Garden Tips Newsletter
September 14, 2009
Basil
Don’t wait until frost is forecast to preserve your basil for winter
use. Cut plants back by one-third. Dry trimmings or process them in
a food processor with some vegetable oil, and freeze. Then feed plants
with liquid 20-20-20. You’ll probably be able to harvest one more time
before frost.
Cleanup
To help prevent pest problems next season, rake up rotten fruit beneath
peach, plum, pear and apple trees. If camellia petal blight was a problem
last winter, replace the old mulch with new. Tidy your garden by pulling
out tired annuals and cutting back ragged perennials. Fill bare areas
with marigolds, mums, ornamental cabbage or kale, or simply mulch to
give beds a groomed appearance. Pansies will be available soon, if
not already, so save some space for these.
Pine Needle Mulch
If you have pines, or have access to pines in the neighborhood, gather
needles as they begin to fall. You will have a few weeks when the pines
shed, but the deciduous trees are still holding their leaves. So, you
can get clean pine needles gathered and bagged for use later in the
season.
Dried Arrangements
Cut plant material now for dried bouquets this winter. Consider dried
hydrangea blossoms, over-mature okra pods, iris and hibiscus seed pods,
purple coneflower or rudbeckia seedheads and seedheads of ornamental
grasses. Supplement your bouquet with other cones, pods, lichens, abandoned
wasp nests, or moss for that woodsy, natural look.
Lelia Scott Kelly, Ph.D., writes Garden Tips weekly and is a Horticulture Specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. Her office is in the North Mississippi Research & Extension Center, Verona.