Here’s what I’ll be working on in the garden this weekend, in case it’s helpful for your own planning:

1) Start my cold hardy flower seeds indoors.

The window is closing for starting my foxgloves indoors for fall transplant. For my poppies, sweet peas, and snapdragons, I will typical start those in December and transplant out in early February. Foxgloves, however, need to be very large plants in order to bloom their best, so an August indoor start is mandatory. I will be starting my favorites: Dalmatian Peach and Camelot Rose.

2) Mulch my pumpkins.

This year I’m growing a pumpkin calico: orange, white, and black! The white ‘Shiver’ pumpkin has done remarkably well–excellent germination and vigorous growth despite the heat. All three pumpkins I’m growing (‘Black Bear’, ‘Shiver’, and ‘Wee-B-Little’ have bush to semi-bush growth habits. This means that instead of producing on sprawling vines like traditional pumpkins, these pumpkin plants grow like zucchini plants. This is much easier to manage in a home garden, and they tend to yield more fruit per plant.

3) Sow cucumbers, radishes, and lettuce.

Uh oh, we might have an upset on our hands. This summer I grew my tried and true ‘Marketmore’ slicing cucumber but also tested out ‘Corinto’, and wow. Just wow. The ‘Corinto’ plants are still producing from the original spring plants. The cukes themselves are smaller in size than Marketmore, but have a more tender skin and smaller seed cavities which makes for a great cucumber to eat. I’ll be sowing these again this weekend.

For radishes, my spring winners were “Nelson’ (a French Breakfast type), ‘Donato’ (a classic red radish), and ‘Bacchus’ (a beautiful purple one). These will be re-planted along with my favorite Watermelon radishes.

Not sure yet which lettuces I will plant, but the lineup will include favorites like ‘Marvel of Four Seasons’, ‘Volcana’ Bibb, and Salanova ‘Green Sweet Crisp’.

Don’t forget that all of our recent classes are still available to add to your class library.

To see recent classes and access the replays and all the amazing materials, go here: https://learn.thedallasgarden.com.
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