Aside from a handful of ghaf trees, this large suburban garden started out as an empty, sandy piece of land begging for a transformation. Kamelia Bin Zaal, creative landscape director at Second Nature, took up the challenge of landscaping the garden, owned by her mother, interior designer Lesley Zaal. She tells InsideOut about the project…
Early-bird holiday shoppers may find deals on gifts and decorations in October, but this also is the month to find the best deals on landscaping supplies, holiday travel and insurance. Here are some best-buy ideas for October:
1. Thanksgiving airfare
Traveling during the holidays is stressful enough, without having to pay a small fortune for your ticket. Tom Parsons, chief executive of BestFares.com, says, “this year, the airlines have given some great sales for the holidays…but [in the second half of] October, expect the airlines to raise their prices for travel almost every day of the week. They are figuring that if you haven’t purchased your holiday airfare by then, you are going to pay dearly for it.” (It’s already mid-October, so every day counts.)
Gabriel Guma
Mr. Parsons says Sunday, Nov. 25, is the day you want to avoid traveling if possible. This is not a day on which airlines will offer any fare breaks. If Thanksgiving plans are flexible, he says, travelers will probably find the cheapest airfare departing on Sunday, Nov. 18 or Monday, Nov. 19 and returning on Friday, Nov. 23. Another alternative is to wait until the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
2. Holiday vacations
October also is a great month to shop for holiday-season vacations. Because Thanksgiving is celebrated in the U.S. in November, now is a good time to find deals to Europe that week. Mr. Parsons says Thanksgiving is a “directional” holiday—vacationers are heading out for their trips as expats are returning home.
He recommends Dublin as an arrival spot, as the fares can be up to $200 less than other European destinations.
3. Health insurance
This is the time to take account of what your insurance needs are and what you are paying for. For most employee insurance plans, it’s open-enrollment season, which provides more opportunities to improve insurance coverage and weigh the costs and benefits.
“Really, for any type of insurance policy, it is important that whatever you currently have, you make certain to update to what you need,” says Tully Lehman, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Network of California.
Mr. Lehman says people should update dependent coverage for their spouse, partner or children. Consumers should always review the exclusions for pre-existing conditions, check prescription coverage and calculate co-payments for health-care services.
4. Toys
Holiday sales start this month, and toy retailers want to begin this important sales season off right. Many offer deals and discounts to get shoppers into their stores.
If an item is out of stock, ask for a raincheck to hold onto the best price. Shoppers also should save receipts. If the price on an item drops within about 14 days of purchase, most retailers will refund the difference.
Several major retailers are creating consumer friendly layaway programs this year. For example, Toys “R” Us, is offering free, no-minimum-purchase layaway plans for orders placed before Oct. 31. Wal-Mart Stores has lowered its layaway fee to $5 from $15 for the holiday season.
5. Nuts
Two factors make nuts an October best buy: harvest time and holiday baking promotions. Now is the time to buy the freshest almonds, pecans, pistachios, walnuts and hazelnuts. They lend themselves perfectly to the apples, pumpkins, figs and other produce of fall.
6. Trees, shrubs and greenery
We tend to associate planting season with spring, but fall is also a desirable time to get your greens in the ground. The one thing spring and fall have in common is mild weather, which gives plants time to acclimate to their new surroundings before harsher conditions in summer or winter. But there is another reason to plant in fall: lower prices.
“Fall can be a good time to pick up end-of-the-season bargains at nurseries and garden centers in many parts of the country,” says Susan Littlefield of the National Gardening Association.
Ms. Littlefield says many kinds of trees will do well when planted in the fall, including maple, linden, ash, honey locust, crabapple, pine and spruce. Most deciduous shrubs are good candidates as well. Ideally, you should get them planted at least six weeks before the ground freezes so they have a chance to get established.
Savings can be substantial because some nurseries will have to toss inventory if they don’t sell it by winter. While sales may continue into November, plants are at higher risk because they won’t have as much time to adjust to the soil before winter.
—Jeanette Pavini is a is a columnist for MarketWatch. Read more at marketwatch.com.
RANCHO CUCAMONGA – The rates in the city’s largest landscape maintenance district was a key topic for City Council candidates at a recent forum.
Some in the district are opposed to the idea of a potential new election to determine whether to raise landscaping fees after residents voted to reject the idea of a $38 increase last year.
But city officials are initiating a $40,000 outreach effort, using funds from the landscape district, because only 30 percent participated in the election, and some residents said they weren’t aware of the consequences if significant service reductions are made to the area.
A survey next spring would determine whether or not to hold another election.
LMD 2 is an L-shaped area bounded by Etiwanda Avenue on the east, the 210 Freeway on the north, the halfway line between Milliken and Haven avenues on the west, and south above Base Line Road and Church Street in the eastern part of the district.
Officials may consider either a rate increase or a service level reduction because maintenance costs have risen substantially. Rates have not changed since 1993, officials said.
The city recently presented preliminary ideas such as increasing the annual rate by about $38 or decommissioning care for 1.5 million square feet of turf.
“That issue was brought back to the council in a council workshop because people in that community were uninformed about what was going on,” said Mayor Pro Tem Sam Spagnolo,
“so it was brought to the city to be opened up for discussion.
“That vote was done by the people and some of them had decided they wanted a second chance like other landscape maintenance districts had done. We’re governed by Proposition 218 and there’s nothing that we can do to sway a vote either way. We can’t have any input into that.”
Councilman Chuck Buquet’s term expires this year. Buquet was appointed to fill Mayor Dennis Michael’s council seat after the mayoral election of 2010.
“I’m telling you right now I will not support tax increases for city operations during my term on the City Council. Proposition 218 requires that any LMD rate increase is something voted on by the property owners, and I will respect that process,” said Buquet, who also said he supports more drought-tolerant landscaping for the area. “The city is trying to make sure and be as responsive as they can and inform the residents of the need for us to deal with the financial structural deficit that, quite frankly, the council should have been dealing with 16 years while I was off the council.
“You can’t roll over the same rate and not expect it to catch up with you later on.”
Other candidates said they were opposed to the idea of the city using resources after, they said, the 2011 election already decided the issue.
“The people understood it and it’s a free country and if they chose not to vote or they chose to vote and it ended up the city didn’t get it their own way and they won’t let it go,” said candidate Jim Moffatt, a local coffee shop owner who has run for council several times and for mayor in 2010. “Now they want to spend another $40,000 to send out another survey and get their money. It’s a waste of money.”
Candidate Anthony Rice, a small business owner, agreed.
“I pretty much agree with what Mr. Moffatt said,” Rice said. “I do agree that it’s a waste of city resources to redo the vote when the people have already voted no on it. What’s even the bigger waste of resources is putting palm trees in the center of roads, putting huge irrigation systems down the center of these roads, or down the sides of freeways, where it’s watering the streets and it’s wasting water.
“We need to take a look at the way we do landscaping in the city and the way to do it is only do native landscaping.”
Candidate Erick Jimenez suggested future developers should completely pay for landscaping through developer fees and also suggested the use of native landscaping that doesn’t require a lot of water.
“The election was the election, and you can’t go back and overturn the election results,” said Jimenez. “I think the big lesson coming out of this is development – and I know the city is 85 percent already developed and there’s about 15 percent left – but the big lesson out of this is that future development has to be sound. It has to be responsible.
“We have to make sure it’s completely paid for through developer fees and that we use native landscaping, something that is not going to use a lot of water.”
Candidate Marc Steinorth, who ran for mayor in 2010, said the decommissioning of turf would be problematic for the city.
“There were a lot of workshops that were held by city management. I believe our current city manager was the person conducting most of those and that’s with the public,” Steinorth said. “30 percent of the public voted no, and that is an issue because we’ve had elections with a lot lower turnout and some of them are elected officers and we haven’t decided, ‘hey by the way, it’s a very low turnout, let’s go back and re-elect those people.’ So it seems kind of odd that we would have that approach for a landscape maintenance district. Now having said that, I understand we want to make sure our neighborhood looks really good, and for me this is almost really a safety issue.”
The forum was held at the James Brulte Senior Center on Tuesday night.
Contact Neil via email, by phone at 909-483-9356, on Twitter @RanchoNow or on Facebook.
Award-winning author-speaker Greg Grant will be in Linden Tuesday, Oct. 16, to give a free talk about gardening with native plants.
The event will begin 6:30 p.m. at the Cass County Sheriff’s Training Facility east of Linden on County Road 1913. The doors will open at 6 p.m. for registration. There is no charge to attend.
The Caddo Wildflower Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas will host Grant as part of its upcoming Texas Native Plant Week celebration.
Grant’s presentation will be “Gardening Naturally with Native Plants.”
“Mr. Grant’s entertaining talks have delighted hundreds of audiences over the years,” said event chairman and chapter member Belinda McCoy McLaughlin.
“You definitely don’t want to miss one of Greg’s talks,” she said. “He will entertain you and educate you, all at the same time. Plus, he’ll be speaking on a topic that’s becoming more and more important in today’s world — using our own native plants in our landscapes.”
Native plants in the home landscape save water, require less maintenance and limit the need for herbicides, pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Hardier and more disease-resistant than imported or exotic species, natives also provide much-needed habitat for such wildlife as butterflies and birds, she said.
“With more than 5,000 species of plants native to Texas, variety is never-ending,” McLaughlin said. “And with its abundant rainfall, acid soils and relatively temperate climate, East Texas is home to more than 2,500 species of natives.”
The Texas Legislature has designated Oct. 14-20 this year as Native Plant Week. Local communities throughout Texas are planning events for the public to foster the use of native plants in the landscape.
“Texas Native Plant Week comes at the perfect time of year to start a native garden,” McLaughlin said. “As temperatures cool slightly and rainfall increases, native plants will have the optimal conditions to settle in and grow deep roots throughout winter. Those deep roots are that help native plants survive the hot summers.”
Grant, a seventh-generation Texan who grew up in Longview and now lives on ancestral land in Arcadia, is the author of “Texas Fruit and Vegetable Gardening” and “In Greg’s Garden — A Pineywoods Perspective on Gardening, Nature, and Family,” and he is co-author of three books: “Heirloom Gardening in the South — Yesterday’s Plants for Today’s Gardens,” “Texas Home Landscaping” and “The Southern Heirloom Garden.”
He also writes “In Greg’s Garden” column for Texas Gardener magazine, writes a regular feature for Neil Sperry’s Gardens magazine and writes a monthly gardening blog for Arbor Gate Nursery (aborgate.com).
Area homeowners and gardeners may learn more about native Texas plants by visiting the regular meetings of the Caddo Chapter of the Native Plant Society.
Meetings are at 7 p.m. the fourth Tuesday of each month at Horne Enterprise Texas Highway 77 East at Texas Highway 43, in Atlanta.
For information, call McLaughlin at 903-424-7724 or Kay Lowery at 903-835-5532.
The Oct. 16 event will include door prizes, refreshments and vendors.
Palm Beach has been reinventing itself as a unique resort outpost since the Spanish ship Providencia was wrecked off the Florida coast in 1878.
Pioneers planted the coconuts bound for European markets and began the transformation from a swampy barrier island with a limited array of native vegetation into a lush tropical hideaway.
Along the way, James Sturrock entered the scene and founded Boynton Landscape Co. in 1927. He began working with the island’s elite property owners to plant their winter retreats thick with coconut palms, hibiscus, bougainvillea and other stunning specimens from the Caribbean and South Pacific.
Now celebrating the company’s 85th anniversary, Sturrock’s grandson – representing the third generation ownership of the company – and his staff are looking back over the grand scope of the world-class retreat that has become Palm Beach.
Their message: “Palm Beach didn’t just happen on its own.”
Boynton – the company is actually based in West Palm Beach but Sturrock just liked the name – works from Jupiter Island all the way down to Delray Beach and points south. But over the years it has focused on Palm Beach, including recent projects on the Palm Beach Par 3 Golf Course, the new Publix and the Palm Beach Country Club.
It bills itself as a company that has done projects from the Treasure Coast to the Keys, with an occasional detour to the Bahamas.
“I don’t know that we’ve ever done a job in Boynton Beach, but we’ve had our nurseries there for years,” said Robert Horner Jr., Sturrock’s grandson and company president.
The Boynton team has watched the evolution of Palm Beach over the years and helped sculpt the island’s landscape according to the tastes of each generation of residents. The fabulous postcard gardens of the 1920s and 1930s have given way to simpler designs that also take advantage of tighter spaces, since homes have gotten larger.
“Everyone is going back to a simpler pallet, although our projects are very diverse,” said Charles Parker, vice president. “We use a lot of the standards: royal palms, live oaks, mahoganies. But there are also people looking for exotics. Landscape architects will find a piece they love and we build the landscape around that.”
A major trend in Palm Beach landscaping is the appearance of date palms, which are more typical of arid desert landscapes.
“Over the last year they’ve become very popular,” Horner said. “One reason is that there was a desire to enhance the landscape appearance instead of just having coconut palms or royal palms. And also the market out in Arizona and California opened up immensely, and several companies started marketing these palms geared to Florida.”
“You don’t see a lot of these palms on the ocean front in Palm Beach because they can’t survive. But the Medjool date palms are hardy and they work well. It’s the Canary date palms that are difficult – the attrition rate on those is 30 percent.”
Like most other businesses these days, landscaping is split up into specialties. Boynton does installation and maintenance, among other things, but they are not known as a landscape design company. Instead, the staff works with landscape architects to implement the grand plan.
Among them is Jorge Sanchez of the Palm Beach design firm of Sanchez Maddux. Sanchez said the first date palm appeared in Palm Beach about 25 years ago and “now they’re in front yards all over town.
“We’re using them in a lot of projects. But we’re of the opinion that although they’re nice, other things shouldn’t be excluded, like shade trees.
“Coconut palms have been a staple and ficus was the other signature tree in Palm Beach. But now ficus has gone out of favor. If you looked at a garden in Palm Beach years ago it was a ficus hedge, ficus trees, coconut palms and a row of royal palms. Add some gardenias and that was about it.”
For more than a century, Jamaica tall coconut trees graced Palm Beach and other parts of coastal South Florida. But lethal yellowing disease struck them in the 1970s and 1980s and wiped most of them out. They have been replaced by other varieties, including the MayPan.
Another casualty of modern landscaping: fruit trees.
“Canker wiped a lot of citrus out,” said Horner, “and it’s just so hard to maintain. The square footage of people’s gardens has diminished greatly in order to allow for a larger footprint of the house. There’s nothing wrong with that because it saves water.”
Black olive trees are scarce these days, not only in Palm Beach but in South Florida generally. “Nobody wants them on their property because they’re such a mess,” Horner said.
The native plant movement hasn’t totally passed Palm Beach by, but Horner said the “so-called native trend isn’t realistic. If you used all native plants, it wouldn’t be a big enough pallet. It’s not as aesthetic as you would like it to be.
“So what’s happening is that people are trying to consolidate their landscaping and keep it water friendly with underground irrigation. But they’re still trying to get what they want in terms of a manicured or tropical look.”
Sturrock came to Florida from Scotland in 1924 and founded Boynton Landscape three years later. But state records are murky going back that far, and Horner isn’t sure there’s an exact date. But he does know that 85 years ago, his grandfather teamed up with an attorney who helped him incorporate the business.
“They started out working it slow,” he said. “My grandfather had a pickup truck and they built it up. He was a rare combination of entrepreneur and horticultural genius. It’s hard to find that mix anymore these days.”
Later, Sturrock and his family bought two properties on Parker Avenue in West Palm Beach. Boynton Landscape still has its office in one of the old homes just south of Southern Boulevard, and the property stretches back toward Dreher Park. The company now has about 50 employees.
Horner is counting down to Boynton’s 90th and 95th anniversary. “I’d like to see this thing hit the 100-year mark,” he said. “And after that I hope it just keeps on going.”
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GARDENING guru Jerry Coleby-Williams let himself go to seed before hundreds of Darling Downs eco-warriors at the Pathways to Sustainability Expo.
It is anything but criticism of the Gardening Australia host – under a wide-brimmed straw hat, he looked every bit the backyard statesman.
Calm and collected under intense interrogation by passionate green-thumbs, he planted seeds of wisdom to help every family reduce its ecological footprint.
“People here are actually connected to the environment directly through things like farming,” he said.
“They tend to have a very high environmental IQ.
“Some people just asked some questions I had never been asked at a gardening seminar before.”
Visitors traded secrets about everything from compost to woodchipping while espousing the health benefits of “growing your own”.
The day’s best advice came from Mr Coleby-Williams.
“A family that gardens together is generally a happy family,” he said.
The day was organised by environmental advocacy group Householders’ Options to Protect the Environment at the Southern Queensland Institute of TAFE.
In the fall, a few pumpkins and a pot of mums gathered by the front door set the tone of welcome, home and harvest. If pumpkins were not part of your vegetable garden this year, make a note to add a couple of vines next year and then head off to the nearest pumpkin patch or grocery store.
Choosing the right pumpkin depends on its purpose. For baking, the small sugar variety is one of the best. Culinary pumpkins have a firmer flesh and sweeter taste. The flesh is not stringy or fibrous, as in a carving pumpkin.
For carving, consider the design. Take the stencil you intend to use with you when picking out your pumpkin. Look for a pumpkin large enough for the stencil or carving. Turn the pumpkin over and look for bruises, soft spots, discoloration, nicks or scrapes that might interfere with the design. Some ornate designs work better on a large pumpkin. Typical Jack-o’-lantern faces on tall and thin pumpkins give character to the carving. Small pumpkins carved to hold votive candles can be used to line a walkway as luminarias.
Carving pumpkins are grown for color, strength, a flat bottom and a sturdy stem. A flat bottom ensures it will sit evenly once carved. However, a certain leaning might add to the design. Do not carry the pumpkin by the stem, as it could break off. Any damage can shorten the life span of a carved pumpkin.
Once carved, a pumpkin begins to dry out and shrivel. Mold can grow. To preserve the carved fruit for as long as possible, many recommend soaking or spraying the pumpkin with a mixture of water and bleach or covering cut areas with petroleum jelly to lock in moisture. Special spray preservatives also are available. To prolong the life of your Jack-o’-lantern be sure to keep it cool and dry and do not let it freeze.
Pumpkins are native fruits. Europeans carved turnips and gourds before being introduced to pumpkins. French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1584 first mentioned “gros melons” in a report from the St. Lawrence region. It was translated into English as “ponpions” and gradually became pumpkins. Europeans found pumpkins larger and easier to hollow out and carve, thus substituted them for making Jack-o’-lanterns.
Note for next spring: Although pumpkins need room to vine, they are easy to grow. They are a great introduction to gardening for kids. The seeds are large and easy for little hands to plant. Start the seeds inside when everyone is anxious for spring. Once transplanted, kids not only can watch the growth, but can gently turn the pumpkin as it grows to ensure even color and no soft spots. A year from now, they will be carving their own, homegrown pumpkin.
Colorado State University Extension in the City and County of Broomfield provides unbiased, research-based information about 4-H youth development, family and consumer issues, gardening, horticulture and natural resources. As part of a nationwide system, Extension brings the research and resources of the university to the community. The Broomfield County Extension office is at 1 DesCombes Drive, Broomfield, 80020. For information, call 720-887-2286.
In the fall, a few pumpkins and a pot of mums gathered by the front door set the tone of welcome, home and harvest. If pumpkins were not part of your vegetable garden this year, make a note to add a couple of vines next year and then head off to the nearest pumpkin patch or grocery store.
Choosing the right pumpkin depends on its purpose. For baking, the small sugar variety is one of the best. Culinary pumpkins have a firmer flesh and sweeter taste. The flesh is not stringy or fibrous, as in a carving pumpkin.
For carving, consider the design. Take the stencil you intend to use with you when picking out your pumpkin. Look for a pumpkin large enough for the stencil or carving. Turn the pumpkin over and look for bruises, soft spots, discoloration, nicks or scrapes that might interfere with the design. Some ornate designs work better on a large pumpkin. Typical Jack-o’-lantern faces on tall and thin pumpkins give character to the carving. Small pumpkins carved to hold votive candles can be used to line a walkway as luminarias.
Carving pumpkins are grown for color, strength, a flat bottom and a sturdy stem. A flat bottom ensures it will sit evenly once carved. However, a certain leaning might add to the design. Do not carry the pumpkin by the stem, as it could break off. Any damage can shorten the life span of a carved pumpkin.
Once carved, a pumpkin begins to dry out and shrivel. Mold can grow. To preserve the carved fruit for as long as possible, many recommend soaking or spraying the pumpkin with a mixture of water and bleach or covering cut areas with petroleum jelly to lock in moisture. Special spray preservatives also are available. To prolong the life of your Jack-o’-lantern be sure to keep it cool and dry and do not let it freeze.
Pumpkins are native fruits. Europeans carved turnips and gourds before being introduced to pumpkins. French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1584 first mentioned “gros melons” in a report from the St. Lawrence region. It was translated into English as “ponpions” and gradually became pumpkins. Europeans found pumpkins larger and easier to hollow out and carve, thus substituted them for making Jack-o’-lanterns.
Note for next spring: Although pumpkins need room to vine, they are easy to grow. They are a great introduction to gardening for kids. The seeds are large and easy for little hands to plant. Start the seeds inside when everyone is anxious for spring. Once transplanted, kids not only can watch the growth, but can gently turn the pumpkin as it grows to ensure even color and no soft spots. A year from now, they will be carving their own, homegrown pumpkin.
Colorado State University Extension in the City and County of Broomfield provides unbiased, research-based information about 4-H youth development, family and consumer issues, gardening, horticulture and natural resources. As part of a nationwide system, Extension brings the research and resources of the university to the community. The Broomfield County Extension office is at 1 DesCombes Drive, Broomfield, 80020. For information, call 720-887-2286.
I am Mack Johnson, the new Extension Horticulture agent with North Carolina Cooperative Extension, Robeson County Center. I am a native Robesonian, born in Lumberton, educated locally, worked and eventually helped manage a family farm. I then served our county residents at our Department of Public Health.
I came on board Sept. 4, and will concentrate on horticulture — commercial and urban — and the Robeson County Farmers Market, which is associated with our Consumer Supported Agriculture. I will also work closely with the Extension Master Gardener volunteers, a group receiving training and support from Extension, and in return volunteer for projects in education, community development and beautification.
I can remember my grandmother would start fretting before Halloween about all the cooking and preparations for the holidays looming in her near future. I thought she was being silly, but I now more fully understand the brevity of time and how quickly the seasons pass.
Just as one season passes and we feel we can slow down and relax, it is time to prepare for the next. Now is the perfect time to begin preparing for next year’s lawn and garden.
Taking soil samples now can benefit your garden, lawn and even wallet. Proper analysis of the soil with the intended vegetation in mind can more precisely determine what nutrients are needed and the necessary amounts. Less wasted fertilizer can mean optimum plant performance and money saved.
Soil sample results will also show the current pH and recommendations to correct it for the appropriate plants, in turn helping the plants optimize available nutrients. For soil sampling instructions, forms, mailing containers and possible delivery, you may contact the Extension Center at 910-671-3276.
For our residents who don’t garden, you still have an incredible opportunity to enjoy fresh produce. You can visit the Robeson County Farmers Market in downtown Lumberton, at Eighth and Elm streets, on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to noon.
There is still a plethora of locally grown okra; turnips; mustard; collards; tomatoes; cucumbers; squash; pumpkins; sweet potatoes; bell peppers; hot peppers and ornamentals such as gourds and loofah sponges, also originating from gourds.There is also locally produced honey, soap and eggs.
Fresh produce will have more nutrient value being at or near the peak of ripeness when purchased and will require more immediate processing by the consumer. Spending local only helps to strengthen our economy.
Another option for fresh produce locally grown is to join a Community Supported Agriculture. This concerted effort between Cooperative Extension and the Farmers Market allows patrons to pay upfront for a weekly offering of seasonal items from area vendors for a limited time, currently five weeks. Anything from aloe plants to zucchini, honey, eggs and even locally produced meat for an additional fee.
I encourage you now to plan for next year’s garden; if not then visit the Robeson County Farmers Market.
For information, contact Mack Johnson, Extension Horticulture agent, with North Carolina Cooperative Extension, Robeson County Center, at 910-671-3276 or by email at mack_johnson@ncsu.edu, or visit http://robeson.ces.ncsu.edu.
I am Mack Johnson, the new Extension Horticulture agent with North Carolina Cooperative Extension, Robeson County Center. I am a native Robesonian, born in Lumberton, educated locally, worked and eventually helped manage a family farm. I then served our county residents at our Department of Public Health.
I came on board Sept. 4, and will concentrate on horticulture — commercial and urban — and the Robeson County Farmers Market, which is associated with our Consumer Supported Agriculture. I will also work closely with the Extension Master Gardener volunteers, a group receiving training and support from Extension, and in return volunteer for projects in education, community development and beautification.
I can remember my grandmother would start fretting before Halloween about all the cooking and preparations for the holidays looming in her near future. I thought she was being silly, but I now more fully understand the brevity of time and how quickly the seasons pass.
Just as one season passes and we feel we can slow down and relax, it is time to prepare for the next. Now is the perfect time to begin preparing for next year’s lawn and garden.
Taking soil samples now can benefit your garden, lawn and even wallet. Proper analysis of the soil with the intended vegetation in mind can more precisely determine what nutrients are needed and the necessary amounts. Less wasted fertilizer can mean optimum plant performance and money saved.
Soil sample results will also show the current pH and recommendations to correct it for the appropriate plants, in turn helping the plants optimize available nutrients. For soil sampling instructions, forms, mailing containers and possible delivery, you may contact the Extension Center at 910-671-3276.
For our residents who don’t garden, you still have an incredible opportunity to enjoy fresh produce. You can visit the Robeson County Farmers Market in downtown Lumberton, at Eighth and Elm streets, on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to noon.
There is still a plethora of locally grown okra; turnips; mustard; collards; tomatoes; cucumbers; squash; pumpkins; sweet potatoes; bell peppers; hot peppers and ornamentals such as gourds and loofah sponges, also originating from gourds.There is also locally produced honey, soap and eggs.
Fresh produce will have more nutrient value being at or near the peak of ripeness when purchased and will require more immediate processing by the consumer. Spending local only helps to strengthen our economy.
Another option for fresh produce locally grown is to join a Community Supported Agriculture. This concerted effort between Cooperative Extension and the Farmers Market allows patrons to pay upfront for a weekly offering of seasonal items from area vendors for a limited time, currently five weeks. Anything from aloe plants to zucchini, honey, eggs and even locally produced meat for an additional fee.
I encourage you now to plan for next year’s garden; if not then visit the Robeson County Farmers Market.
For information, contact Mack Johnson, Extension Horticulture agent, with North Carolina Cooperative Extension, Robeson County Center, at 910-671-3276 or by email at mack_johnson@ncsu.edu, or visit http://robeson.ces.ncsu.edu.