6 more things to do in your garden during October

October Garden by Ravenelle

In the last post, TheGardenLady gave a list of 9 things you should do in your garden before the frost of Fall arrives.  Here are 6 more suggestions:

1.  Pull up diseased plants especially tomatoes, squash and potato plants. Do NOT compost these diseased plants. Bag them and toss them out.

2.  Cut back dead perennials where slugs, snails and other pests might hide. But remember to leave some plants for birds and butterflies.

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9 Things You Can Do in Your Garden before a Frost

Garden set up for fall frosts by Carolannie–temporaril…

Fall is a busy time of year for gardeners.  Here are 9 of the many things you can do before a frost:

1. Start planting bulbs. This is the time to plant those bulbs you want to bloom next spring- like daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, crocuses, etc. You can plant bulbs until there is a hard frost. You can order them from catalogs. TheGardenLady has a number of favorite bulb catalogs.  The nice thing about catalogs is that they send you the bulbs when it is the best time to plant them in your area. But, of course, you can buy bulbs in your local stores if you prefer.

2. Build yourself or buy a compost bin if you don’t already have one.  Sometimes it is best to have at least two compost bins.  There are many instructions for building them online.

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When To Plant Seedlings Outdoors

April 16th: Seedlings galore by flickrich

TheGardenLady received this question about starter planting.

We have plants that we started in the window and green beans are 4 in and our corn is right behind. We have other veggies that are a little slower. We live in Olathe Kansas. When can we put them all out?

People read the directions on packages of seeds and often it says to start the seeds by first planting them indoors a certain number of weeks before the last frost date and after that last frost to transplant the seedlings outdoors. The seed companies cannot tell you when to plant seeds outdoors because they have no idea where the purchaser lives.

Each temperature zone has a different last frost date – some Temp. zones don’t always get a frost some years. And even in the same Temp. zone no one knows exactly when the last frost date will be. Where you live might be warmer because you are near the ocean or colder because of various reasons. So how are you supposed to know?  (see here)

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