It seems that we have brought such cooler weather to Florida that our friends are complaining! Sorry to have hurt anyone's plants with the 40's and 50's, but there may be an upside to the cool weather; it just takes hunting for it.

With the knowledge that, indeed, cooler weather is coming it is a great time to go around and prepare for the eventual frosty weather that can really damage any tender tropicals that you may have. It is also a good time to plant certain plants/trees. Working in the yard is definitely less sweaty and buggy so it is easy to fit in a time to work in the yard. Yes, the cypress needles are falling and piling up on your roof, in your gutter and in your lawn, but they are great mulch so other than the nuisance of having them catch on clothes and shoes, the needles are giving richness to you rather than taking something away.

It is still a time of blooming flowers and there are many that enjoy cool nights. Having some of those plants to ease your way into winter helps to keep away any "shorter day" blues that one might begin to get. We were very lucky again this year to have some orchids blooming when we arrived. They don't really appreciate temperatures below forty so we've brought them to the lakeside porch where we are thrilled daily with their beauty. The zinnias and bromeliads, Amazon lilies, faithful pentas and jatrophas are still giving color and we're enjoying the interesting and lovely fragrant "pine cones" from the ginger.

Planning and planting for winter vegetables or spring bulbs can be done now if you're not as busy cleaning up moss and weeds as we are. Mulch helps, but there is no substitute for hands-on weeding in beds in Florida.

If you are transferring plants from the ground into containers for the winter or if you are using containers to plant vegetables and are using regular soil from your yard, the following is a "recipe" for sterilizing the soil:

Place each gallon of soil in a shallow metal pan and put it into the oven. Heat the mixture
until the center has been 180 degrees for 30 minutes. A moist soil will heat more rapidly
than a dry soil. After the soil cools, mix two teaspoons of a complete fertilizer(6-12-12;
10-10-10; 5-10-5) and three tablespoons of lime to each gallon of either mixture. Be
sure that the soil mixture and the fertilizer are well mixed before using.

While looking through an ecology magazine this summer I read about Soap Nuts. They grow on Chinese Soapberry trees and have been used in the Orient for centuries. I'm looking it up to see if it grows in Florida and if so, I hope to plant one. I also am hoping to plant a Neem tree since that tree has medicinal properties for both plants and humans. If anyone is growing one now, please share your information with the club.

If you are cutting your basil, rosemary or other herbs to dry for winter usage, putting each bundle stem-side up into a brown paper bag helps them to retain color and flavor. Yes, they look great hanging in your kitchen, but they lose color and flavor that way. Putting the bags in some moisture-free space such as a closet will allow the herbs to dry and you can put them into glass jars for safekeeping. Many people freeze their herbs in small batches for easy use in cooking, too.

Worm update: I took one container to CT with me this summer. I had to put it inside the garage since there was an animal that must have smelled the worms and wanted VERY much to eat them. We heard the noise and found the container on the ground, but the lid hadn't come off. Now that we're back here we'll find all the worms that are in the container and transfer them into another container and use the leftover soil/castings for our leftover summer plants that we brought down here. They need some revitalization after a summer of blooming and the castings and warm weather will really help. I think that I saw where the Worm Lady offered bags of worm castings for sale to our club members so hope that some of you bought some. Some of you, of course, have your own red wiggler worm castings in your compost bed so benefit from worm action already.

There is no nitrogen runoff when fertilizing with worm castings so someday people who live lakeside will only be using it. With the increasing population, research will be coming up with ways of doing things to help prevent problems such as the muck in the lake, we hope. Right now we're still feeling our way as to how to best treat wanting to have lawns and yet not destroy our surface waters.

In 1790 the population of the US was 3,929,214; in1970 it was 203,302,031; in 2007 it is 303,319,193!

Obviously the way people are able to "work" the land has to change as the demand for food and water increases with the population explosion. Garden clubs are such an important element in educating people as well as the element of continuing to protect the beautiful nature that our country began with.

Have your questions ready for the meeting and see you there. llb