Garden almanac

Fall Tilling

Fall tilling in the garden and annual flowerbed is the best time. When you are ready to plant in April with the early spring crops the soil is ready with reduced weed interference.

In the fall the soil is dryer and will compact less. Add organic matter to be dug down like peat moss, compost, or rotting straw, hay, alfalfa matter. These materials will decompose over the winter helping build stronger plant roots in the spring.

Tilled soil also helps control disease and weeds. Also, the garden will catch snow improving soil moisture for the spring.

You should not till more than once a year because it breaks down the soil particles too much especially for clay soils. Many gardeners now plant using the built-up method (no-till) walking only on walkways. Just make sure you remove any disease plants or weeds from the garden.

Garden Pests

Carrot Weevil

Who is eating these tunnels in my carrots? They all called the carrot weevil. The adult in a tiny brown bug with a snout laying eggs on the crown of the carrot. The little white worms burrow down on the taproot leaving tunnels along the root.

Carrot weevil damage on carrots
Carrot Weevil Damage

If you have them this year, you will have them next year. The best control is prevention by digging up the garden in the fall and removing the debris from the garden. Crop rotation in the garden is the best way to prevent many problems. They are worse in wetter years than dry years.

You can use a drench of Neem oil (mixed with equal parts of water in a sprinkling can) and saturate the ground where the carrots are growing. If you see the weevils before they lay eggs, you can spray with Malathion.

These weevils attack parsnips, but to a much lesser extent.

Halloween

Halloween Outdoor Decorations

Everyone is looking for something to do with the kids this year for Halloween outdoor decorations. As a family, get an old pair of pants and shirt, stuff with straw, and place on a stake or set it on a straw bale with the stake in the bale. Stick a pumpkin head on it and you got a ghoulish scarecrow!


Blow up some balloons and glue white or black gauze on them and hang them in trees as witches or ghosts. I know someone each year that dips his bare feet in red paint (washable paint) and leaves footprints up the sidewalk.

Ideas are endless like taking paper towel rolls and cutting eyes in them, placing a glow stick in the roll then hide them in the bushes to stare out. Using plywood to make gravestones or pallets for cages.