Hello Friends, Neighbors, Fellow Gardeners,
The days are getting shorter and cooler. We can now enjoy the fall harvest. Here are some garden tips, educational opportunities, and videos for October. There are some online events, check out U.S. Botanic Garden, Master Gardeners of Montgomery County, and Maryland Gardens. A lot of gardening events are announced on Facebook and we share them on our Facebook page as well as on our mctgardenclub.org website. Some live events have been set up for online preordering and limited to ensure everyone’s safety.
Planning
- Begin fall plantings.
- As beds empty, make changes to shape and size of beds.
- Collect plant seeds for next year’s planting and for trading.
- Take garden photos and make notes in your garden journal.
- Clean, sharpen, and store your garden tools.
- It is harvest time and also a good time to start taking stock of what worked well for you this season and what didn’t.
- Gather seeds and carefully label them. Store in dry location.
- Keep an eye out for the first frost date. In Zone 6, it is expected between September 30 and October 30. In Zone 7, it is predicted to be between October 15 and November 15.
- Start shopping for spring bulbs.
- Go on a virtual garden tour to see what plants are thriving in other’s area home gardens.
- Read a good gardening book or magazine.
- Have a question about gardening? Check the University of Maryland Extension’s New Maryland Grows blog for garden tips.
#LocalIsTheNewNormal #BuyLocal
- Support Our Local Farmers – Join a CSA and have fresh local produce delivered to you!
- Visit a local farmers’ market.
“During shelter-in-place, farmers’ markets remain open as an essential service, providing a vital source of fresh fruits and vegetables and food staples for our communities in a spacious, open-air setting. But our community and our farmers’ markets could be jeopardized if we don’t each do our part to stay safe during this public healthy crisis.
In good times, farmers’ markets have been places to gather and converse, however, now is the time to follow public health and safety advisories and resist the urge to linger and socialize. We all have a critical role to play in preventing the spread of COVID-19.”
How to Support Farmers and Safely Shop at Farmers’ Markets
Download Montgomery County’s Office of Agriculture 2020 Farmers Market Flyer to find a farmer’s market near you.
Support our local farmers! Shop at the #derwoodfarmersmarket!
For the fall season through December 19 you can still get your market groove on with online ordering from all your favorite farmers and vendors using our curbside pickup or doorstep delivery to 20855, 20850, 20878 & 20880 on Saturday for doorstep delivery and/ or curbside pickup at the front yard of Neighborhood Church, 16501 Redland Rd, 20855. Pickup happens from 9am until 11am through December 19. Turkey orders coming soon! Get started here: MilkLadyMarkets.org/preorder
Let’s Talk Gardens
Turn your thumb green! Join Smithsonian Gardens’ horticulturists for a series of free lunchtime webinars on gardening basics on Thursdays 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm.
October 22 – Prune with a Purpose: A Gardener’s Guide to Thinking Like an Arborist
October 29 – Have you ever wondered how Smithsonian Gardens’ horticulturists choose the plants used in their gardens?
November 5 – Winning the War against Weeds
https://gardens.si.edu/events/lets-talk-gardens/
In the Garden Q & A
12 PM EDT – 1 PM EDT
Montgomery County Master Gardeners – Maryland
Mill Creek Towne Entrance Updates – 2020
The Mill Creek Towne Garden Club has been making great progress beautifying the entrances to our community. Once again, we thank Imas General Services LLC (https://www.imasgeneralservices.com/) for the outstanding job of refurbishing the walls at the Miller Fall and Roslyn Avenue entrances. Inmar Samayoa, the general contractor provided masonry services on the entrance walls, which included power washing, grout repair, pointing, resurfacing, installing new letters, and clean up at Miller Fall and Roslyn Avenue entrances. We also appreciate the huge cleanup (mowing, mulching, landscaping, and pruning) Kevin Murphy (301-391-6555, kvnmrphy@aol.com) and his crew completed at both entrances. What an eye-catching difference all this work has made!
Finally, the MCT Garden Club has recently planted new shrubs and perennials at the Miller Fall entrance to further beautify this site. We will also be adding more plantings at Roslyn and eventually at Shady Grove entrances as well. This club is working to make our community even more inviting and we thank you for supporting us!
Mill Creek Towne Garden Club – Derwood, Maryland
Flowers and Groundcovers
- Leave seedheads on Black-eyed Susans, Echinacea, Goldenrod, Sunflowers, and Thistles for the birds to enjoy over the winter.
- Divide and move many perennials.
- From mid-October through November, plant hardy bulbs for spring flowering.
- Cut foliage of irises to 2″.
- Pull out spent summer annuals.
- Plant hardy mums and fall season annuals.
- Collect dried flowers and grasses for an indoor vase.
- After hard frost, sow seeds of spring-blooming hardy annuals and perennials then mark beds.
- Walk your garden — look for early signs of fungal disease.
- Weed—especially look for fast-growing vines such as honeysuckle, autumn clematis, bittersweet, wild grape, Virginia creeper, and poison ivy.
- Cut herbs and flowers for drying indoors.
- Apply deer deterrent.
- Pests to watch for: Aphids, Deer, 4-lined plant bug, slugs, snails, spidermites, whiteflies.
- Diseases to watch for: Blackspot on roses, powdery mildew, rust, bacterial diseases.
- See UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.
- For a list of native plant resources, visit: https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/native-plant-resources
Trees and Shrubs
- Transplant trees when leaves begin to change color.
- Water slowly and deeply if weather is very dry.
- Look out for any Poison Ivy vines, which will turn crimson in the fall and be easy to distinguish from other vines.
- Remove Ivy, Pachysandra, and other vine-like ground cover from under shrubs.
- Contact a certified arborist to have your trees’ health inspected.
- Plant evergreens for winter interest.
- Check often and water newly planted and transplanted trees if they don’t pass the “finger test” (stick your finger deep into the soil — dry? Water!)
- Soil test established trees that have not been performing well.
- Prune out Eastern tent caterpillar egg masses.
- Put diseased leaves, pesticide-laden grass clippings and weed seeds out for recycling rather than the compost pile.
- Rake leaves and gather in compost piles.
- Mulch or compost healthy leaves.
- Spray with dormant oil to decrease pest infestations.
- Remove dead and dying trees.
- Pests to watch for: bagworms, caterpillars, Gypsy moths, Japanese beetles, scale, sawfly, spidermites, leafminers, and voles.
- Diseases to watch for: Apple scab, Cedar-apple, hawthorn or quince rust, Verticillium wilt, Oak leaf blister, and powdery mildew.
- For more tips, see UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.
Herbs, Veggies, and Fruit
- Plant cover crops in vegetable gardens and annual beds (e.g., rye, clover, hairy vetch, and winter peas).
- Set up a cold frame, then plant lettuces, radishes, and carrots from seed.
- Plant cool-season vegetables (garlic, turnips, carrots, beets, spinach, Chinese cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts).
- Mulch strawberry beds for winter.
- Harvest most fruits before frost.
- Harvest sweet potatoes.
- Remove rotting fruit from fruit trees and compost them.
- You can still have your vegetable garden and landscape soils tested.
- Watch your pumpkins/squash. Harvest them when their rinds are dull and hard.
- Pick pumpkins at a local pick-your-own farm or visit a local farmer’s market.
- Harvest your herbs and keep them trimmed back to encourage leafy growth.
- Cut garden herbs and hang to dry in a cool, dry place indoors.
- Water deeply when needed.
- Sow beets, beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, and squash for fall harvest.
- New fruit plants — keep watered their first spring, summer, and fall.
- Apply dormant oil spray to fruit trees.
- Hand-pick cabbage worms from cabbage and broccoli.
- Pests to watch for: Asparagus beetle, aphids, cabbage worms, cutworms, Japanese beetle, rabbits, squash vine borer, and deer.
- Diseases to watch for: Apple-scab, Cedar-apple rust, Powdery mildew, Fungal, bacterial viral diseases.
- Here are some more UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips.
Lawns
- Have soil tested (every 3 years minimum).
- Apply lime as needed to adjust pH.
- Fertilize tall and fine fescues and bluegrass with 1 lb. Nitrogen per 1,000 square feet.
- Over seeding may be done now through October.
- Keep newly seeded lawns well watered!
- Water established lawns deeply but infrequently!
- Divide ornamental grasses.
- To control crabgrass, apply pre-emergent herbicide to lawn (when forsythia blooms drop).
- Control wild onions in warm season turf with broadleaf weed control.
- Clean yard of all leaves and other debris.
- Turn your compost pile.
- The annual soil science calendars from the Natural Resources Conservation Service are both educational and beautifully done. The one for 2020 as well as those for previous years are available as free PDFs here: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/edu/?cid=nrcseprd1250008
- Diseases to watch for: brown patch, and red thread
- Pests to watch for: Grubs
- See UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more details.
Indoors/Houseplants
- All plants should be inside now!
- Bring in tender plants before night temps dip to 60 degrees.
- Take cuttings of plants you want to overwinter inside and place in water.
- Begin conditioning the Christmas Poinsettias and Christmas cactus to get them ready for the upcoming holiday season.
- Force the buds on Christmas cactus by placing in a cool (55-60 degree) room for 13 hours of darkness.
- Bring Amaryllis indoors before a hard freeze. Repot every other year at this time. Store in a cool, dark place and do not water until flower buds or leaves emerge.
- Prune potted bougainvillea or hanging baskets that will overwinter inside.
- Begin hardening off prior to putting outside in shade for summer.
- Repot and fertilize houseplants when new growth begins.
- Rotate houseplants to promote even growth.
- Remove old leaves, damaged stems.
- Pinch out growing tips of leggy cuttings and plants that are overwintering.
- Clean the leaves of your indoor houseplants to prevent dust and film build-up.
- Start to fertilize with 1/2 strength houseplant fertilizer (every 2 weeks).
- Maintain moisture in pots wintering indoors, but do not over water!
- Pests to watch for: aphids, spider mites, mealybug, scale, whitefly
- See UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips for more information.
Indoor/Outdoor Insect and Wildlife Tips
- If you find slug damage, set out beer traps or Sluggo pellets.
- Start feeding birds to get them in the habit for this winter.
- Check indoors for termites and winter ants.
- Put up birdhouses.
- Keep bird feeders clean and filled.
- Switch your deer deterrent spray.
- Check for vole problems and set out traps.
- Remove and destroy gypsy moth egg masses.
- Caulk and seal your outside walls to prevent insects and wildlife from coming indoors.
- Set out traps for mice, moles, and voles.
- Watch for: carpenter ants, flies, mosquitos, stink bugs, termites, rabbits, raccoons, groundhogs, deer, mice, moles, snakes, squirrels, and voles.
- For more information, see UMD’s HGIC Garden Tips.
Source: University of Maryland’s Home and Garden Information Center (HGIC) and the Washington Gardener.
Montgomery County MD Food and Beverage Guide
The 2019-2020 Montgomery County Food and Beverage Guide has arrived!
This year’s Guide lists over 70 MoCo Made food and beverage producers and farmers, with products ranging from honey to craft beverages to artisanal meats and more.
Master Gardener Plant Clinics
Varied Locations, dates, and times
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What can Master Gardeners do for you?
- Help you select and care for annual and perennial plants, shrubs and trees.
- Determine if you need to test your soil.
- Provide you with information on lawn care.
- Identify weeds, beneficial and noxious insects, and plant diseases and remedies.
- Teach you how to use pesticides, mulch and compost.
- Guide you in pruning trees and shrubs.
- Provide you with options for managing wildlife.
- Provide you with gardening resources.
- Help you submit a plant sample for diagnosis
Plant Clinics are held at several sites in the county on a weekly basis and at special events such as garden festivals and the county fair. Regularly scheduled Plant Clinics are located at public libraries and farmers’ markets throughout the county as well as at the Audubon Naturalist Society in Chevy Chase. There are also clinics three days per week at Brookside Gardens. The busiest season is April through September, but some clinics are open year-round. Bring your plant samples and questions to one of these locations in Montgomery County, MD (see link below to find a location near you):
https://extension.umd.edu/mg/locations/plant-clinics
Support Our Local Farmers – Join a CSA and have fresh local produce delivered to you!
CSAs are seeing record numbers of subscribers http://ow.ly/eiQT50zD5lW – find your farmer here: http://ow.ly/jbO250zD56M
CSAs can take many forms, but essentially they are community supported farms in which members contribute to farming projects, usually by way of membership fees, in exchange for fresh, local produce. The concept came to the United States from Europe in the 1980s. They are a great way to take advantage of fresh, locally grown fruit, vegetables, herbs, and more while supporting nearby farms. Each one is different, some offer pickup locations in urban areas, some offer only farm-based pickups.
There are multiple CSAs located around the County offering a wide variety of products. CSAs begin taking sign-ups for spring and summer seasons in the early part of the year, and they tend to fill up FAST! Know of another CSA not on our list? Let us know! Montgomery Countryside Alliance also maintains a list:
http://www.mocoalliance.org/community-supported-agriculture.html
