Hort shorts
- Harvest turnip roots when they are 2 to 3 inches in diameter but before heavy frosts occur in the fall.
- Pick any green tomatoes before frost and wrap them individually in newspaper in a cool room to ripen.
- Some plants that are considered tender perennials in your growing zone may survive year-round in warm or sheltered “microclimates” in your landscape. For example, experiment with a planting near a south-facing masonry wall.
- Pick outer leaves of collards and kale, as desired, for cooking. Leave a central growing point and plants will continue to produce new leaves.
- Bring houseplants inside before evening temperatures dip below 45 degrees F. Check for insects and disease and treat before introducing plants indoors. Re-pot any leggy plants. Reduce amount of watering.
- Plant garlic from mid-September through November, depending on your location (on the earliest side of the range in the western parts of the state). Garlic needs adequate time for roots to develop before winter and about a 2-month cold period for robust bulbs to form in spring. Spring planting is least optimal.
- Direct-sow seeds of larkspur, poppies, love-in-a-mist, sweet peas and bachelor’s buttons now for next year’s bloom.
- Cover fallow beds with layers of newspaper topped with mulch or leaves, or sow cover crops such as winter rye, buckwheat and clover.
- If the fall has been dry, give perennials a thorough final soaking before the ground freezes.
- Rake and dispose of any diseased leaves in rose beds. Prune and remove any dead or diseased wood from the plants.