Gardening Calendar

Ornamentals

• Continue planting evergreens now.
• Weeks 1-3: Cuttings of annuals can be taken now to provide vigorous plants for overwintering.
• Weeks 2-4: Except tulips, spring bulbs may be planted as soon as they are available. Tulips should be kept in a cool, dark place and planted in late October.
• Weeks 2-3: Begin readying houseplants for winter indoors. Prune back rampant growth and protruding roots. Check for pests and treat if necessary. Houseplants should be brought indoors at least one month before the heat is normally turned on.
• Week 3: Poinsettias can be forced into bloom for Christmas if they are moved indoors now to a sunny windowsill. Each night, they must be kept in a cool, dark place where there is no light for 14 hours. This must continue until proper color is achieved in 6-10 weeks.

Fruits

• Week 1: Pick pears before they are fully mature. Store in a cool, dark basement to ripen.
• Weeks 3-4: Bury or discard any spoiled fallen fruits.
• Week 4: Paw paws ripen in the woods now.
• Week 4: Check all along peach tree trunks to just below soil line for gummy masses caused by borers. Probe holes with thin wire to puncture borers.

Vegetables

• Weeks 1-2: Sowing seeds of radish, lettuce, spinach and other greens in a cold frame will prolong fall harvests.
• Weeks 2-4: Keep broccoli picked regularly to encourage additional production of side shoots.
• Weeks 3-4: Pinch off any young tomatoes that are too small to ripen. This will channel energy into ripening the remaining full-size fruits.

Turfgrass

• Begin fall seeding or sodding of cool season grasses. Seedbeds should be raked, dethatched or core-aerified, fertilized and seeded. Keep newly planted lawn areas moist, but not wet.
• Cool season lawns are best fertilized in fall. Make up to three applications between now and December. Do not exceed rates recommended by fertilizer manufacturer.
• Weeks 3-4: 4: Newly seeded lawns should not be cut until they are at least two or three inches tall.

Miscellaneous

• Autumn is a good time to add manure, compost or leaf mold to garden soils for increasing orgainc matter content.
• Weeks 2-4: Seasonal loss of inner needles on conifers is normal at this time. It may be especially noticeable on pines.