September 2008 Frugal Gardener

Welcome to the September issue of The Frugal Gardner. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, September is a month for back-to-school activities and the end of our gardens overflowing with hot weather veggies.

In the Northern third of the United States and Canada, gardeners are starting to put their gardens to bed for the winter. Cold weather creeps up on cat-like feet just after Labor Day. I saw video last night of leaves already turning in upstate New york and the Farmer's Almanac predicts a colder than normal winter for the US.

I couldn't be happier at that report because the fleas and ticks here in Tidewater Virginia have had a great time biting up everyone they could find. A good cold snap will end their reign of flea and tick terror.

If you haven't already done so, be sure to order your fall bulbs as early in September as you can so you'll be ready to plant and have a great display next spring.

Try a new perennial each year. I haven't had much success with poppies but I love them so I think I'll plant some next Spring and see how they do.

For those of you in the soon-to-be-sunny Southern hemisphere, September is the time to begin planting crops like broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, scallions and peas. I've always thought it would be terrific to be a two Hemisphere gardner: that way I'd be able to have hot weather veggies and flower gardens going year-round.

Enjoy this issue and I'll see you back here in October.

As we turn the corner into September, fall winds and cool weather come upon us. I watch to see how the hot weather vegetables are doing and take my cleanup cue from them.

I've been dealing with tomato hornworms since the middle of July but I haven't seen any lately.

If you're new to The Frugal Gardener and have no experience with this garden pest, I included pictures in the last issue so know what to look for should you ever have any unexplainable tomato plant damage. The only way I know of to eradicate tomato hornworms is to pull them off the plant and squish them under your shoe. It's a little nasty but it works.

The photo to the right of this text is of one with tons of eggs on it. I hear you! Eeeew. Yeah, they died too I'm afraid.

Tomatoes and peppers are usually the first plants that come out of my garden in the fall followed by beans and cucumbers. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't yank everything out the day after Labor Day. It slowly dies back as the days are no longer as hot and the nights become colder.

I like to leave herbs in the garden as long as I possibly can. Basil is a very tender annual that can't take much cold. Just before I know were going to have a frost -- or even if it's going to be down in the low forties -- I go out to the herb garden, cut back all of the basil and bring it inside. Then I have decision to make: do I make pesto or do I dry leaves for use in the winter? I usually opt for a split of both.

If you've never dried fresh herbs, it's really pretty simple and it's a great frugal use of your herbs. For something like basil, simply remove the leaves after washing them, lay them out on a paper towel and pat dry. Then you can do one of two things: either turn on your oven to 200° and lay the individual leaves out on a baking sheet or use a dehydrator. Either way works equally well.

If you use the low oven method, you'll have the leaves in the oven for the better part of an hour but check them every 15 minutes just to make sure that something unexpected hasn't occurred.

You'll know you're done when your basil leaves are dry and crumbly to the touch. Once that happens, you can crumble them up and put them in a jar to use as seasoning in sauces, stews and soups.

Other herbs also dry well like rosemary, oregano and thyme. You can do the same oven technique with these herbs or you can just bunch them and roll them in paper towel, wait till they've dried out (about a week or two) and then crumble and put them in a container just like you did the basil. You can even dry oregano, basil and thyme in a dehydrator and combine them after they're dried for a great Italian mix.

Let your garden tell you when it's ready to go to bed. Remember to take all of the plant material out for the winter so no pests over winter in the soil.

Vegetable gardeners have this same issue at the end of every summer: what do you do with all that produce?

You can only give away so much -- even your friends and neighbors get tired of taking in one more zucchini or one last bunch of tomatoes.

This past summer I bought myself a dehydrator and boy do I love it! I've dehydrated about 2 dozen tomatoes and bunches of bananas and stored them in glass jars.

I've already used the dried tomatoes in a vegetarian Moroccan dish and you could still taste the summer sweetness.

I like dried bananas but when you buy them commercially, they're usually soaked in sugar which isn't the best thing in the world for you.

I've placed some dehydration photos here for you to look at. I like the Nesco food and jerky dehydrators and the Snack Master is the perfect size for me. It comes with 5 trays, 2 clean screens (a must for veggies like tomatoes that have lots of pulp and seeds), a recipe book and an owner's manual.

I got mine for about $50 on eBay.

I also like storing the dried produce and herbs in glass jars rather than plastic containers. Glass jars don't emit any chemicals like plastic can and you can get them cleaner. Just pick up some pint or quart sized mason jars for canning -- you can get them at any grocery store -- and they work great.

If you're anything like me, you like to save money in the garden and one of the best ways to do that is to save seeds from your plants. Now, not every plant will have seeds that are worth saving and not every plant will produce the same kind of fruit or flowers the next year.

Saving flower seed, though, is relatively easy to do. For instance, if you have planted something like four o'clocks, their seeds are very obvious and easy to harvest. Sunflowers are also very easy to harvest once the heads are dried out.

Also, if you're growing zinnias, you can certainly dry the seed heads and hang onto them to harvest the seeds later. There are certain types of zinnias that have very obvious seeds visible once the flowers have died back.

When you're saving flower seeds, just collect them in a paper cup and store them that way over the winter. I don't recommend putting seeds in a plastic bag, especially if it's going to be in a warm, humid house. If you want use a plastic bag, remember to wrap them in paper towel first to trap whatever moisture there might be.

One of the easiest and most fun seeds to save and harvest are from sunflowers. This is a great activity for kids as the seeds are very easy to see and reasonably easy to dislodge out of the sunflower head. Another use of sunflower heads is for birds. Snip the head off the sunflowers -- the big grey stripe sunflowers are best for this -- and just lay them on a deck or on the ground and let the birds have at it.

Dead heading purple coneflower, shasta daisies and black-eyed susan is also a way of saving seed. When these blooms have died back, snip the dead heads and scatter them where you want a fresh crop to grow.

We have not one but two questions in the mailbag this month. The first is from subscriber Beth in Minnesota: "I have a black walnut tree in my backyard and every year I plant a vegetable garden back there, it fails. Why?"

Great question, Beth! The answer lies in the toxicity of the black walnut tree and its proximity to your garden. Every species of the walnut family produce a toxic secretion called juglone. And the black walnut tree has the motherlode in its roots, leaves and branches.

Juglone toxicity starts with yellowed leaves that then wilt and finally death of the plant. Fortunately, not all plants are susceptible to the strangulation of juglone. Annuals, perennials, corn, beans, onions, beets and carrots can hang out and do well near a black walnut tree.

The solution -- if you have no other place in your landscape to have a garden -- is to do some container gardening. GardenRack, a no bend, no kneel gardening system, is perfect for that.

The second question comes from Dianne in Maryland: "I have a gorgeous run of hosta in my shade garden that I've been babying for years. This summer I've lost all the leaves but the flower stalks are still in the ground. What's up with that?"

Sounds like you may have a bunny problem, Dianne. Rabbits love to eat foliage and if you still have the flower stalks, you still have the plant. If everything were gone I'd suspect an underground invader like moles or voles. Since it's above ground, it's either bunnies or perhaps deer.

Do you have a question for The Frugal Gardener? Send us an email and get your answer in the next issue!

If leaves start to fall in September, try doing something different this year: just let the leaves stay where they are. Not only does it create a great winter mulch for your garden beds, it saves work in the fall.
Southern gardeners can continue growing hot weather vegetables up through October or November depending on where you are. You can plant things like garlic, scallions and onions in the fall for a spring harvest as well.
Keep an eye on pumpkins and gourds as they will soon be ready to harvest. September is also great month to replant peas to see if you can have a fall crop.