YORKTON – You know that summer is winding down when you start making calendar notes about upcoming meetings and events! The Yorkton and District Horticultural Society will be having their first meeting on Wednesday, September 17 at 7:00 PM at the Yorkton Public Library. Our guest speaker will be Bonnie Warkentin speaking to us about “Succulent Wreaths”. Everyone is welcome.
And the next item is the Fall Plant and Bulb Sale on Friday, September 26 at the Parkland Mall, Yorkton. There is still plenty of time to add plants to our garden collection; they have time to settle in before winter comes and will be ready to be beautiful in our gardens next spring! A fall tour of the garden might reveal areas where perennials have failed or are not that robust and need amending, so if you see some areas in your garden that need some improvement, the fall plant sale is the perfect time to shop for plants.
Back in the spring, we might have chatted about fall seeding, so let’s make a cup of tea and chat about it again since the time is coming around! I have heard from any gardeners who seed certain veggies in the fall and have great success, so perhaps you might want to try this, too.
It is still too early for this project, but we’ll talk about it now so that we can consider what and where we will try the experiment and be ready! Ideally, we should be waiting to sow our fall gardens until just before the ground freezes. This timing is important but choosing the time this far ahead is impossible. We could get our seeds ready now then watch the weather to determine The Day.
What can we plant? What is commonly called “cool weather crops” are good choices, things like radishes, lettuce, carrots, spinach, and if we’re feeling adventurous we could probably try plants like turnips and broccoli.
When the seeding time is coming close, probably mid-October, we can get our sowing area ready by preparing the soil and raking it nice and smooth, just as we would do in the spring. I have read that we shouldn’t water the area, so let’s keep that in mind. If the soil is dry, the seeds will safely rest there until spring.
New seed should be our seed of choice; I know some gardeners think of this as a time to use up old seed they have kicking around, but if we’re trying this new experiment let’s make sure that we give our little patch every advantage we can! Success is our goal!
I have also read that once our seeds are planted, we should mark them carefully (something we may forget to do in our excitement!) and then we should cover them with about six inches or so of compost or leaves. If we are using something light like leaves, we should cover them with a piece of burlap so they aren’t blowing away just when we need them most. Another thing to keep in mind is that when snow does come later on, we could make a point of shovelling some clean snow (not snow full of ice melt products but just clean snow) onto this area for extra insulation.
Okay, now we can zip ahead to spring! We would carefully remove the burlap and mulch when the snow has melted. When our spring babies come up, we will still have to be vigilant of a cold snap and cover them if needed. And then before we know it, we are eating those early delights! Let’s give it a try! Visit the hort society at www.yorktonhort.ca Thank you to our friends at YTW for their fine work. Have a good week!
