Well I definitely didn't do as much as you Marcia, but I did pull up a bunch of the zapped 4 O'clocks and set them to dry, picked all the tomatoes off the plants and pulled out the worst looking Amaranthus and dumped it all in the composter.
I would have done more but we spent the day winterizing the trailer and washing the 2 trucks.
I am off tomorrow, so I have plans to move a few things around and get the burlap out and have it ready for mulch over the roses and the clematis.

I might as well ask this here...since we have no trees near by, and don't get leaves for me to use as mulch do you think it will be ok if I use the bark mulch I have. Its the fine shredded stuff, not the nuggets. I figured since the last 2 winters I used nothing, this should be better than nothing!
I was going to use the burlap to make little enclosures with stakes and then once we get a hard freeze I'll pile up the mulch around the roses and clematis.

I somehow couldn't begin the task of dismantling my containers. I know it is time, but everything is still blooming. I bring in all my geraniums and put them in the cold room in a dormant state for the winter, but that means pulling them up while they're still looking great. Also the begonias didn't get touched by the frost at all. But I know I'll regret my lack of production today as it was just a lovely day for starting the clean up.
I agree, Marcia, it is too quiet here.

Tomorrow I have the day off, I plan on planting some fall bulbs. Most of my annuals in the ground are still looking awesome, I'll leave them be till after the big *F* happens.
I'll probably move the tender planters into the gh as well.

Marcia, my morning glories are setting seed, first time this has ever happen for me too.
Ouch, hope your toe will be ok ;)

Sharon

I haven't started cleaning up yet. We haven't had frost yet,so eveything stays put until that happens. I'll have to move my Alstroemeria tomorrow because they still are blooming beautifully.( Some of my roses are still putting on quite a good show as well) I did pick quite a few tomatoes off today and tomorrow I'll have to pick my peppers. It was a good year for peppers. I picked off another 5 gallon pail of cukes today. So I spend the day doing them. I didn't have any helpers because the kids were busy doing homework today after missing a couple days of school for a family wedding. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice as well. But then the temp. is supposed to drop. They are not forecasting frost yet though. It has been so nice here this fall. But I know it will not last forever.
I hope your toe isn't to bad Marcia.
Shelley

Well, I have started the fall clean up also. I picked tomatoes the other day for about 6 hours and got about 20 large crates. The pumpkins and squash are picked also. I think I will pull some more rhubarb and make some stewed rhubarb for my DH and I yet. I spent an hour or so sorting tomatoes and found that I have 5 crates of ripe tomatoes to do already. So, out will come the spagetti sauce recipe and I guess I should make sure that I have all the ingredients here at home.

I have a few planters emptied and cleaned up already. I saved the green plectranthus with the white edge. Dug them out of the baskets and placed all 5 plants into one planter for in the house to keep over for the winter.

I saved some seeds from the stella and black eyed stella that were dried and popping open already. I have a few more daylilies (frans hals for one) that have seed pockets and am waiting on them to ripen a little more. I have 2 daylily proliferations that I planted up and will keep in the house for the winter as a houseplant. I do not have a name for that daylily but I love the flower.

I have pulled out the single purple datura and saved seed. The double yellow datura were a lot slower to make seed heads and so I found one of them with three beautiful seed heads on it. Now to let them ripen so I can use the seed for next year.

A week ago, I brought in the goldfish and set up the aquarium in the house again. I have placed a few of the pond plants in the aquarium, the ones in pots, and so I wasn't able to place the cover with the lights on the aquarium.

I have been staining our deck in the last few weeks for its first time. Boy, is that a big job! I have only 2 benches left to do and 4 individual boards. yah!

This fall I would like to cut down more perennials and do more cleanup than I have in past years. I am hoping that that will give me more ability in the spring to clear off the flowerbeds faster. Normally, I have just left all the perennials and let the snow settle in, so it will look different this year if the heliopsis is not standing 4 feet tall and the monkshood and delphiniums are not bending over with the weight of the snow.

Are you still hobbling Marcia? Hope it's better today.

Brenda

Well, we still haven't had a frost here to wipe things out....so trying to stretch the season as much as possible here.

Removed one of the pea fences...so now can see all the dahlias blooming from the other side of the yard. Pulled all the beets yesterday and made pickles. Also picked quite a few peppers and tomatoes and made salsa. Picked the last of the cucs from the garden....but it was raining so didn't pull the plants. Still have cucs in the greenhouse too. Dumped a couple of the small containers ...not because they were finished, but because I was tired of looking after them. They were on the fence, but taken down when we painted and never got put back up....so they were kind of in the way.....so into the compost they went. The rest are still doing quite well. I think this is the longest gardening season we have had in 10 years. Looking at the forcast though, it looks like, I'll be able to start cleaning up next weekend.

I'll probably pull the annuals out of the back bed by the roses, some evening this week and plant the later blooming tulips that I bought. This way the roses shouldn't be so crowded next year as the tulips will remind me not to plant annuals there. haha.

Marcia, hope you are healed. Ouch.

Sierra

My fall clean up was, well, sudden and entire. I'm moving on Wednesday (aaaagh!!!) and I got everything dug up that I am taking. I managed to leave enough stuff hopefully they won't complain. I even left all the roses that I can easily replace - now that Walmart is selling own-root Explorers it makes it a lot easier for me! I dug up the few tulips and daffodils that came up with the roses... the rest they can have. Every spring I fall in love with tulips but by the end of June I swear that's the last tulip I will ever buy. I can't stand working around the bulbs when I'm planting annuals.

So the real scary part now is... planting things at the new house. I think I will leave everything in pots, rototill a big patch in the lawn where I'm going to landscape when the time comes, plant the pots, and break some flax bales over it all for the winter. I don't know what's already in the gardens there, and I don't want to panic and plant things in places that I later regret (the story of my gardening life). I can't even figure out what areas could be considered full sun, since there are incredibly tall pine trees that seem to have shadows in all different places all day.

Will post pics of the new place when I figure out where I packed my camera... :0

Well, my fall cleanup is all garden so far - I've tilled up 1/3 of my strawberries, added manure and replanted. The raspberries are cleaned out too. I also picked the last of my apples (Pattersons) for jelly and fruit leather, and pulled the onions. Looks like I'll need to pick tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, etc. tonight and tomorrow night, before the weather changes. I must confess I don't actually pull annuals or cut off perennials: I run the push mower over my beds and gardens, pile straw on top of anything I need to protect, and I'm done. I'm also trying to get my windows washed before it's too cold.
connie

Ugh....I just came in from cleaning up...needed a break to cool off and have some water. Its 24C out there today, good thing its windy to cool me off a bit.

I am about 1/2 way done what I need to get done, but in the midst of the cleanup I discovered a whipper snipper tragedy!
Hubby mowed and snipped and clipped off 2 of the new daylilies I planted in July and the clematis I thought got zapped by frost was actually a victim of the same snipper tragedy.... Oh well, hopefully they will come back in the spring.

Back out to finish up...getting out the burlap and stakes now...

Marcia, what is your pond made of? The one small pond I have that is made out of half of a plastic rain barrel and then covered in cement, I just empty as much as I can. There's maybe a couple of inches of water left on the bottom. I've done this for about 5 winters now and even with the snow filling it up and the freezing and thawing, it hasn't cracked so far.....knock on wood.:) Typically, I don't bring my fish in until the end of October. This way I don't have to clean the tank as often. :)

The only fall clean up I've done is cut down the single purple daturas so that they don't re-seed all over the place. I also cut down a couple of malvas that were starting to cover up some new daylilies and iris. In the garden, I've only got potatoes, carrots, garlic, watermelon, and cantaloupe left. The cukes seem to be perking up, so will maybe have a couple more of them later. Only one container of coleus got touched by frost, so the containers will stay out for a little longer I suppose. I'll have to get busy takings cuttings soon, maybe tomorrow that'll happen. Today I've started making apple juice, so I think this'll be a daily occurence for the next few weeks.

I'm still spending a couple of hours every few days just watering all of my new plantings. I'd just hate to lose anything because of this stupid drought! No, I'm not bitter............much ;^)

Laurie

I've got the front and part of the side yard trimmed up but so far that's it. I have tomorrow off and by the looks of the long range forecast (cold, rain, ice pellets, highs of 4, lows of -2 yuck, yuck, yuck) I'll have to really make the most of my day off and get lots accomplished. I need to plant bulbs - thank goodness for that thunderstorm last night that dumped a half inch of rain otherwise I'd be dealing with some rock hard soil. Lots of annuals to pull in the raised bed garden but I'll leave the 2 beds of statice as there's still lots of unopened stems - maybe they'll still bloom. I'll probably leave the strawflowers as well - OMG did I have a crop of strawflowers this year - I'm almost tired of harvesting them already). Nice thing about them is, I grew the big ones and they're over 5' tall so no bending required to harvest - just stand there and snip away. There's a few perennials to trim in the back yard. I need to cut the coneflower stems for drying as well as the dried heliopsis blooms - they look great in wreaths. I should probably harvest the birdhouse gourds and get them in the greenhouse seeing as the weather is just going to be wet and cold - I'm sure that won't do them any good (I managed to get several very large ones and a bunch of medium ones as well).

Fall - at least the nice days and after the leaves fall - is my absolute favourite time of year. I love fall clothes, the smell in the air, the crispness. I hope it turns out to be a nice, long season.

DH is on his way to southern Ontario tonight for a couple of weeks to visit family so it'll be just me and my canine girlies.

I refuse to discuss this!!!

Plain and simple, my fall cleanup will begin in winter! I refuse to knock anything down that hasn't gone on its own! This spring I actually had to pull a SUNFLOWER stalk to plant more there LOL. Ok that was an isolated corner by the alley, but still...

Anyway I'll mow all the beds down after everything is frost killed. I'm hunting blankets and stuff right now just in case we get that bit of stuff over the next couple days- most of my maters need just one more week - typical. Everything else I can sacrifice or should tolerate the early f.

Actually I have been collecting seeds for a while now-

Hey, thanks, you guys, but i'll live! LOL Splitting that toenail again gave me more frustration than pain. Seems to take years to get them solid again and then something happens. C'est la vie, i guess. :)

Laurie, my pond is plastic, just plain. It was on sale at the Co-op this spring and is quite tiny - 30 gallons, maybe. One of the cautions was to put sand around it to avoid rocks poking into it, so it makes me think that ice in it might crack it. Maybe i should Saran Wrap it!

North53, i'm just dumping containers that aren't doing well. I still have several that look okay so those are staying. There are some i want to bring inside for the winter - the daturas, begonias and cannas, for instance. Oh, i do have to hack those cannas apart for sure this fall!

Michele, what is it with men and their snippers or mowers? They just can't seem to distinguish a prize plant from a weed! I'm sure the power just blinds them! LOL

Pudge, that doesn't sound like a wonderful forecast and i think that unfortunately it will make it here pretty soon. There's a decided dip in the temperature line in the Weather Network's two-week trend. Sigh...

Well I checked the forecast and my last year's record and decided there was no point in putting it off any longer. Today I pulled up and labeled all the geraniums and they are now in storage.

I had already taken slips from some coleus and plectranthus, but there are still some other things I want. Tomorrow I'll pot up a couple more houseplants that were outside and bring them into the sunroom.

It's the begonias that I'm never sure of how to handle. Some say to let the foliage be killed by frost before digging them up, but I am always scared to let that happen. Anyone growing begonias? What do you do?

This time of the year I always start to wonder why I plant so many containers. I am always tempted to bring in some special plant and every year the number grows. This spring I promised myself I wouldn't bring in the lantana, and guess what, it's already potted up and in the sunroom. It had to go and perform so well that I couldn't let it freeze. The list goes on and on..........

North53, I always let the first frost zap my begonias but I don't see that it makes any difference if you cut off the foliage, or the frost does. Just don't let the tubers freeze in the ground and they will be fine.

Pudge wow 5' strawflowers, those must be a sight to see!

North53, this is my first year with begonias (well, I just have one this year) and I just took it in last night and figure I'll try and over-winter it like I do the geraniums, which is treat it like a houseplant. Fingers crossed that this will work. I seem to remember my mom having begonias indoors during the winter so I'm assuming it works!

Yes, I definately started the "Fall Clean-up" and have cuttings from all the geraniums now. I took my coleus container straight in and it's now on my table as a houseplant. I usually leave most of my perennials and annuals for some winter interest -- except for the ones that go to mush in the frost. I've noticed that the birds will dine on the seeds/use it as a perch during the winter so I tend to leave certain things, especially the sunflowers.

Ang

After work today, i actually turned my compost! I think it's the first time in two years! LOL So, i got most of it out, and there looks to be some finished stuff on the bottom. I have another bin with mostly finished compost in it, so i started sieving that to get the unfinished bits out and it looks as though there'll be a tidy little pile of compost this year! I'm hoping to "top off" the shady white bed with compost this fall. It's my oldest bed and really needs building up. There's no way it could be dug out now, not unless it starts raining. I'd need a jackhammer, and somehow i don't think that would be good for the plants. :) Hopefully, the compost will help.

After reading this thread, I decided why not start. I pulled out all of my tomatoes yesterday. What a chore. Some of them were about 6 ft tall. I'm glad I did it though. It seems that I usually pick off the last of them in the cold rain. After pulling them out I found a bunch more cucumbers, so I picked them as well. Today I picked my peppers. I had almost 2 five gallon pails. I dug some potatoes, pulled some weeds and moved some of my flower pots to a warmer spot by the house.
They are forecasting rain for tomorrow, Hopefully it doesn't. I really would like to get some more potatoes out. And possibly make my lily bed a bit bigger.

We dug potatoes this afternoon. We had a couple rows in another garden over in front of our son's house and it produced a lot better than ours did. Dh thinks it could be because there's more sand in that garden.

The deer have started coming in and eating our gardens too. They're eating swiss chard - yay! - and the tough broccoli that i gave up on. We're going to try to get what we can out now and start getting the garden ready for next year.

It was hot today, maybe about 25°. Kind of odd to be digging potatoes in this weather. :)

Marcia,

Better to dig potatoes in hot weather in dry soil than cold weather and wet soil....

Brenda (who is looking at the forecast and realizing that the rain that is coming is really needed but the temperatures coming with it are kind of on the cool side).

Yes, i was looking at that forecast too. Maybe it will change by the time it gets here. I think i'll pick onions tomorrow and tomatoes after that. The carrots will be okay for awhile yet.

The dogs are on deer patrol tonight!

Sorry guys and gals...s**w here this morning and I don't think it got above +5 yesterday and today is a balmy +2.5C. Eeeek. It hasn't stayed on the ground, but the mountains are tipped in white. It wouldn't hurt my feelings if the north wind turned around.

What an ambitous bunch! I'm starting to panic. Supposed to warm up by sunday around here, so I think I'll really get at 'er then. I started digging potatoes last week but will put that off till this weather leaves. I have some split ones this year...dryness I guess. Carrots are like that too. Onions and turnips are pulled. Turnips canned and onions hung. Hard f***t a couple nights ago and I thought I lost the beans...even covered. But I picked them last night and most were fine. Containers are hanging in there but i'm getting tired of watering everyday, so I think I'll baby a few and let the rest go.

So next week must can beets and onions, dig potatoes and clean up the beds a bit. I must admit I'm rather messy this time of year and tend to just let things fall. Need to bring in herbs and geraniums, too. Oh and I HAVE to spread manure and make a nice spot for some rasberries next year...ok I'm panicking again!

Toots

This afternoon, it was onion-picking time. Most were pretty small - i wonder if it's because of the dryness? Anyway, i trundled the wheelbarrow back up to the garage so they could begin curing in there. Dh looked at it and said, "Is that all you're picking for now?" Then he realized that that's all there were! Okay, another tirade on how we're not going to bother with a garden next year. He says that every year. :)

Well if its any consolation Marcia, my onions are puny too. I have been leaving them in the hopes that they might get a bit bigger, but not likely at this point in time.
I'll have to pick them tomorrow I guess.
I am about 1/3 to 1/2 done my clean-up. We are off to Winnipeg again this weekend, so I will be getting more bark mulch when we are down there. (It ticks me off so bad that we can only get this stuff here in the spring....) I made pretty short work of the 20 bags I got when we were there in August, I think realistically I'll need about 40 more for everything I want to mulch....UGH

Michelle, what are you mulching, what kind of mulch are you getting, are you putting landscape fabric underneath and how thick of a layer are you putting down?

Post pictures so we can see what you are doing with all those bags of mulch. Sounds like it will save a lot of time in weeding next year for you. Certainly the area will look completed.

I have been putting down flax straw between rows in the holding garden. My DH has been giving our fruit trees their fall drink of water and painting his ice fishing shack. The garden needs to be cleaned up yet although the only things left are a few potatoes, beets, cannas, glads and dahlias.

Brenda

Brenda, the weeds are exactly the reason I am putting the bark mulch down! It was so bad this year, that I vowed I was going to do something to lessen the impact next summer. I havent used any landscape fabric for a couple of reasons....one is because I want the option of being able to move stuff around and/or add plants and the second is because I read lots of horror stories (on here) of weeds still growing underneath the fabric and causing a whole different set of problems. I originally wanted the black stuff, but of course, end of season so you take what you can get....its the red cedar mulch, the finely shredded stuff, not the bark nuggets. Eventually it will decompose down, so right now its better then nothing.
It does look more completed, but I still have a ways to go yet. Next spring my goal is to border the whole garden in those pressure treated landscape ties. I'd love to use the stacking stones that I used out front, but I am not that wealthy!!! I have some pics, but they are HUGE, so once I get them resized and uploaded to photobucket I'll post them.

I did the same thing this year, Michelle, mulched to get a handle on the weeds. 50 bags got most of the back yard done and it did help a lot - some weeds still managed to grow, but they were easy to pull up. I also used a thick layer of grass clippings (mixed green ones with dry ones) in the ornamental grass bed, and for the side yard I use thick applications (sometimes with newspaper underneath) of my half-finished compost. Sometimes it's not even half finished, and sometimes it goes straight from the chipper/shredder right onto the beds.

I got my 150 bulbs planted on Tuesday, pulled some annuals, trimmed off some perennials and gave a shrub bed a good soak. Rain/wind/general ugly weather is now upon us, looks like for the next few days. Looks like that rainy day I was waiting for to clean the house is finally upon me and I have no more excuses, LOL.

After my adventure with landscape fabric, I must say I'm not a big fan. I had mulched my shade bed with wood chips over 2 layers of landscape fabric. Over about 5 years, with all the leaves that fall, and the wood chips decomposing, I had all sorts of plants growing on top of the fabric, and the soil underneath, which was pretty bad to start with, was rock hard. The biggest part of the mess was my hops. They were planted at the back to cover the bull fence, and had crawled out underneath the fabric four or five feet, coming up wherever they found a hole. I removed as much of the landscape fabric as possible, without completely ripping out all my plants, and put in lawn edging to contain the hops. My Stella D'oro, which hadn't bloomed for years, had grown to the exact size of the hole in the fabric - I had a square plant, which has turned into about 15 little ones. With a little manure compost added the flowers were much happier, if weedier this year.
I actually use chopped up straw for mulch in most of my beds and my garden, about 4 inches thick. It stops most weeds but does bring in more dandelions and some grain, of course.
All I have left out now are some carrots, the potatoes which could use a couple more weeks to toughen their skins, and the parsnips which are waiting for a good frost. Everything else will wait until later. One thing about all this rain and BRRRR, I may not be able to finish cleaning my windows this weekend - darn :). Maybe I'll have to do something tough like bake or sew.
Connie

Rain is apparently headed our way but we've been promised that before. It was so beautiful out this evening that i sat on the deck in the dark for about an hour and just enjoyed. It may be the last time this year. :(

Didn't do much otherwise. Dumped a couple of containers that were goners and repotted a tradescantia-like plant that i'll take in for the winter. Its container got blown off the pole a few times and was cracked.

If we do get rain this weekend, i may have to resort to housework too! :O

Oh just rub it in Marcia!

I agree Connie, I would never use the fabric in a perennial bed. The lady that lived here before did used it and what a mess!

:) Sorry about that, Sharon!

I've used landscape fabric too and lived to regret it. Now i only use it around shrubs or rosebushes or under paths and put wood chips on top. There are still some weeds but not as bad as it could be.

How fast do bark nuggets decompose? They seem to be all our town carries for mulch.

I mulched with uncombined oat straw this year cause that's all I had and its free...wrong thing to do! The oats grew everywhere and totally out of control! Live and learn I guess. It did help keep the soil moist, though, and I suppose it will make nice green manure.

Although its chilly, I must say I'm grateful for this rain and snow for the moisture before freeze up. It was supposed to clear up on Sunday but now its not going to until wednesday.

Marcia, how big do your onions get on a good year? I've been wondering if I'll ever get a good sized onion due to the short season or if its the varieties I get. I might have one or two that are about 3" across but the rest are smaller. The nice thing is that they didn't rot this year :^)
(I'll go start a thread on this, its sort of off the topic...)
Toots

Today i dumped a few more containers, planted the vinca in the ground (hoping for the best!), and transplanted the variegated brug or datura that drops its leaves constantly. Hmm. I set it in the pond for water and have forgotten it there. If it doesn't survive the +2° tonight, that'll be one less plant to bring in, eh? LOL

I also buried the catalpa containers in the little raised bed in front of the house, and put my container lilies in there as well. They overwintered well in there last year.

Rumour has it that there's another El Nino on the way this winter. That's good for us, usually - it stays mild, then. We're gonna get spoiled with two zone 5 winters in a row! :)

Knock on wood, but we haven't had any F**** yet. However looking at the forecast its supposed to get down to -2C next Wednesday.

I heard about El too, let's hope that it's true! If it happens, I think I'll add Tropical to my GW too ;)

How's the toe Marcia?

Sharon

We haven't had frost either. Maybe because it was such a nice summer, I just can't get in "fall mode" and start pulling out things.

My brother has a preformed plastic pond and usually drains the water out. He leaves just a bit in, however. My pond is a epdm liner and for that it's important to leave the water in or else you risk the sides collapsing (the water exerts pressure on the sides of the liner and holds it in place).

I usually bring the fish in about Oct 1 though technically you can leave them until the ice starts forming on top (they just sort of "hibernate".) I always feel sorry for them though. In an ideal world I would just heat the pond and keep them in there all year.

I had better get started cleaning up, some trees to trim, etc and I'd rather not leave everything until it's cold. Yesterday I finally got around to planting an ostrich fern. It's funny how quick it went and I think to myself "why didn't I do it weeks ago?"

I really want to limit what I winter protect but I do have catalpas too in small pots, and apple trees. I will just sink them into the ground and perhaps worry about finding homes for them next year.

I too heard about the el nino, that would be a great thing, though I also heard that it's still forming and they don't know exactly how 'strong' it will be.

Glen

Glen, does your brother cover his pond or just let it fill up with snow? I was concerned with water freezing in it in the spring and maybe cracking the plastic. What do you think?

And fall clean-up *almost* ends. The patio furniture is all put away. All the pots and containers are stored under the deck. The tables i use for winter sowing are placed accessibly - i won't have to slog too far in the s*** to get to them. The rain barrel has been emptied. The hoses are coiled and stored. All the containers except three have been dumped. One has petunias and pansies blooming still, and two need to be dumped - just didn't get around to it. There are piles of leaves strategically placed, some near the roses that they'll insulate and some near gardens that they'll mulch. All the geraniums have been repotted and brought inside or had cuttings taken. A lot of seeds have been gathered, but probably not all i'd like - there's still time for that.

The vegetable garden has to be tilled. There are still tomato plants in one bed that should be pulled. There are still lots of leaves to be raked. Still those containers to deal with.

It's sad to see the season ending. It was a good season in spite of the lack of rain. Fall is always nice, but this year it's taking a turn for the worse - that's probably closer to normal than what we've had for the past couple of years. One thing to look forward to is that we still haven't had an Indian Summer yet. :)