Its always intersting to me the difference in frost dates, depending on if you live in a valley or what not around here. My friends who live along the little cahaba near Leeds have had a good frosts more than two weeks now. In Hoover I still have a an angel trumpet (came from you Terry) blooming also, and today I still don't see any frost evidence. I did move stuff into the garage though, 'cause coming soon!

Great ideas. I'm 67 and live down here in Bastrop County where the soil is more sandy than up there where you are. I add loads of compost to my beds to make the sand hold more water for the Digg drip irrigation systems I use. I use adjustable drip emitters (1-10 gal) and adjust them according to the amount of rainfall we get. I've used the roll mulch, but have started using yards of free mulch available around here after the 2011 fires. Usually put 6" down and use a stirrup hoe every couple days to keep the weeds out. The soil is so friable around here that I just use a mattock to pull the spent plants. One lick, and they come right up. If you want to try a mild version of hab, try the Numex Suave Orange. Had several plants over 6' this year producing Homer buckets full of 21/2" fruit.

Hi Katrina, It has been quite a while since we've had a hard freeze this early, but I've been expecting it for a couple of months based on our general weather pattern this fall in Love County (much cooler nights in Sept. and Oct. than usual), the squirrel activity (the highest by far that I've ever seen) and the predator activity (coyotes, bobcats and other predators hunting in broad daylight virtually all day long, which we usually don't see until Jan. or Feb.). I've also just had that 'feeling in my bones' that a hard winter is coming. I suspect this is just a normal fluctuation in weather patterns, taking us back more to the kind of weather we had about a decade ago. Also, sunspot activity has been nil this year and that could be a cause of our cooler weather. A hard freeze here in Love County this morning--24 degrees and a heavy frost, so my warm growing season is over. Happily, I can now clean out the beds and plant cool-season annuals like pansies and violas. In a good winter, they'll bloom all winter and into spring with little to no frost or freeze damage. In a 'bad' winter, though, they will suffer some freeze damage and setbacks. I'm expecting a bad winter, but I'll plant the cool-season flowers anyway. Dawn

Your garden looks great, keep us posted on how everything does. I am especially interested in how the S. palmetto seedlings do unprotected in your location. Speaking of the growing season, It looks like it came to a decisive close last night over most of north Florida. The low this morning in Tallahassee was 23F, ouch, thought it was a tad early for lower 20s, even in the interior panhandle. This obviously nuked the annuals and seasonal tropicals. Does this also fry the leaves off the deciduous trees which are not yet bare? Saw this happen to some of the trees in Atlanta years back after an early November night into the upper teens. The low this morning at the Orlando Executive Arpt., on the other hand, was 51F.