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Working on sprucing up the blog for this gardening season, a little at a time! My first step was installing a new comment system, which I’m really not sure about yet. Let me know what you think – is it a keeper?
Another “change” is I’m willing to review gardening products finally…I’ve been asked in the past but hesitated and ended up not doing them. This year however, I’ll do a free HONEST review of your garden product, targetting a large and wonderful gardener audience. Limited to one a week. Just email me for the mailing address and what you’re sending. Products sent for review won’t be returned.
Can you believe it’s the first day of Autumn already and almost October? The stores are filled with Halloween and Autumn decorations and quickly filling up more with Winter/Christmas decorations. Crazy!
If you live in Oregon, OSU’s Extension Service has a great calendar to let you know what you should be doing each month.
Here’s October:
Planning
- If needed, improve soil drainage needs of lawns before rain begins.
- Register to become an OSU Master Gardener volunteer with your local Extension office. For more information, check online.
Maintenance and Clean Up
- Drain or blow out your irrigation system, insulate valve mechanisms, in preparation of winter.
- Recycle disease-free plant material and kitchen vegetable and fruit scraps into compost. Don’t compost diseased plants unless you are using the “hot compost” method (120° to 150°F).
- Use newspaper or cardboard covered by mulch to discourage winter and spring annual weeds or remove a lawn area for conversion to garden beds. For conversion, work in the paper and mulch as organic matter once the lawn grass has died.
- Clean and paint greenhouses and cold frames for plant storage and winter growth.
- Harvest sunflower heads; use seed for birdseed or roast for personal use.
- Dig and store potatoes; keep in darkness, moderate humidity, temperature about 40°F. Discard unused potatoes if they sprout. Don’t use as seed potatoes for next year.
- Harvest and immediately dry filberts and walnuts; dry at 95° to 100°F.
- Ripen green tomatoes indoors. Check often and discard rotting fruit.
- Harvest and store apples; keep at about 40°F, moderate humidity.
- Place mulch over roots of roses, azaleas, rhododendrons and berries for winter protection.
- Trim or stake bushy herbaceous perennials to prevent wind damage.
- To suppress future pest problems, clean up annual flower beds by removing diseased plant materials, overwintering areas for insect pests; mulch with manure or garden compost to feed the soil and suppress weeds.
- Cover asparagus and rhubarb beds with a mulch of manure or compost.
- Clean, sharpen and oil tools and equipment before storing for winter.
- Store garden supplies and fertilizers in a safe, dry place out of reach of children.
- Prune out dead fruiting canes in raspberries.
- Western Oregon: Train and prune primocanes of raspberry
- Western Oregon: Harvest squash and pumpkins; keep in dry area at 55° to 60°F.
- Western Oregon: If necessary (as indicated by soil test results) and if weather permits, spade organic material and lime into garden soil.
- Central/eastern Oregon: Prune evergreens.
Planting/Propagation
- Dig and divide rhubarb. (Should be done about every 4 years.)
- Plant garlic for harvesting next summer.
- Propagate chrysanthemums, fuchsias, geraniums by stem cuttings.
- Save seeds from the vegetable and flower garden. Dry, date, label, and store in a cool and dry location.
- Plant ground covers and shrubs.
- Dig and store geraniums, tuberous begonias, dahlias, gladiolas.
- Pot and store tulips and daffodils to force into early bloom, indoors, in December and January.
Pest Monitoring and Management
- Monitor landscape plants for problems. Don’t treat unless a problem is identified.
- Remove and dispose of windfall apples that might be harboring apple maggot or codling moth larvae.
- Rake and destroy diseased leaves (apple, cherry, rose, etc.), or hot compost diseased leaves.
- Spray apple and stone fruit trees at leaf fall to prevent various fungal and bacterial diseases. Obtain a copy of Managing Diseases and Insects in Home Orchards (EC 631) from your local Extension office.
- If moles and gophers are a problem, consider traps.
- Western Oregon: Control fall-germinating lawn weeds while they are small. Hand weeding and weeding tools are particularly effective at this stage.
Houseplants and Indoor Gardening
- Early October: Reduce water, place in cool area (50-550F) and increase time in shade or darkness (12-14 hours) to force Christmas cactus to bloom in late December.
- Place hanging pots of fuchsias where they won’t freeze. Don’t cut back until spring.
- Western Oregon: Check/treat houseplants for disease and insects before bringing indoors.
I know at least one of my readers is a Master Gardener, but most are not and I wanted to spread the word. I’m not going to get a chance to go through the program this year (too busy!) so I hope someone can “take my place” (even though I didn’t have an official one!).
The Oregon State University Master Gardener™ Program is an Oregon State University (OSU) Extension Service program that educates Oregonians about the art and science of growing and caring for plants. This program also facilitates the training of a highly educated corp of volunteers. These volunteers extend sustainable gardening information to their communities through education and outreach programs.
There’s even an online course! More information: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/mg/training
 I found this cute planter while searching for organizing supplies for a post on my organizing blog, that would look nice on my deck and allow portability in a move. And kind of matches the two hanging planters that I used last year, but I killed the flowers I had in it (I haven’t bothered hanging them in the new house). I can’t keep anything alive that doesn’t provide us with food. And ok, that’s becoming questionable too. I still don’t know why all the red taters died while all the russets flourished. Sigh.
While contemplating how to create the layout of my garden this year, I stumbled upon GrowVeg.com I didn’t even bother looking for anything else, it’s exactly what I wanted, and more. The GrowVeg system lets you:
- Create Plans: Quickly produce garden plans, add plants and change the layout. Either metric units or feet and inches are supported.
- Growing information: Just click for full details of how to grow each plant, where to position them etc
- Spacing and Crop Families: Clearly shown by the colored area around each vegetable
- Personalized Planting Chart: Print a chart showing how many of each plant you require and when to sow, plant out and harvest them. Our advanced system works out the dates for your own area.
- Reminder Emails: Reminds you what needs sowing and planting out in your garden (optional)
- Easy Crop Rotation: Plan next year’s garden and it shows you where to avoid planting each vegetable
So not only can you create a map, you can organize where to put the plants based on family if you want, and it tells you when to start the seeds and transplant them if needed. You get a 30 day free trial, after that it’s $25/year, or $40 for 2 years. While the company is in the UK, the system is completely set up for you to enter your zip code and recieve customized planting date information. Try it!
One more resource, from the Oregon State University Extension Office – http://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/calendar/
Also, the main OSU Extension Office Gardening page: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/
This is for March (notice the part where it says “if soil is dry enough”… DRY? What is this DRY you speak of????), I am happy to see them emphasize non-toxic methods.
Oregon State University Extension Service encourages sustainable gardening practices. Always identify and monitor problems before acting. First consider cultural controls; then physical, biological, and chemical controls (which include insecticidal soaps, horticultural oils, botanical insecticides, organic and synthetic pesticides). Always consider the least toxic approach first.
All recommendations in this calendar are not necessarily applicable to all areas of Oregon. For more information, contact your local office of the OSU Extension Service.
Western Oregon: If soil is dry enough, begin vegetable garden soil preparation and plant cool- season crops (peas, lettuce, cabbage, onions, kale, chard).
Central Oregon: Plant seed flats of cole crops (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts).
Central Oregon: Plant chard.
Divide hosta, daylilies, and mums.
Plan and plant an edible landscape or flower bed.
If you lack in-ground gardening space, plan a container garden: grow radishes, carrots, lettuce, and tomatoes (during the warm season).
Fertilize evergreen shrubs and trees.
Monitor landscape plants for problems. Do not treat unless a problem is identified.
If necessary, treat crowns of raspberry plants with registered insecticides to control raspberry cane borer.
Western Oregon: Plant berry crops (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, currants, gooseberries, and other berry-producing crop plants). See OSU Extension publications for varieties.
Western Oregon: Fertilize caneberries (broadcast or band a complete fertilizer or manure).
Prune gooseberries and currants; fertilize with manure or a complete fertilizer.
Spray trees and shrubs for webworms and leafrollers, if present.
Western Oregon: Take geraniums, begonias, and fuchsias from storage. Water and fertilize. Cut back if necessary. Move outdoors next month.
Fertilize rhododendrons, camellias, azaleas with acid-type fertilizer.
Spray to control leaf and twig fungus diseases in sycamore, hawthorn, and willow trees.
Use stored scion wood to graft fruit and ornamental trees.
Treat lawns for European crane fly if damage has been diagnosed.
Spread compost over garden and landscape areas.
Western Oregon: Best time of year to thatch and renovate lawns.
Plan the vegetable garden carefully for spring, summer, and fall vegetables that can be eaten fresh or preserved.
Learn to identify the predatory insects that can help to keep aphids and other pests under control.
Protect new plant growth from slugs. Use bait or traps.
Western Oregon: Prune spring-flowering shrubs after blossoms fade.
Trim or shear heather when bloom period is finished.
Start tuberous begonias indoors.
Plant insectary plants to attract beneficial insects to the garden.
Do not compost grass clippings from lawns where weed-and-feed products or herbicides have been used.
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Salem, OR
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