Greetings, low desert dwellers. November is our second spring, it's time to get out there and garden! Nurseries and garden centers will still have bulbs, cool season flowers, vegetables, shrubs and trees to plant now. Vegetables that are very cold hardy include collars, kale, leek, lettuce, mustard, onion, peas, potatoes, radishes, spinach and turnips and the flowers that are very cold hardy include cornflower, ornamental cabbage, pansy primrose, and violet. Frost tolerant vegetables include beets broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, cabbage, carrots cauliflower, celery, parsnip, winter squash, and frost tolerant flowers include Bells of Ireland, calendula, coreopsis, rudbeckia, snapdragon, stock, and sweet peas.
Collect materials from your yard and garden for crafts, such as dried flowers, grapevines, attractive branches and twigs. These can be used for decorating in various ways, especially during the holidays. Spray paint is the crafters? friend in transforming these things. Also remember, just a few flowers and a lot of greenery such as lemon leaves make a nice floral arrangement. And you can always add candles. Create your Thanksgiving centerpiece and other arrangements from things from your garden.
For your own enjoyment, and for lovely gifts, force bulbs of crocus, daffodils, hyacinths and tulips. These need a chilling period between 30 and 50 degrees; for tulips, 12 to 14 weeks, for daffodils, 10 to 12 weeks and hyacinths 6 to 10 weeks. The best place to put bulbs for cooling is in the refrigerator - here?s where an extra one comes in handy, but I have put them in a cool garage (once it finally gets cool). Plant them in pots with drainage holes in moist (not wet) fast draining potting soil or a bulb mix. Barely cover the tips with mix or leave them just exposed - enclose pots in plastic bags punched with a few holes and place in refrigerator. For successive plantings, store other bulbs in refrigerator drawers or if space is limited, chill the bulbs first, then plant. They won't start growing roots though until they are planted, so bloom will be delayed. These same bulbs must be chilled first before planting outside.
Overseed Bermuda lawns with annual or perennial rye grass if you like a nice green lawn all winter. Annual rye grass is cheaper but needs more frequent mowing, stains clothes and is coarse-textured. Sow 10 to 20 pounds over 1,000 feet of very low mowed Bermuda. Keep moist until seedlings are ½ inch high and feed with a fertilizer containing nitrate, such as ammonium nitrate, a month later. Mow rye grass to 1 ½ to 2 inches and water regularly when it doesn't rain.
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