Rain

Get all of your garden equipment out of the rain. (I found several tools still out inthe elements!)

Store roto tillers and tools in a dry area. Remove all of the dirt so they doesn't rust the tools.

If you have veges in the garden (like tomatoes, squash or pumpkins) you may think of putting plastic or tarp over them to shed the water so they dry out. If it rains too much, the veges will start to rot.

Be Aware

The spiders are moving into houses as the weather turns colder. Claulk holes and put up sealing around doors. Traps and put back outdoors.

Time to set out Decon or mouse or field mouse snap traps, as the mice move into the garages to find warmers space.

Keep the leaves mulched and/or raked.

Store squash and pumpkins in a dry, dark area.

Blog viewers

Dear Blog views,

It seems that many of those who view this BLog may be going to the Facebook site. There are around 1-2 people per day viewing this site.

IF you have access to Facebook, would it be easier to go to Facebook? Is there a need to keep this site open also?

If you DO NOT have Facebook, please comment in the COMMENT section and I will keep this site open.

IF you have Facebook, would it be easier to just go to Facebook for this information. Again, please comment in the COMMENT section.

Much appreciated.

Ross

Winter chores

Wait for a dry day and mulch the leaves that have fallen on the lawn or bag the leaves and put them on the flower beds and/or garden areas.

Moss is starting to grow on the sidewalks and roof. Apply a moss killer to prevent the moss from growing.

Start picking up all of the tools that have been left around the yard...they soon get forgotten.

Gardens are still producing food. Use or share with the needy.

Winter prep

Time to start thinking about putting come of the garden tools away.

Clean dirt off of tools, sharpen the edges with a file and oil any wood and metal parts.

Store in a dry area, out of the rain.

Collect hoses and drain them of ALL water, then store.

Lawns

Give the lawn one more mowing. Just mulch the clipping back onto the lawn as a slow release fertilizer.

IF you apply any fertilizer, use very littl; the more you fertilize, the more you have to mow.

Now is the time to lime the flower beds, the lawn and the garden.

Begin thinking about putting hoses and sprinklers away. Drain the hoses so there is no water in the hoses.

Clean up sprays

As the trees and berries begin to loose their leaves, it is a good time to give the plants a good spray of copper or organic wettable sulfur. This will clean a lot of the fungus and bacterial problenms that are on the plants. The longer the spray is on the plants the better is will stick and control the problems. Also use a spreader sticker or fish oil.

Cover crops

Plant vetch, fava beans, buckwheat or oats for a good cover crop.

This weekend would be good time to over seed a weak lawn with lawn seed of around 2 pounds per 1000 sq feet, especially with the rain.

Pumpkins and winter squash

Time to harvest winter squash. Make sure that the skin is tough enough to resist your fingernail or leave outside to mature longer and the stem should be tan and schrunkem a bit.

Weekly weather

Weather

Monday October 12

For the PNW, as the storm approaches, OR will slowly warm and see an increase in cloudiness and the beginning of our own WET CYCLE for several days. Expect RAIN to pick up late Tuesday, becoming moderate Wednesday and Thursday. BREEZY. The outlook looks WET through Oct 25 or 26. Warmer in all locations by mid-to-late week.

http://ovs.com/weather_cafe.htm

Flour and grain beetles

A question about a beetle in pancake flour - -- I believe that they talking about a grain or flour beetle. Type the word grain beetle or flour beetle on Google and a pix will come up. Correct ID is important and where the bug comes from.

Grain and flour beetles are found in flour, dog or cat food or any high protein mixes. The boxes are infested in huge store houses back east and are shipped all over the country-- to mainly places like any big box store. People then discover the beetles. So the beetles may be in the already infested flour OR in the area that you store the flour, dog food, pizza mix, cereal, and/or flour in your apartment or house. Everyone gets this problem.

Solution: place flour products in the freezer for two days and clean the area that had the flour very well.

Leaves and compost

As the leaves start to drop, have the lawn mower ready to grind them up and then place the leaf mulch on the garden or in the flower beds.

By spring the worms will have the leaves decomposed.

Apples

If your apples had brown sucken spots, this is a condition called bitter pit and is caused by a lack of calcium or too hard of pruning.

The easiest way to solve this issue is to add lime, 80# per 1000 sq feet ASAP. By spring the winter rain will have dissolved the lime and moved it into the soil around the roots.

Be aware that several of the late or winter apples are getting water core or the collection of apple juice in the center of the apple. This is natural. Many varieties get water core. Solution: make apple cider.

Weather

Some nice weather and then some colder and wetter weather.

Tomatoes still hanging in there. Be aware of frost pockets around the county. If frosty, put blannket over tomatoes.

Braeburn apples

If you have Braeburn appels, go out and check the centers as they seem to have really bad water core this year.