More Fall Gardening Thoughts
By Bruce Lee Deuley - 10/22/03

This week I will highlight more on preparing your flowers, shrubs, lawn and other growing areas in and around the house in anticipation of the soon to come colder weather.

Fertilize your existing beds of Iris and other naturalized bulbs with a well-rotted manure, composted manure or one of the locally available bagged organic fertilizers. A few inches of mulch on top is also in order if you don’t already have your bulbs mulched.

Now is a good time to divide and transplant any crowded perennials. Also, dig and store you caladium bulbs. Be sure to dust them with a light coating of Potassium bicarbonate before storing them away.

If your are going to over-winter ginger’s or other tropical plants outdoors be sure to mulch thoroughly to retain soil moisture and protect the roots from the cold. The mulch will also help to suppress weeds this fall and next spring.

If you haven’t already applied organic fertilizer to your lawn, now is the time. Don't have an established lawn area? Now is the time to apply 8 pounds of rye grass seen per each 1,000 square feet of future lawn area. The Rye grass will hold and improve the soil. Once it is up and growing mow it about once a week and leave the clippings on the area as a “green manure” and to hold the soil until you can established your permanent lawn.

It is too late in the year to seed Bermuda but, you can sod a lawn any time of the year if you can find the sod. Just be sure to roll the sod with a lawn roller until you are sure you have eliminated all of the air pockets under the new sod. If you don’t roll it thoroughly, you are sure to have brown spots where the roots are not in good contact with the soil.

If you are going to try to grow Tulips, Daffodils or Hyacinth bulbs, now is the time to purchase them so they can be chilled long enough to produce beautiful flowers next spring. Some people say not to keep them in your vegetable crisper but if works fine for me. Try to chill them at least 8 weeks but 12 weeks seems to work even better for me.

For those of you who are vegetable gardeners, the end of October is the time to put in your spinach, Garlic, Mustard, multiplier onions and shallots as well as any of the Cole crops you haven’t already planted.

The fall may well be the best time of the year for growing here in the hill country

Good Gardening!