October Gardening Tips
Power Plants
Fall is perfect time to visit ‘U-Pick’ farms By Katie Jackson
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Plant a winter cover crop (ryegrass, etc.) in your garden to protect and enrich soil. Clean and oil garden tools for winter storage. Continue mowing lawns until no sign of new growth is evident. Plant shrubs and trees. Apply compost to gardens and turn compost piles. Keep bird feeders and birdbaths filled to attract migrating and local birds. Test soil and add amendments as needed. Dry and save seed. Take cuttings of tender perennials. Harvest and dry or freeze herbs for winter use. Clean and store empty pots, garden tools and equipment for the winter. Plant lettuces, spinach, turnips, radishes and onion sets.
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According to www.hobbyfarms.com, U-pick operations are one ummer’s over and the days are getting shorter, which means it’s time to put every one of those dwindling daylight hours of the fastest growing sectors of small-farm agriculture, in part because they offer a nostalgic experience for customers. to good use, whether at work or at play. That’s something that Andy Millard, co-owner of Mountain On the work front, use some of that daylight to ready the yard and garden for winter. Remove dead plants, fallen fruits or veg- View Orchard in Chilton County, has seen firsthand. Mountain View Orchards (www.mountainvieworchards.com) etables, limbs and leaves from gardens, orchard floors and the landscape. While you’re at it, trim off weak or dead limbs from offers U-pick peaches, apples and other tree fruit from summer trees and large shrubs, especially those located close to a house or through early fall (they may still have a few apples left this month other structure where they might fall and cause damage during and they expect to have a longer season in the years to come). Andy and his partner/father-in-law, Steve Wilson, established the winter weather events. Invest some of those precious daytime hours in preparing your orchard a few years ago as a way to involve their entire family in plants for winter as well. Repot any plants that have outgrown farming. But the orchard has also been great for other families, their containers and bring in any potted plants that can’t toler- an experience that Millard finds very rewarding. “Having the U-pick allows famiate cold weather, but check to make lies to bring out the younger generasure you’re not also bringing in liztion to the farm so that they can see ards, bugs or any other surprises exactly where food comes from,” he from the great outdoors. says, noting that a number of their To prepare landscape plants for customers bring their children and winter, mulch tender perennials or grandchildren to the farm so to get newly planted shrubs and trees and out of the city and experience the deeply water landscape plants, escountry. But it also offers some of pecially new plantings, every week his older customers a way to remior 10 days until the first hard freeze. nisce and give their grandchildren Use some of that daylight to plant a glimpse of what life was like for annuals such as mums, pansies and them back when they worked on ornamental kale and cabbage for immediate beauty and color, or Ava Claire Millard, Steve Wilson, Francesca Millard and Andy family farms. Millard has also noticed that plant spring-blooming bulbs, which Millard of Mountain View Orchard in Chilton County. many of his customers are drawn to the porch at Mountain View’s won’t be pretty until next year but will be well worth the wait. All work and no play can be, well, dull, so incorporate some general store. “I see older couples approach the general store and, when they fun in your days. A walk in the fall woods is always worthwhile, spot our chairs, they head straight over and sit and sit...,” he says, but this time of year there are also some great agri-tourism activiadding that many people either don’t have front porches or don’t ties to enjoy. have the time to sit on their own porches where, as Millard says, Among these are corn mazes, U-pick pumpkin patches and fruit orchards and fall food and farm festivals, not to mention “they can sit with a breeze.” In this fast-food, tech-driven world, visiting a farm can be a those U-cut Christmas tree farms that will be opening their gates unique and long-lasting experience that, Millard hopes, also helps as the holidays get closer. Activities such as these not only are fun, they can reap some create the next generation of customers as today’s youngsters grow truly fresh fall produce, they are educational and participating in up and continue to come to the farm to purchase their food. To find such an experience in your part of the state visit www. them helps support local farmers. pickyourown.org/AL.htm. This page is worth bookmarking, too, because it offers listings of farms that have spring and summer produce as well as fall and winter items. To see a list of Alabama fall food festivals visit the Alabama Tourism Department’s Year of Katie Jackson, who recently retired as chief editor Alabama Food webpage at www.yearofalabamafood.com/events/. for the Auburn University College of Agriculture William Cullen Bryant once said of fall: “Autumn...the year’s and Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station is now a fulltime freelance writer and editor. Contact last, loveliest smile.” Whatever you do with your days this fall, find her at katielamarjackson@gmail.com. ways to make you smile. A 30 OCTOBER 2013
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