Ready for the Cold?

We should be having the first real cold snap of the year over the next couple of nights with lows temps below freezing for several hours each night. That will mean it is garden clean up time again and time to enjoy the new season's crop bounty. All of the summer's crops like tomatoes, beans, okra, peppers, and any other annual vegetables that are going to be killed by the cold, should be pulled out of the garden and discarded as they can be good hiding places for garden pests or their eggs. The same goes for any weeds near the garden.

Fall and early winter are also good times for adding organic materials to the garden soil. Compost, fall leaves, and animal manures, can be layered onto the soil and then turned under to breakdown over the winter months. It is also time to grow fall and winter crops down here along the coast. Turnips, cabbage, kale, spinach, sweet peas, beets, and other cold weather crops can all be planted now. If you have asparagus, be sure to clean up the bed after the green stems die back. Cut them all off low to the ground, scatter some composted manure over the plants and mulch them well with a layer of hay or leaves. Asparagus doesn't need mulch to protect it from the cold, but to control weeds and to enrich the soil as it rots.

Right now you can find sweet potatoes, pumpkins, collards, satsumas, and of course pecans, for sale by local producers. Locally the pecan crop is rather sparse this year with good ones being hard to find due to all the rain this year. Cassebaum's has a sign up so they have pecans to sell. Last winter was hard on any citrus growing in the region with many people losing their lemon and lime trees. While most satsumas made it through the ice storm and hard cold last winter, they did not produce a good crop locally. I have seen some being offered at roadside stands but not nearly as many as in a bumper year like last year.