Someone told me once to swish the whole plant around in warm soapy water to get rid of aphids, so i'm sure insecticidal soad would do the trick as well. I should check how much i have left and maybe stock up!

Most often plants that are outside donÂt have much in the way of bug problems, if they do I might just ditch them, so I suppose spraying before you bring them inside is more of a precaution.

With things like impatien cuttings, for example, I look for growth that is healthy and then make cuttings. Soak for a few minutes in soapy water, even gently rub the leaves with the soapy water, rinse, put in the glass of water to root. Once rooted I sometimes wash them in soapy water once again just as a precaution.

But, sometimes you still do get those mid winter aphids or fungus gnats that appear out of no where.

Everyone has their own opinion on insecticides. I do use them, but only use them in cases of emergency. One thing IÂll say is be careful because some plants have adverse reactions and certain insecticides may kill them or at least defoliate them. Then again, one year I sprayed a ficus houseplant with safers insecticide and it killed it.

Somehow we beat the frost again, +2 this morning. Now itÂs suppose to warm up a bit, but looks like Tuesday might be the frost night.

I was hoping my purple millet could set some seeds for the fall. Though itÂs currently blooming, I think even if I protect it from frost the days are getting too cool for anything to mature properly, aside from tomatoes ripening on the vine, perhaps.

Glen

re: spraying for bugs on vegetables...I do not use Desis on plants that have vegetables that I want to eat right away. The chemical sprayed on potatoes is fine cause the potatoes are under the ground. The corn has not made its cobs yet when I spray them. Also I have not found that this chemical damages any of the foliage on any of the plants that I have been bringing into the house or any plants in the landscaping that I spray for bugs...roses with aphids for example.

Last night the weather channel said our area supposedly got down to -2 but all's okay in my sheltered yard, just west of Brandon. (crossed fingers!)

***knocking on wood*** so far so good BUT it will come soon enough I'm sure.

I did notice that there are buds on plants but they don't seem to be opening anymore.

'Tis the season for change...

OK how did everyone fare? I'm refusing to take off the sheets on the maters but my flowers look Ok-- we had a solid sheet of white last night and I'm waiting 'til tomorrow to pull the sheets just in case (even tho I knew it and today was about 70!)

At least my wildflowers are still in full bloom-- as are my late planted calendula-- and the fall crocuses out there (they get leaves in spring early, but never flower until the leaves are long gone and it's fall! I don't know why that is, as they were here before!) LOL on the veggie/arcissus garden- I have some crocus coming up I didn't know about at the edge of my veggie garden!)

Ok kids stealing the puter-- I'll go sigh at the pots I didn't have room for inside that are dying as I watch!

We've had f---- 3 mornings in a row now, each time about -2C, but still no damage that I can see on any annuals. Shrubs and trees are turning nice colours, though!

Hey, what's up with Calendula. This is the first time I've grown it, and I disliked it most of the summer thinking I'd never plant it again (too much deadheading and taller than I figured). But now - WOW. The flower colours are much more intense, almost glowing, and they're bursting with bloom and still forming buds. They prefer the cooler weather? Excellent plant for late season colour. I wonder how much frost they'll take?

Pudge, I gotta say - the concept of deadheading calendulas has never even crossed my mind. You work waaaay too hard, LOL! They just bloom through the season here with no input from us of any kind - not much frost tolerance, though. My mom grew these when I was a kid (in central Sask) - I seem to remember them as constantly-blooming, zero-care annuals, but I could be wrong - too long ago.

Still no frost here in Anchorage. Not even any termination dust. I really must get busy, but what's the point until the leaves all come on down?

It is getting nippy though.

Gloria

We got lucky here too. Nothing yet. The coolest morning we've had was +2.5......hopefully it'll stay that way for a week yet.

I haven't looked outside yet this morning... I guess I will in a little while, eventually! I have no idea what temp it went to last night but I know they mentioned a high of 10 today. Oh well, may as well get used to it!

LOL about the calendula! I haven't deadheaded mine either because I'm a) too lazy b) the seed heads like kinda neat and c) I think I'll collect some of the seeds! Mine have been blooming since June? July? and are still going strong. And YES they are incredible for late colour!

It snowed all day today here. Luckily the ground was still warm, so no accumulation...
But then I am currently above the arctic circle. I am only visiting, so I don't have to worry about plants here... not my plants at least

I am covering up the squash,pumpkin the squash leaves that were sticking out did get frost and they are brown and curled. It would be nice if the winter squash could have a few more weeks of sunshine. The flowers did not get tinged but the basil did.

Well, we've finally had it. This morning was -.9 and I believe it was sustained for at least a couple of hours. I'm sure the tenders are toast. I used every old quilt and blanket I had, plus borrowed 3 from mil, to cover the sweetpeas, some dahlias and a couple rose bushes in hopes their blooms will survive for the wedding. I sure hope they made it.
Laurie

Oh I hope they're ok too Laurie! We still haven't had it... can't believe it.

Wow Gillian you obviously have a much longer season than I do here.

Laurie...keeping my fingers crossed for you.

My dahlias have already been dug and the garden cleanup started....should be done by this weekend.'

Sierra

Keep those blankets going, Laurie. Best of luck and if all else fails, you could always go to Safeway and get some potted Mums to put in the blank areas. (See Shauna ducking as the daggers start to be thrown her way. Missed me! - oops, ouch!) LOL!

Shauna

Well I guess all those crossed fingers worked! Everything that was covered seems to be fine. The pumpkins, squash, cukes, tomatoes and peppers are done though. It's interesting that the glads are fine, even though they weren't covered. I always assumed they were so tender, guess not. All the perennials seem fine too.

It's funny how frost works. On either side of my back door, I have pots with impatiens. In one pot they are black and droopy, the other pot still looks great. Very strange.

Shauna, we'll be hitting Safeway anyway. Apparently we need more roses and carnations.....so my daggers are still in the closet! lol

Only calling for +3 tonight, so I'm hanging up my blankets till next year :0)

Laurie

Safeway and Superstore have beautiful flowers nowadays. (Sorry if anyone's a florist) I did my own flowers for my wedding (the day of, yes I'm insane) last spring. I bought them all the day before by combing 2 Safeways and a Superstore to find just the right red & white roses, then put in a bucket of water overnight and arranged in the morning. I should post a pic. Might do so over on conversations.

Laurie glad everything's still ok. Maybe you should check the weatherstrip seal on the one side of the door LOL

Hehehe.....never thought of the weatherstriping....good point!
You had red and white flowers too? Yes, please post away. I'm also relieved to hear that we aren't the only insane ones. ;0P

Sorry. Hope I didn't offend anyone, either. I agree with you, Gillian. I have got many nice flowers from Safeway and Superstore. I was directing my weird humor to Laurie's terrific attempts to preserve her garden despite possible frosts. I saw some very nice potted mums at Safeway the other day and thought she could sink the pots into the ground to give some instant color. I knew it wasn't exactly what she wanted but they might work in a pinch. Another example of how voice intonation would make such a difference . . . sigh

Shauna

Shauna, believe me, it takes a lot more than that to offend me! ;^)

Oh I didn't even think of that Shauna, I was just surprised myself that the grocery stores had what I wanted for my wedding so cheap.

We're all too nice here - LOL

Group hug!!! Reading over the last few posts, I think I was being a bit sensitive. Just so long as no one is upset with me. Sometimes, as we all know, the written word just doesn't come across the same way as we would say it. :^D

Shauna

Well the strange thing is we missed the "F" word again. I covered my tomatoes and it dropped to 2C and then rose overnight.

Still, I am much better prepared now. The hibiscus, geraniums, impatien cuttings, etc are inside. The only thing I have to do is harvest the tomatoes. Oh, and the fish come inside for the winter too. Still, I know it's coming.

I checked my purple millet last night, it's blooming but no where close to setting seed, so I guess I can forget saving seeds from it, therefore no need to cover it.

I had a sweet potatoe vine growing in a plastic urn with my hibiscus and was transplanting the hibiscus so I removed the vine. It had formed a fairly big sweet potato. I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I just potted it into a smaller pot and trimmed the vine severely. Maybe once my cuttings of potato vine root I will just dig that potato out and store the root for winter.

Glen

Glen isn't it odd that we keep ALMOST getting frost. Everything's still looking perky in my garden. That's exciting to hear that your SPV made a tuber. Want me to cook it and find out if it's tasty? LOL

My cutting of my sweet potato vine is doing great but my tomato cuttings are getting black spots. Any ideas?

NO FAIR! You guys keep missing frost!

Monday night it was supposed to be a balmy 38F so I didn't cover-- It dropped on me! I even had to scrape the carat 7:15 am!

My flowers are untouched (even my roses are blooming yet again!) but the pumpkin and squash I had tried to save had drastically curled leaves. If the two mater plants get mushy I'll use them for sauce, but I have 2 nice pumpkins for the kids-- I'd gotten most everything off the squash, was just "hoping"! There are still some leaves left alive on them, so I'll keep hoping anyway!

in reference to the last post-- this is what the lawn looked like!

{{gwi:775089}}

I have flowers left though, so I'll put those in this weeks posts

To heck with the "F" word - seems as if some of us are going to be hit with a bunch of the "S" word!! Waaaaaaahhhh! I'm not ready yet...........

Here too Marcia. But they say the amount of the white stuff versus rain may depend on if the temperature stays above freezing and to what degree. At any rate, tomorrow looks like a miserable cold wet day.

The strange thing is, we haven't had frost. About ten days ago the neighbors roof had a small frosty patch on it, but I checked and everything at ground level was just wet. But, with a high of only 2 tomorrow, I suppose the big freeze will follow.

It's just strange how the weather can vary from week to week. Last week thursday it was in the mid 20's.

Glen

It was 25° here on Sunday, an incredible day. I got a lot done! Right now i'm wondering how to ensure getting seeds from flowers whose seeds haven't ripened entirely yet. And if it gets too cold, i'll have to pull all the glads that i "wasn't worrying about for awhile". AND, i still have 62 daffodils and 112 muscari to plant!

Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!

LOL with you, Marcia not at you. I think, right now, I am not having ANY regrets about not buying any fall bulbs this year. I have neither the time nor the energy to get them in, with getting used to this new job of mine. Sigh. What am I going to do in the spring?! I guess I'm going to have to join the "real" world of working full time and trying to garden at the same time, instead of being stay-at-home and gardening full time.

It has been pretty frosty at 2:30 AM the last few nights when I have been going to work. I came home at noon today and found quite a few of the annuals had finally got it. Datura, cleome, thunbergia, and marigolds are done. But, the carnations, osteospermum, verbena, stocks, schizanthus and gazanias are still looking great. Now, I'm off for a couple of days. Hopefully, I can get out tomorrow and do some pulling, digging and cleanup.

Shauna

This is weird... it's snowing right now, yet we have not had below-zero temperatures yet this year. Not even an overnight frost.

HUH

According to one weather site, the last frost in Winnipeg was May 16th, making it a 140 day frost free growing season. I would brag that we've unofficially become southern Ontario, but seeing that it's gone from sunny and hot last week to windy and snow today, I see we are indeed in Manitoba.

Last year too, I remember the first frost was Oct 1st or so, but then again, after the crummy summer last year, Mother Nature owed us that.

Glen

Geez.....I had to go look outside to make sure it wasn't snowing. LOL! Sorry guys, haven't seen snow here yet.....just lots of frosts.

Sierra, who is snuggling in for a long winters nap. LOL!

Yup, got bitten by the frost bug the other night. Some of the toughest plants are still looking OK but the melampodium, zinnias, marigolds, and 4 o'clocks are all goners.

The sunflowers, nigella, venidium, snapsdragons, blue flax, calendula, pansies and some other tough plants are still blooming just fine!

How did everyone who got the storm fare? We've gotten very little s*** out of it so far - just some accumulated in pockets on the grass. The temps are supposed to improve by the weekend. Everyone think of me crawling around planting daffodils and muscari!!

We had frost on the grass, sigh! The herbs turned a horrible brown and I was wondering whether to leave them to spring and till them in or do it now?

We have snow on the mountains. It doesn't usually snow in town until it is about 1/2 down...

It is funny, we had a summer that made us forget we lived in Alaska or something since we are having to get used to cold weather again now!

Maria

We can all be glad we aren't in North Dakota this morning. They had 14 inches of snow in some locations. Ouch!

Cold and miserably wet here. Snow is a coming tonight/tomorrow?
Jan

Some places in southern Manitoba got more than that. Just checked on a ruler - they got 45cm, which looks like it would be about 18 inches.

We got about three inches here overnight, and all the buses are cancelled. The grade 5 math teacher just brought her class in here - two boys! LOL I was out early this morning with a broom shaking off the branches on my roses and shrubs. Pictures this evening!

Here it has has been snowing since yesterday, but a lot of it melted as it hit the ground. Some did accumulate, and this morning we have about 3 inches on the grass. It was slushy and wet snow but now itÂs harder and crusty. The streets and pavement in the city are wet but the situation is apparently worse outside city limits.

I believe around the Killarney and Boissevain areas the situation is much worse and they got the 45 cm. Apparently some highways are closed.

It seemed really odd to return home yesterday evening and see the grass and roof all white. It really didnÂt depress me though, since the highs for the weekend are suppose to be near normal (14C).

This morning my impatiens outside are frozen underneath snow. So, thatÂs the first frost of the season. A rather thick white fluffy frost.

I took a couple of pictures as well. One of the pond, with the fountain running, and the side rocks covered in snow. The other picture of shrubs, just because I find it such a contrast: shrubs still vibrant green and covered and surrounded by snow.

Glen

OUCH!!!

We just have a very frosty, icy type of morning. Sunny, but you can see ice fog when you look at the horizon. Yesterday had some pretty brutal winds going on.

Shauna

Marcia- Using a ruler is clever! Whenever I do the conversions, my head must jiggle with the strain of mentally multiplying or dividing because TM asks me if I am Cross Numerating with Canada?

Snowing lightly now.
Jan

Jan using a ruler is indeed a great idea but you should bookmark this page - it has all different conversions. I use it all the time, especially figuring out gallons and litres and stuff for my aquarium.

Here is a link that might be useful: Metric Conversions at Science Made Simple

I should bookmark it too. I can do Celcius but distance in kms is another thing. Can't quite fathom it!

Pansies, roses and sedum still blooming here although I have cut most of the gardens back and began the mulching as it is predicted that the Kenai Peninsula will be 29 degrees tonight. The pansies might just stand up to that. I hope my lily bulbs arrive in the morning mail as last year I had to plant in frozen snowy ground. I will finish mulching in the afternoon. Very late in the year for my yard not to have had a frost. The newspaper says Alaska will have an easy winter. Hooray. Maybe I don't need to mulch?

We've had some fairly heavy frosts and 3" of s*** but my pansies and sedum are still blooming too, along with asters and mums. The surprises are the nigella, Clematis Ville de Lyons, gazanias, phlox and cynoglossum that are still blooming. I think the lowest it has gone was -2°C, and nothing like that is predicted for the next week, so there may continue to be colour in the garden for awhile.

At the risk of attracting the attention of the frost gods, here it is October 14th and my garden really hasn't been touched by frost (except for the more tender herbs)!!! We did have frost overnite earlier in he week, but it didn't seem to touch the garden. That after I spent the last two weekends cleaning up the veg. garden, trimming all the strawberry plants, spreading out compost, etc. etc. Actually have a bud on one of the rose bushes! Go figure.
Margaret

Not much in the way of frost here. One day -1 and snow, the next day -2, but since then mild. The snow and frost were enough to kill the impatiens, coleus, marigolds, zinnias but it's good in a way since I have a hard time pulling out healthy plants. Plus, I think frosts are natures way to help trees, etc prepare for winter.

Things still blooming include rudbeckia, snapdragons, clematis, honeysuckle vine , Morden Sunrise and Lambert Close roses. My wave petunias were still going, but I pulled most of them out because they looked scraggly and tattered, partly because I haven't been watering regularly.

One thing I learned is that annual lobelia does seem to have some frost tolerance, and the blue color is especially vibrant in the cool fall weather. Annual geraniums weren't as frost tolerant as I thought. They survived but suffered quite a bit of leaf damage.

The one nice thing is that all this reminds me that even though we may get frost earlier some years, there is still gardening to be had in October. I even found one last strawberry while cleaning stuff out.

There's a delphinium still blooming at the Post Office here in town!

I was just going to make the same comment about lobelia - mine has not flinched. My nigella is not bothered by the frost either. I still have 3 blooms on my Sonia rose. And about 10 buds that aren't likely to make it - I'm going to have to cut it back soon.

There are so many half-hardy annuals, I think it would matter more if we had a long fall season or just occasional light frosts like in some parts of the southern States. But around here you know it's just a matter of time, what's a couple of weeks difference?