Thank you to everyone who visited the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society鈥檚 Fall Plant and Bulb Sale last week, we hope you found some great treasures for your garden! We鈥檙e always happy to see our gardening friends and appreciate your support. Thank you also to all members of the group who contributed plants and helped with the sale in any way, your efforts make it all happen!
Were you at our meeting last week? Thank you to John Tropin for a wonderful and very interesting presentation about Holland, what a beautiful place!
Fall is a great time to plant those new additions to our gardens. For one thing, the soil is still warm from the summer, and this encourages the plant鈥檚 roots to settle in.聽 It鈥檚 good to plant perennials about four weeks before the first hard frost.聽
Once we have planted our plants, we should water them in well, and if we can, top dress them with some compost or organic matter. This gives them a little extra vitamin treat.
And on a practical note, we should put in a stake or marker by our new plant, just so we don鈥檛 forget where and what it is! I think we have all had the experience of digging a plant up by mistake in our spring enthusiasm, so marking those new plants is a good idea!
We are always reading about adding 鈥渙rganic matter鈥� to our gardens.聽 What is organic matter?聽 We all know about compost, vegetative waste that has broken down into brown gold, the best treat for our gardens. But we can also add leaves and grass clippings as well to help our soil.
Why does organic matter, matter? Organic matter puts valuable nutrients into our soil, and it also helps create an atmosphere where various soil organisms can live happily, and they do wonders for our soil.聽 Organic matter loosens the soil and helps water and air move through much easier than if the soil is dense and compacted. Organic matter also helps our soil stay moist.
Not all of us are able to have a compost pile, but we can still make organic matter happen in our soil! Perhaps you have already been using grass clippings as mulch in your garden. Good for you! By now the grass clippings will be brown and breaking down, excellent for the soil.
Now that the leaves are falling, we can collect them with the lawn mower, which will partially shred them, and use this as a ground cover on our gardens.聽 They will break down nicely over the winter. I read somewhere that we can put our leaves in a tall garbage can, then put the whipper snipper in there and it will slice and dice those leaves into a fine, crumbly mixture to spread on the garden and then work into the soil in the spring.
And once our plants are gone from the garden, and there is that blank canvas waiting for next spring, we can make mini-compost happen by making a deep 鈥渞ow鈥� and putting a layer of kitchen vegetable waste: veggie peels, banana peels, apple cores, and eggshells. Cover this over with soil, and you will be amazed how it breaks down over winter. But remember: never put meat scraps or bones of any kind into any kind of compost situation. They belong in the garbage and only in the garbage.
If you are moved to purchase a small composter, you will find that it is a very worthwhile investment for your garden. It certainly helps to make us aware of how many things can go back into our soil, making our garden richer and more productive.
Visit us at www.yorktonhort.ca, and have a great week!聽
