Sad to see Picadilly’s leave, even if it’s a smart decision

    I stopped in at Picadilly’s Nursery recently for a last look around before they close their retail doors. I worked there for just over a year a few years back, completed my horticulture internship there, and was the perfect employee.
    Most of my salary went right back to them as I shopped and hauled plants home every few days. I learned a lot from everybody who worked there and from many of the customers. These guys know a lot about customer loyalty. Every other person who came in wanted to talk to Dave or Davey or Craig, because they had served them well in the past and the customers trusted them.  As sorry as I am to see a plant nursery shut down, I think they’re making a great business decision. With no new housing, the demand for trees and shrubs has slowed down, while the interest in fresh, healthy, organic, and locally grown food has soared and shows no sign of changing soon.
    And speaking of fresh, healthy, organic and locally grown food, I hope you enjoyed the heck out of fresh produce this summer, whether it came from your yard, a neighbor’s yard, a friend’s community garden plot or some of our wonderful local farmers. My own tiny vegetable garden, which is made up of a few small raised beds, surprised me with its bounty of Asian cucumbers, sweet onions, red bell peppers, summer squash, beets,and tomatoes, including some volunteers.
    I’ll start fantasizing about next year’s crop as soon as the weather keeps me inside. And I’ll be sure to do some smart crop rotation next year. This year, I planted pumpkins very close to where I had zucchini last year, which made it much too easy for the squash beetles to set up camp. Because my garden is so small, I may skip the whole squash family next year. But if you have a large enough plot, you can simply rotate your crops and avoid planting members of the same plant family in the same place. By rotating the location of your crops, you can outsmart the bugs that overwinter in the soil by not giving them the crop they feed on. Different plants take different nutrients from the soil, so you won’t deplete your soil as quickly either. You can find a lot of information about crop rotation on the Internet. But the short version is don’t plant crops from the same plant family, such as tomatoes and peppers, in the same soil, two years in a row.
    As you clean up your gardens and get ready for winter, remember that leaves and other clippings will make wonderful compost. Just don’t let the leaves get matted down. But any diseased plants should not go into the compost pile. When in doubt, throw it out. You don’t want to contaminate next year’s gardens with this year’s pests and diseases.
    Here’s hoping the weather will cooperate and we’ll have a few more weeks of cool but sunny weather to continue enjoying and cleaning up our gardens.

Linda C. Young