Fall Leaves: To Leave or Not to Leave

Tria Giovan

21 of the Best Trees for Yellow Fall Color

Read McKendree

While your baskets are filling with long-awaited tomatoes, zucchini and peppers, you might not be thinking about the months to come. But the garden season doesn’t have to end when the weather cools off. Midsummer is the perfect time to start plants for a second harvest. Here are five crops you can grow right now and enjoy in a couple of months. Happy harvesting! You Might Also Like: Best Places to Buy Garden Seeds OnlineCalculate How Many Vegetables to Plant Cool-Season Vegetables to Plant in Fall

As temperatures drop and summer leaves change colors, outdoor physical activity becomes enjoyable. There are many ways you and your family can get active during the fall season.

I don’t know about you, but I love a product that can be used in a variety of ways and has staying power, especially in the home and kitchen. I recently discovered fall/winter squash and the varieties and versatility that they provide. I knew about the typical winter squash that you see in the grocery store like Acorn, Butternut, Spaghetti, Pumpkins, and decorative gourds, but have been introduced to other varieties like Honey Nut, Kabocha, Carnival, Turban, Banana, Red Kuri, Sweet Dumpling, and Buttercup.

Ranunculus (Ranunculus species) is an often-overlooked fall-planted and spring-flowering bulb that has recently become one of my favorite spring flowers to grow. It’s an attractive addition to flowering borders when interplanted with other spring-flowering bulbs like tulips, daffodils, anemones, and hyacinths, and it even performs and looks great in containers! Plant habit also comes in many forms, from compact and stout to plants with long flowering stem lengths, perfect for cutting. I particularly love using the multi-layered, almost paper-like blooms in flower arrangements, as they have an excellent vase life as well.

In the hot summer months, do you love sitting outside watching the fireflies (or lightning bugs) flash in the landscape? If you do, then there is something important you need to know related to fall gardening. If you are a neat and tidy gardener and like to get all those messy leaves off your garden, think again. Once you’ve bagged up all those leaves neatly and put them by the side of the road, you’ve probably removed all the juvenile fireflies from your yard too! So next year, no fireflies to watch.

On a recent walk through the neighborhood with our family dog, it was apparent that fall was in full swing. Except for the evergreens, fewer trees have a full canopy of green leaves. Deciduous tree leaves are transitioning in color from green to yellow, orange, red, and purple hues as temperatures decrease and day lengths shorten. The changing color of leaves is a spectacular event most years. However, nothing announces the arrival of autumn like leaves raining down from trees to scatter across the landscape. This serves as a reminder that fallen leaves are a free, valuable, and often underused natural resource.

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If you too are facing the problem of your Basil Leaves Turning Black or Brown, then you are at the right post! Here are all the details on why it happens and how to keep this herb plant thriving.

I REPEAT MYSELF A LOT, AND HERE I GO AGAIN: Think fall (yes, fall) in early spring, when the urge to shop for for trees and shrubs tugs insistently. Think fall, and think winter, too.