least.

Nancy, I hope Garry's cataract surgery went well today. My Mom had that done over the summer.

Jen, let us know what you think about the hori knife, although everyone but me probably already has one. It's on my wish list. I would like to see a picture of your herb drying trays. I need to be better with my herbs again. Once my garden got bigger and I started growing more veggies, my herbs have been somewhat neglected.

Amy, I am going to try the roselles, if not this next year, the one after.

Hi Hailey. Good to see you here. I have both male and female asparagus, I think. I get plenty to eat. I planted 16 crowns in 2 raised beds--8 in each bed. Honestly, I wish I would have only done one bed. However, we all like asparagus and so do many of my friends who are more than willing to take my extra garden produce. I am hoping to freeze asparagus next spring to put away for off season times.

Dawn, I think I have the Texas Creative Homeowners book that you're speaking of. It rudely "includes" Oklahoma in a small way that says "including Oklahoma". Well!

But, that didn't stop me from buying the book at a thrift store. It's a lot of fun to look at...and dream over. There's one design in the book that I really want for my back patio area.

I have been working my backside off on my wildlife garden. I have hired a man to help me because I dont walk well. I have burned 3 brush piles and we are working on 3 more. These three pile are from 2 or 3 years ago and have a lot of dirt and logs in them. I think I will pull some of the logs out and try to build a hugelkultur bed in a low area. I have already been working 2 days digging dirt and logs out of the pile, burning the logs and dumping the dirt in low areas. The wildlife garden looks like a disaster area now, but by next spring I plan on a pretty garden for the critters. I am thinking about planting blackberries on the hugelkultur mound. My plan on the mound is for it to be low enough to brushhog over to help control the berries. I have never tried, or even heard of this before, but willing to give it a try. But first I still have at least 10 more dump truck loads of dirt to move. My daughter is always telling my that I try to bite off more than I can chew. I am trying to fix this 8 + acres up for her, I already have the other 60 acres in pretty good shape.

Ordered my Halloween costume. Going to be a butterfly.

ROTFL, Rebecca! What kind?

Nancy, There's so many great gardening books out there, but nowadays I try to focus on regional ones because so many of the ones written for a nationwide audience focus on tons of plants that just don't like our soil and weather....I learned that the hard way....by getting all excited about plants that hate it here. I could read gardening books endlessly, though, to the point that I'd never get any actual gardening done, and if I read too many, I end up bogged down in analysis paralysis.

Rebecca, I have no idea about the asparagus. It is a really complicated setting. If I can dig the plants, I can save them for you, and I'd be happy to do that. With as closely as they are planted, and as old as they are, I suspect they've all grown together in one big mass that I won't even be able to dig up, and it is likely that tree roots from the adjacent woodland are intermingled with the asparagus roots because that is a persistent issue with anything perennial in the northern half of the garden, which is why most of the perennial plants are in the southern half of the garden. I won't know until I try to dig the asparagus, but I haven't tried before now because I am 99% sure it isn't possible. Tim dreams of renting a Bobcat to dig it, but that would involve removing the garden fence for access, and rebuilding the garden fence afterward, and rebuilding all the raised beds after the Bobcat destroys them, so it isn't going to happen...ever! It took us over 20 years to build this garden and I'm not going to let him destroy it in one day with a Bobcat. Anyhow, when he saw the rental fee for one he almost had a stroke, so that is that.

Jennifer, I'm sure I'll find a way, even though I worry about finding the time to take care of the edible crops while redoing all our landscaping. In a perfect world, there would be time to do it all, but I live in a world where there's never enough time to do all the things that need to be done, and I know that's not gonna change. I think container gardening will be the answer for us in 2020. My biggest fear is a bad wildfire winter and spring that keep us from getting any of the prep work done in the gardening off-season.

There are some really nice landscape designs in the Creative Homeowners book. I'm hoping to glean some great ideas from it....I probably won't follow any one plan exactly, but I may use some as a general outline for a few specific areas.

Larry, You are working too hard, and I'm glad you hired someone to help you. I wish our land was in as good of a shape as yours is. We'll never get the woodland into the shape we want because everything grows like mad, but we're perpetually removing invasive and overly aggressive plants from it so they won't overrun the native plants we love.

I haven't gotten any lawn or garden chores done this week, but my roselles are canned, the mums are blooming, and I haven't forgotten to bring in the 3 tropical plants from the porch on any of the very cold nights we have been having....we went to 38 degrees a couple of nights ago when the forecast was for 45....so I bring in the tropicals on any night we're supposed to go below 50 degrees just to be safe. The drive up to Ardmore twice daily to take care of Chris and Jana's birds is eating up our days this weekend, but we don't mind doing it. They are having so much fun on their trip, and it helps that they know their bird-children are well cared for while they are away. When Chris and Jana go on their honeymoon cruise in December, I think we'll get them to bring the birds down here, as they offered to do this time, even though it is a lot of work to transport all those cages. I would worry that we might have an ice storm in December (or their heating system could fail, and who would know?) and then we couldn't get up there to the birds because of the roadways. At least if the birds are here, a December ice storm doesn't matter, and we have a generator to run a couple of space heaters if there is a power outage or whatever.

Today I noticed that the persimmons and elms are really coloring up quickly now---not just those vague tinges of orange and yellow to the still mostly green leaves, but some leaves now are fully orange or yellow. It is more obvious in low-lying areas than up on the ridges and high ground, which I find interesting. The pecans are dropping brown leaves, likely as a result of that 27-degree night last week. All the sumacs and poison ivy are really red. Still, probably 98% of the trees still are green. It doesn't look a lot like autumn yet, and it doesn't feel a whole lot like autumn yet, but autumn feels a little bit closer every day.

Dawn

Dawn, I think you would enjoy a small tractor. There is very little around here that I could do if I did not have the equipment to do it with. I have know for a long time that my body was going down hill. ( everyone's does ) I have been planning ahead for several years. Now that I am old and beat up, I can still do a lot of work, but it has to be done from a tractor seat. My next step is to get another zero turn mower, one will be to mow with, the other will be more like a powered wheelchair. I have already widened the rows in my garden to accommodate the zero turn mower, which also has a hand rail across the front of it to aid in getting on and off. The small tractor will also fit between the rows in the garden. I know that someday I will have to give up, but I am not ready yet.

Nancy, not sure if it has a kind, but it has soft fluttery wings in shades of blue and green. I’ll wear all black with them.

Pictures, Rebecca! (of you in your butterfly costume!)

Or wear it to SF in April. haha.

Dawn, how many birds does Chris have?

Larry, you are amazing.

We sprayed our pecan tree. It has these large, beautiful nuts that always are ruined by weevils. Such a disappointment. Having a pecan tree on our property was such a bonus to me. When I found this home online over 5 years ago, I knew it was our home. The house/property wasn't pretty by any means, but the potential was so great. Anyway...I was thrilled to learn we had a pecan tree. We've never enjoyed a single nut from this tree. We talked to an arborist and decided to spray it. He suggested using a non organic method this first time to get it under control and then to practice organic methods in the future.

We also purchased a Chinese Pistache for the front yard. I'm excited about it. It's only taken us 5 years to get a tree for the front yard!

I haven't done a stinkin' thing to the garden. The clean up needs to be finished.

The broccoli looks like it's recovering from the frost. The brussels sprouts look fine. The cauliflower is the most unhappy.

I am hoping to spend Monday cleaning up the garden and possibly adding wood chips to the pathways. The house is mostly clean, so I feel like I can indulge myself by spending Monday outdoors. I still have pansies that need planting too.

Larry, I probably would use a small tractor for a while as we redo the landscape, but I'm not sure we'd use it after that. Our property is a strongly sloping creek hollow with very little level land (the house, southern side yard, back yard, detached garage and greenhouse pretty much fill up all the flat land), and once when Tim tried to mow with a friend's tractor and brush hog, it was a disaster because the land was too hilly and rough and the tractor didn't do well on the high spots or the low spots. We'll probably never have a tractor for that reason. I'd love to have one that made the tough jobs easier, but it doesn't seem like a practical tool for us unless we hire someone to come in and level the unforested parts of our land, which I doubt we ever will because of soil compaction issues with red clay. Now, if a tractor fell from the sky....we'd take it!

Don't give up until you're ready!

My plan for old-age gardening is a container garden, and I may start converting the back garden to a large container garden area this Spring. I will lay it out with really wide paths so it can work for us without modification later on in our lives. I couldn't do it all at once, but perhaps bit by bit over the next few years I could add more containers until the garden space was full.

When Fred first gave me molasses feed tubs for growing tomatoes, he thought I was nuts to go to all the trouble to fill them up, etc., and to use them, until he saw how well the plants grew with so little soil-tending and weeding. His son lined up 4 or 5 molasses fed tubs for him the next year on an elevated surface of old tables so Fred, who had perpetual back trouble, could garden at the waist level instead of bending over, and Fred was so happy he stopped giving me molasses feed tubs because he began using them all himself. I was thrilled for him. He still had traditional row crops in the ground like corn, beans, melons, peas, etc. but his tomatoes and peppers too, I think, forever after were grown in molasses feed tubs. This allowed him to garden all throughout his 80s and into his 90s, though his son increasingly took over all the row crops while Fred tended the container crops. He was such a happy camper. I think we call be happy campers later in life if we just make the modifications that suit us and allow us to continue gardening in some shape, form or fashion.

Jennifer, There's 7 birds: 4 Quakers: Arthur, Guinevere, Ducky (a male) and Sarah--they are two bonded pairs (A&G and D&S), and he's had them since about 2008 or 2009. He has two bonded parolets, Sunny and Leia, and one canary-winged parakeet---BeBe. He rescued Artie and Gwennie from an uncaring who left them in a cage and didn't interact with them---they were unsociable and depressed, but improved quickly under Chris' care. BeBe belonged to a sweet little old lady for many years, and she became Chris' bird after that lady passed away and none of her children wanted BeBe. While BeBe bonded slowly with Chris, she adored Jana from Day 1 and is Jana's bird now, practically speaking. Ducky is brilliantly smart and can carry on quite a conversation. I can ask him "where's daddy?" and he'll tell me "Daddy had to work today". It cracks me up. He will talk to you all day long if you'll talk to him and listen to his answers and respond to what he says. So, when we are taking care of them, we don't just uncover their cages and give them food and water, etc. We let them out of their cages and let them fly around indoors, sit on our laps or shoulders, play with toys, talk with us, etc. so we're up there for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening. They are great pets and can live for decades, so they are quite a commitment. Chris, Jana and the girls love their birds, and we birdsit for them several times a year. Each bird has its own personality and you have to know what it is in order to interact well with them---it has taken me years to get to know them as well as I do now.

I still cannot find any cool-season annuals to plant. I don't know if I waited too long, or if they aren't in the stores yet, or if they had them earlier when it was in the 90s and the poor things burned up in the heat or what. I'm going to go plant shopping tomorrow and try to find something. We have worked so hard between trying to get the exterior of the house painted and the birds taken care of....and the house isn't done yet, but it is about 80% done and maybe we can finish it tomorrow afternoon after we do the weekly grocery shopping (and some plant shopping). If we shop too long (I really want to find some plants), I can work on painting Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. As far as I know, we are through with birdsitting. Chris, Jana and Lillie are on their way home---having rented a car this afternoon to drive home after their flight home was postponed at least 3 times and about 7 or 8 hours. Chris had a feeling it would be delayed even longer, since he works at an international airport and knows how these things go. When I talked to them they had a 7-hour drive ahead of them, so if all goes well they should be home pretty much any time now.

I did notice that the dianthus plants in the garden are starting to bloom now---they must be liking the cooler weather---but I'd like to have some pansies and violas to go with them. They usually arrive in the stores here in flats in October and it is October now. I haven't seen those plants in the stores, but Home Depot is full of fake Christmas trees, fake wreaths, and real 'living Christmas trees' of various kinds in pots, and rosemary plants sheared into Xmas tree shapes, and such. They also still have lots of warm-season bedding plants, though I don't know who would buy those now that we are a month away from our average first freeze date and already have had a killing freeze anyway. There's still a lot of nursery stock, especially shrubs, on hand and, if I could make up my mind about what I want to plant in the Spring, I could buy them now and hold them over the winter until the soil is ready in Spring 2020. I bet I'd do a better job of keeping them watered and protected from the cold than the local big box stores will. So, I think a plant shopping trip is definitely happening tomorrow, and who knows what I might bring home. There's definitely some plants I know that I want for sure, so if I could find those, I wouldn't hesitate to buy them now even if I can't plant them yet.

Dawn