The gardening news of the week came in the mail - fall catalogues from the seed and nursery companies.
In past columns we’ve talked about doing some fall plantings - a second garden and bulbs to bring spring flowers. Another reason for fall orders is to place your order now for items to be shipped come Spring.
As we’ve said in past columns regular seeds can come anytime, but plants will be shipped ready for planting.
Another reason for ordering now is for people with an indoor greenhouse or garden. There you have your garden in deep cake pans or spare flower pots. That could provide, for example, fresh lettuce, radishes and other things which grow fast and take up little space (no tomatoes, cucumbers or squash).
As for outside plantings, a recent catalogue gave us some interesting ideas. In addition to regular trees and bushes, they have grafted fruit trees. And one special of an orchard in several trees (5 kinds of pears, several kinds of peaches, apples, and other fruit). Might be interesting raising short trees which won’t need a ladder to harvest come fall or when ripe.
Since this is October ending with Halloween we did look up the selections of pumpkins which included seeds for the giant pumpkin (1,000 pounds and up). Seeds are 70-80 cents each depending on quantity purchased,
On the next page are watermelon seeds including a giant watermelon with current top weight of 262 pounds (book of records). Might be nice contribution for a church dinner or family reunion.
Back inside the house be sure to check and care for your house plants.
Until next week.
