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What to Do in Your Central Texas Garden (Sept. 1–15): Stop Pruning, Start Planting · ATXGardens Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hi listeners, I'm Colleen Dieter, landscape consultant and certified arborist at atxgardens.com.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the ATX Gardens Podcast, where every other week I share simple, timely tips for what to do in your Central Texas garden right now.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you're watching on YouTube, tap like and subscribe for more gardening help.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there gardening friends! Today we're talking about what to do in the first half of September.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, this episode is sponsored by my landscape consulting business, atxgardens.com.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get going.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to early September.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Here comes fall.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's short but wonderful in Central Texas fall time.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get started.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on with trees and shrubs?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: All our woody plants.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost planting time.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: So my general guidelines for planting trees and shrubs and woody vines is to start on September 15th.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if there's rain in the forecast, if there's some overcast days in the forecast, then you can get started planting a little bit early.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Many of the nurseries will have trees and shrubs and woody vines on sale, especially trees that are starting to lose their leaves for the fall.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a great opportunity to grab a tree and get planting.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you're planning on planting some larger trees, say five-gallon and up, around here in Austin, most trees are sold in containers that are measured by gallon size.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you might go to the nursery and get a tree that comes in a five-gallon bucket, and we would refer to that as a five-gallon.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're going with a larger tree, five gallons and up, I recommend using a shovel with a straight wooden handle, not a D-shaped handle or U-shaped handle, just a straight handle.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: The shovel, it's better if it has footrests on the spade portion of the shovel that bend forward.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit easier on your feet, and having those footrests is really important so you can use the strength in your legs to dig the hole by stepping on the shovel.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I, of course, am an Amazon affiliate, and there's links in the show notes to uh shovels, a shovel that I like.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna plant even bigger trees, like 10, 15, or 20 gallon trees, I really like using tree irrigation bags to water them.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a bag that zips up around the trunk of the tree and holds 20 gallons of water.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so then you can just fill up that bag with water and it has little holes in the bottom, and the water slowly seeps out to water the tree very deeply, and then you also can measure the amount of water that you're putting on the tree.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And in general, if you plant a five-gallon tree, it's gonna need five gallons of water once a week for three years.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's sort of my real general guidelines for watering.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, same thing if it's a 15-gallon tree, give it 15 gallons of water once a week for the first three years after you plant it.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: 20 gallons, get 20 gallons of water, once a week for three years.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you can think about it that way.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an exact science, but that gives people a pretty good jumping off point for how often and how much to water their newly planted trees.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So those irrigation bags are really helpful.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're 20 gallons usually, so you know if you're filling it up once a week, your trees are getting enough water.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a link to purchase those on Amazon in the show notes.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna plant a smaller tree, a five-gallon tree, for example, a five-gallon bucket with just a few holes drilled in the bottom works really great as a watering aid so that you know you're giving your little five-gallon tree five gallons of water once a week with your five-gallon bucket.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can just leave that next to the tree.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's also a visual reminder that that's a new tree that needs water.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I just leave a brick or a rock or something in the bucket so that it doesn't blow away.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I always scavenge my five-gallon buckets from here or there.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure I've gotten them from firehouse subs.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not this is not a commercial for firehouse subs.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it could be.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm pretty sure if you give them, if you donate money, you can get their used pickle buckets.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the money goes to like support firefighters.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a pretty good deal.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, if you need a five-gallon bucket or you're not sure what a five-gallon bucket looks like, there is a link to one on Amazon in the show notes.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because not everybody's familiar with buckets.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So now, what else is going on with trees and shrubs right now?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do not prune them anymore.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, pruning season is over for trees and shrubs and roses and woody vines.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to stop pruning.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's because pruning can stimulate a tree or shrub to grow new branches.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And for evergreen shrubs and trees like yeopons, boxwoods, some of the viburnums, and some of the roses, that new growth, if you prune now and then the plant gets new stems and new leaves, that new growth will not have time to quote unquote harden off before the first freeze, which means hardening off is like a funny gardening term about when the plants first got new stems and leaves, they're really tender and soft.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And as the shoots and leaves start to age, they get waxier, they get woodier, and they get harder in some ways.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that protects them, that hardness protects them from animals and insects and also severe weather.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if you trim evergreen plants now, they'll get new growth, and that new growth won't have time to harden off before the first freeze, and then that freezing weather will damage the new growth and kill that new growth, and all of the carbohydrates that the plant used to make those new stems and leaves will be wasted.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's real hard on the plants if they grow a lot in the fall and then they get hit with a freeze, it's really bad for them.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't want to prune right now.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Also, for the plants that lose their leaves in the fall, it's the same kind of thing.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, like red buds, sycamores, and catalpas, just to name a few.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you trim them now, they're gonna put out a bunch of new growth, and then they're just gonna drop all those leaves right away, coming into later in the fall when it's time for them to lose their leaves anyway.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that will have been wasted carbohydrates, wasted energy on their part.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So now the plants are entering dormancy and they need to be left alone.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's much better to wait until later, very late fall and winter, to do any pruning on the woody plants.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, of course, I'm gonna let you know when to start on all of that winter pruning in future podcast episodes.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: For your oak trees, the best practice is to wait until later in the fall and winter to prune, both for the health of the trees, but also for the risk of spreading oak wilt.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So do wait on all of the woody plants, including the oak trees, until late fall and winter for pruning.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: So a few episodes ago, I was talking about uh you know being sort of cautious about how you trim your trees and shrubs to make sure that you're not taking off so many branches from the bottoms of the trees and shrubs that you're ruining your privacy screen.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you just need to leave all of the growth at the bottom of a tree or shrub so that you can preserve your privacy and not be able to see underneath it.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I got a really nice note from my friend and podcast fan, Catherine, and she wrote to me and she said, I thought of another reason, besides preserving a visual screen, not to trim back.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I garden for wildlife and I have areas of my yard I maintain as an impenetrable thicket of native plants so that hopefully little critters can make their homes in there.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I loved how you talked about thinking about your goals while trimming.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: That helped me think about where I want to prioritize habitat and where I want to prioritize curb appeal.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for that note, Catherine.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a good point.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are gardening for wildlife and you want birds and rabbits and everybody to live in your trees and hedges, it's a great idea to leave a lot of that thickety growth at the bottom of the trees so that it's nice and thick and they can live in there and feel safe.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so that's it for trees and shrubs and woody vines and your roses.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how about fruit trees?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on with the fruit trees in the fall in the first half of September?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Continue checking on your pears to see if they're ripe yet.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is the time of year when Orient pears should be ripening.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty um popular variety here in Austin.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Really good tree Orient pears, they should be ripening now.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said in the last episode, remember that some heirloom pear varieties don't ripen on the tree.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have an old pear tree and you don't know what variety it is, sometimes if the pears stay hard as a rock on the tree and they just never seem to ripen and you feel like they're just useless, go ahead and harvest them, bring them indoors, let them sit on the counter for a few weeks, or you can even put them in a paper bag and that can help them ripen up faster.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that way you'll have some good pears to eat that you thought maybe were bad.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that hardness is really good for pears around here because it makes them more resistant to insect, animals.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone who might want to drill holes in those fruits or ruin your crop, they won't because they're so hard.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if you bring them inside, they'll ripen up.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so also at this time of year, there's some late ripening apples like Pink Lady that might be coming in now.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So check on your apples.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see if they're ready yet.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: September is a really good time for fertilizing, for caring for the soil.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna repeat this throughout the podcast today, but including for your fruit trees, it's a really good time to do a soil treatment per your soil test results.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'll talk more about soil testing in future episodes.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good time to, you know, lightly uh feed all your fruit trees at this time of year.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Always go organic.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you use synthetic fertilizers, especially in the fall, it can stimulate too much growth that won't be able to harden off before the cold, and that can be really hard on the trees.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: So try to make sure you're going organic and according to your soil test results.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now we get another chance in September for grafting uh certain fruit trees.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you can take cuttings and graft or root them right now for figs, pomegranates, loquats, and citrus.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have any old rootstalks from cold damaged citrus trees, usually the rootstock is called trifoliate orange, and you'll know it's different from the other citrus because it has three leaflets on the tree instead of one big leaf, and it's extremely thorny compared to most of the citrus.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you had a grafted tree with trifoliate orange rootstock on the bottom, so that's the roots, is a variety called trifoliate orange, and then on the top was your delicious fruit grafted onto the top.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it might have been an orange type, like a carra orange, or maybe uh a lime or something like that.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it died in the cold, and you thought it was growing back, but maybe you've noticed that what's growing back looks a little bit different from what you originally had.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's probably trifoliate orange.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can graft fruit-producing varieties onto your trifoliate orange rootstock.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can graft another type of citrus onto an existing fruit tree, too.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So keep that in mind.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got rootstock already, you can get cuttings from maybe a friend's citrus tree, and you can graft that onto her onto your trifoliate orange.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Some citrus varieties, like Meyer Lemons, can grow roots from the cuttings if they're dipped into rooting hormone and then placed into a propagation mix.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the propagation mix is a special type of soil that is specifically formulated for rooting cuttings and starting seeds.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you decide to do that, you can take cuttings from Meyer Lemon Tree, dip the cut end into rooting hormone, and then put that into some propagation mix in a container.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Keep the propagation mix moist like a rung-out sponge, and do not allow it to dry out.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: So in the next episode, I will talk more about grafting.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a grafting kit for beginners in the show notes that you can check out.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I also have a propagation mix in the show notes as well.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you're going to take cuttings and try to root some cuttings, figs and pomegranates are really easy to root from cuttings.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a friend that has a fig tree or a pomegranate tree, you can just take some of those branches, stick them in the rooting hormone, and then put them in the propagation mix, and you'll be all set.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: You'll get some new trees.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And September is a great time for that.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on in your perennial garden in early September?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, stuff's gonna hopefully start waking up a little bit.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, we'll get some rain and it'll cool off and you'll start to see the plants perking up.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now it is safe to start planting perennials, succulents, bulbs, and grasses, especially if there's rain or cooler weather in store.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you see the nighttime temperatures dropping below 75 degrees, that means it's a good time to start planting perennials, succulents, bulbs, and grasses again.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Dividing and transplanting can also happen now for all of those plants.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really good time for dividing bulbs.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if you have bearded irises like I do that haven't bloomed in a long time or only had a few blooms last year, dividing them every three to five years can help boost those blooms.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So just dig up a clump and you'll see the bulbs with the leaves sticking up like this, like a fan.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the bulbs will have roots hanging off of them.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so look at those bulbs and start pulling apart the bulbs that have roots on them and the bulbs that don't have roots on them.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: The old bulbs will have holes in them that looks like little pinholes, or someone drilled little holes into them, and that's where the roots used to be, and the roots have disappeared.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And those are the old bulbs that bloomed once already and will not bloom again.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: So discard those older bulbs, replant the ones that have roots, and just replant them so that the top of the bulb, the very top of the bulb, is just right at the top of the soil level.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to bury them.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you plant them too low, they won't bloom.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So just you want the top of the bulb to be like exposed with the bearded irises.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you can pass along extra bulbs to friends, it's a lot of fun.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the older bulbs, after they bloom, they start to produce new bulbs off of them as another way of reproducing.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So those new bulbs are the ones that will bloom.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: I like to use a digging fork for this project.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, there's a link in the show notes to the digging fork on Amazon.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: I am an Amazon affiliate, so I get commissions from those links.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: When you're planting, dividing, or transplanting, it's a great time to add some compost to the soil or some gentle fertilizer or biochar or worm castings or something.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And all of those types of things will improve the soil little by little.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to try to bring in, you know, truckloads of compost all at one time every year, you know, just a little at a time while you're gardening, just always have something on hand that you're mixing in when you're digging a hole.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: A good example is a product called Micro Rhizal Plus from MicroLife.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: A good example is Micro Rhizal Plus from MicroLife, and there's a link to that in the show notes.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so now it's time for our mid episode sponsor break.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi y'all, this is Colleen Dieter from atxgardens.com.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you want personalized help with your landscape, book a consultation and we'll walk your yard together, answer your questions, and create a strategy that feels doable for you.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I specialize in helping do-it-yourselfers by alleviating their anxieties about their yards.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: This week I helped a customer in Cedar Park who had questions about how to convert a dyeing lawn area to native plants for planting this fall.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: She felt overwhelmed by the amount of info available online about this subject, and she wanted to know which path to take for her specific situation.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you need some guidance on the best choices for your particular yard, make an appointment today at atxgardens.com.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get back to the episode.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: On to vegetables and herbs.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: The first half of September is a good time to build a new vegetable garden.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Friend of the podcast, Cass, asked me to cover some of the different techniques for building new vegetable gardens.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And in the coming episodes, I'll cover a different method each time.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Last episode was about double digging.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: This episode, I'm going to talk about raised bed gardening.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: So a raised bed has walls around it and it's open to the earth underneath.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Raised bed gardening is a good method for folks who have very thin to little soil naturally on their site.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're gardening in rocks or on top of pavement, like maybe an old parking lot or a driveway that you want to convert to planting space.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Raised beds are also really good for people who have trouble bending.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's also a really good method for folks who want a very tidy-looking garden because raised beds look very nice.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: The downsides of raised beds is that they require more time and money to build than growing in native soil.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Raised beds can also help keep weeds out if you have serious weed issues on your property, but with stuff like Bermuda grass, it doesn't really always help that much.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you have some soil, native soil underneath the raised bedsoil.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have any soil underneath, like you're gardening on solid rocks or pavement, it needs to be at least 24 inches tall, but 36 inches would be better.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, the taller you build the bed, the more it will cost in terms of time and materials.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: 36 inches is the height of a typical kitchen counter.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that's nice because you can work in the garden without having to bend.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: And just like I said last time, four foot by four foot square is a great dimension for length and width, or four foot by eight foot is also good, too, because most people can reach two feet into the center of the bed, and you want to be able to walk all the way around it.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's typically how most folks build their beds.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: So optimally you would do four foot by four foot square and 36 inches high.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for raised beds, the wall portion of the bed can be built out of many different types of materials.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: So painted metal Vago beds are very popular right now, and there's a link to them in the show notes.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you can buy them ready-made, put it together, and you have an instant raised bed garden.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Natural stone and bricks are a wonderful choice.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Around here in Austin, a lot of people will use chopped limestone to build their vegetable beds, and they're really beautiful, but they require a lot of patience and skill to build.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Wood is a classic choice, and I recommend untreated cedar using four by fours for the corner posts, and then two by sixes for the sides.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: I love uh recycling and reusing items, and my raised beds at my house are made from logs from trees that we had to remove from our yard, and those logs are just lined up and piled up kind of willy-nilly.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it works just fine.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it makes a really good habitat for insects too, for beneficial insects can bore in there and live in the logs.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've also seen folks use cattle panel pieces lined with burlap for a less expensive option.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, gabions with stone or wood toppers are a great option as well.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, cement, cinder blocks, non-food grade plastic tarps, and landscape fabrics, railroad ties, tires, and treated lumber can all leach chemicals into the soil.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people have concerns about those materials leaching chemicals into the soil that then might be consumed by the plants or by you when you eat the food.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have a lot of feelings and opinions about whether or not that's a real deal breaker for growing food around those materials.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'll list them again.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's um cement blocks, cinder blocks, you know, things like pavers, non-food grade plastic tarps, um, landscape fabric, railroad ties, tires, and treated lumber.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things I've heard people talk about their concerns about them leaching chemicals into the soil.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: I will leave it up to you to decide your comfort level on that.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I have so many different opinions and thoughts about that.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's really for a different type of podcast.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll have to see what your comfort level is if you're thinking about using any of those materials.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: For a raised bed, you'll need to fill it with a good soil mix meant for vegetables.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Rose mixes can work too, and make sure that all of your soil mixes are peat moss-free.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: In the next episode, I'll talk about keyhole gardens and huggel culture gardens as less expensive alternatives to raised beds because those soil mixes can get really expensive.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Cass, for your suggestion and more on that in the next episode.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as far as planting goes in the vegetable garden, in the first half of September, it's a great time for planting.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is my favorite time.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: I love planting vegetables in the first half of September because it's a great overlap of the warm season plants and the cool season plants.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: And all of the plants start to mature as the weather is cooling down, and you can get really good harvests.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we typically get a good amount of rain in the fall that helps the vegetables produce even more.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a really good time.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's my favorite time for gardening.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: So in the first half of September, you can plant beans, and that's pole beans or bush beans and lima beans, which I've never grown lima beans before, but that sounds fun.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great time for cucumbers.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can still do summer squash like zucchinis and tattoo maze, and of course the classic yellow squash.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Plant them now and harvest them before the first frost in mid to late November.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure your varieties mature in 80 days or less, so that you'll be sure to get your fall harvest in.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you plant now, you'll have about 90 to 100 days before a first freeze.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll still have some time to get a good harvest.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if the freeze comes later, then the plants will just keep producing until a freeze happens.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure you use varieties that mature in 80 days or less.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: September is the time to transition to cool season crops too.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if the weather looks rainy, maybe a little overcast, and it's not scorching hot outside, it's okay to start planting some of the cool season crops that will grow all winter long, where it doesn't matter if there's a hard freeze or not.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you'll need to be ready to cover them at that time of year, and I will give you a heads up of that in future episodes.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: But these are the plants that will produce all winter.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if the weather looks hot and dry, it's a little bit better to wait a little longer for things to cool down before planting the cool season crops.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you really want an early start on your cool season crops, you can put a shade cloth over your garden to protect your new little seedlings and plants from the hard afternoon sun.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the cool season crops that you could start planting now if you really wanted to, and give them some shade are peas.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's like the regular green peas, snow peas, you know, English garden peas, radishes, carrots, Swiss chard, kale, Asian greens like bok choy, turnips, mustard, kohlrabi, and multiplying onions.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: All of those can be planted from seed now, and they're more tolerant of heat than some of the other cool season crops that you'll want to wait a little longer before planting, and I'll let you know when it's time to plant those.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Artichokes and cartoons can be planted from seed now.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in the past, I've planted cartoons from seeds that I got from a seed swap, and it was very easy and I loved doing it.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was really fun.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And just like I said earlier for the other uh categories of plants that I talked about, remember that at planting time, you know, add some compost or fertilizer according to your soil test results, you know, a little bit of worm castings or biochar, something like that.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good idea just to add that every time you plant, just have some on hand.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Always be adding a little bit of organic matter to the soil to help improve your soil.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: What about the herbs?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on in the herb garden in September?
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of the really fun transition time from the warm season crops to the cool season crops.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of overlap in the fall, so it's a real exciting time in the herb garden.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can plant basil still, either from seed or from transplants, to get one more harvest before the freezes in November or December.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing with your fast-growing warm season flowers, so things like sunflowers, zinnias, and saloshas, you could plant now.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just make sure the varieties you're growing mature in 80 days or less.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll get to enjoy harvest or those blooms before the first freeze.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: And again, just like with the vegetables, we're transitioning to cool season herbs too.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if the weather looks cooler and a little rainy, maybe some overcast days, uh, maybe the nights are getting below 75 degrees, then you could plant cilantro, dill, parsley, calendulas, and borage all from seed directly in the garden.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can get going on those cool season plants, too.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Any perennial herbs like garlic chives, oregano, mint, lemon balm, sage, tarragon, Mexican mint marigolds, all of those can be planted now as small plants.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: So get to it.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of fun stuff going on in the herb garden right now.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great time.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: All right, and it's very exciting because it's getting to be time for wildflower planting.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so September and October is the best time for planting blue bonnets and other spring blooming wildflowers like pink evening primrose and galardias.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: So start ordering those seeds if you haven't already.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Get them out of the fridge, get them out of your seed stash, uh, all your envelopes and stuff that you've got gathered up.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Start getting them from friends, go to the library, see what the library's got in the seed library.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then in the next episode, I will explain my tried and true blue bonnet planting method.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure you tune in for the next podcast episode.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: This episode, I'm going to include some lawn care tips.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: So August and September is a very good time to fertilize your turf grass again.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a lawn, go ahead and use a slow release organic dry fertilizer.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about this a little bit back in April, and now's the time to fertilize again.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this time in August or September, go ahead and water in that dry fertilizer using a hose end sprayer filled with soil activator, and then you'll be using that soil activator to water in the fertilizer and rinse it off of the blades of grass.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's a real good time for feeding your lawn.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, September is also a really good time to use beneficial nematodes.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any problems with fire ants, fleas, or june bug grubs.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: I also hear that beneficial nematodes can work on certain species of ticks, but I've never tried that for them.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: So now on to the activism portion of the podcast.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm gonna plug the bio blitz to the ripening.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the Fruit Savers Project is a working group of Central Texas Seed Savers, which is the organization that I've founded, and it's a project of Fruitful Commons.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the Fruit Savers Project seeks to locate and identify hardy local fruit-producing specimens for the purpose of protecting, harvesting, and propagating these resilient trees for current and future generations.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, really, what we're looking for are fruit trees that are surviving and making fruit without a whole lot of care.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you've seen a forgotten pear tree on the side of the road, or maybe you saw a peach tree that popped up along the hike and bike trail, or something like that, or even a fig tree that's maybe, you know, growing on the side of the house that you didn't plant but has always produced figs.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: So let us know about it.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: There a lot of the fruit trees are producing fruit right now, and that's why they become more conspicuous at this time of year and easier to find.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: So a bio blitz is an event where everyday volunteers work together to find and identify as many species of plants, animal, fungi, and other organisms as possible within a specific area.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are using iNaturalist for our bio blitz.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we're looking for these kind of semi-wild fruit trees that are producing fruit on their own without a whole lot of intervention.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we want you to add them to iNaturalist, okay?
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't use iNaturalist, I'd encourage you to start.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's really fun, it's pretty easy to learn.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was really resistant at first, but once I started, now I can't stop.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love iNaturalist.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: So check that out.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: And for each iNaturalist observation that you make for our fruit tree ripening bio blitz, we ask you to include images of the tree's fruit, leaves, trunk, and a full profile of the whole tree, along with any other identifying features that you notice.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: The fruit savers are a working group of Central Texas Seedsavers, a project of Fruitful Commons, and funding for this year's Bio Blitz comes from the City of Austin's Urban Forest Grant.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: To learn how to use iNaturalist and participate in our fruit tree bio blitz, please visit SunTexSeedsavers.org.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: And this is so important because uh a lot of people believe that we can't grow fruit in central Texas.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there's a long history of rich fruit producing that went on in the pre-World War II era here in Central Texas, and we've just gotten away from it.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: People stopped growing their own food when they started going to the grocery store all the time, which is fine.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: We there's nothing wrong with going to the grocery store, but it's a lot of fun to grow your own food.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important for us to find and preserve these varieties of fruit that really perform well on their own.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: And these trees are starting to go extinct because people have stopped growing them and they are domesticated trees.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: So they will not grow without us.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: They sort of belong in the domain of humans.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important for us to preserve them and preserve this link to our historic food sources.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not sustainable for us to bring in all of our food from other places, from other states and other countries.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: It makes a lot more sense and sustainability-wise to not have to ship all of our food so far.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can preserve the varieties of trees that make fruit for us easily here in Central Texas, we're shoring up our food system and making sure that we have food sources available to us in the future.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so join our Bio Blitz or just start looking out for fruit trees growing here and there.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so that wraps up today's episode.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Please check out the show notes for all those links to all the stuff I've mentioned.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a fellow Central Texas gardener because it really helps me to grow the show.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Colleen with atxgardens.com and I'll see you next time.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to the ATX Gardens podcast.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: For show notes, tools, and to book a consultation with me, visit atxgardens.com.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: Happy gardening, see you next time.