Community Corner

Weekend Gardener: Improving Your Soil

Weeding strawberries, saving seeds and more great advice as we head into fall

Our garden expert Laura Stone of in West Tisbury has the following ideas for what to do in your garden this weekend:

Fall is a good time for improving your garden soil. Add manure, compost and leaves to increase the organic matter content.

Do not wait for frost warnings to move your plants indoors. Temperatures of 45 degrees Fahrenheit or lower can damage many tropical houseplants

Be sure to keep strawberry beds weed free. Every weed you pull now will help make weeding much easier next spring.

Save seeds from favorite self-pollinating, non-hybrid flowers such as marigolds by allowing the flower heads to mature. Lay seeds on newspaper and turn them often to dry. Store the dry seeds in glass jars or envelopes in a cool, dry, dark place

Select accent plants for your landscape that will provide autumn colors. Trees that have red fall color are flowering dogwood, red maple, sugar maple, Norway maple, red oak and scarlet oak. Shrubs with red fall foliage include sumac, viburnum, winged euonymus and barberry.

Enjoy the Derby Everyone! But Don't forget about your garden ;)


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