The Gardener’s Rake Rant

I spent the better part of the day cleaning pots and preparing for starting new vegetables, perennial plants and plant cuttings.

I started my last planting of cucumbers, started more fresh garden greens and plan to save tomato plants for the next year. By removing parts of the tomato plant where they have formed roots you can replant them and grow them indoors. And in the spring you can use these plants to create more plants.

I don’t do this with all tomato plants but some heirloom plants and seeds are hard to find so this is a solution to the problem.

And with the problems with safe non-toxic greens I plan to grow my own supply all year long.

I have a large new batch of perennials to split and to start from seeds so I need large planters with no bottoms and seed trays. The large planters with no bottoms will be old dresser drawers. I pick them up at auctions for next to nothing. You can also make a rectangle or square form from salvaged boards and get the same result.

You may want to see if your neighbors have extra perennials in their gardens they are thinking of thinning and throwing out. You could do a plant swap and pick up new perennials for your gardens

And I am mixing up more compost to fill all the planters. This project is one of my September end of the growing season projects.

The plant cuttings are for new shrubs I am starting. I make 6 inch cutting from preselected plants in my yard and plant them in sand and use a rooting hormone. In a few weeks I will have roots. It’s still early enough in the fall for the roots to grow and to get new growth on the shrub.

The shrubs will be for my backyard and also for sale next year.

I also need to dig up peony plants and divide them but they dig up hard because of the long roots so I am not looking forward to this project. I will wait until we have a few days of rain to soften the soil and see what success I have.

There is always a gardening or backyard project to do. The garden season may be coming to an end for many people but starting and saving plants is almost a year round activity