Cummings and Goings in Agriculture
MSU Cheese Available Again For Holiday Gifting
By Steve Cummings
I’ve talked to a lot of old timers, and I am fast becoming one of them, but no one remembers rains like we have had this September. Crop damage has occurred due to the rains, but we won’t know to what extent until harvest starts back or perhaps is completed. Hopefully, it will be a minimum.
There will be a Quick Bites program on “Fall Landscaping Tips, Techniques, and Ideas”, Thursday, Oct. 1, from 12 – 1 pm at the Yalobusha County Multipurpose Building. Fall is here and opportunities abound for rejuvenating your yard and garden for the fall growing season. Plant choices, landscape design ideas, and other tips and techniques on how to have a beautiful fall landscape will be presented by Dr. Lelia Kelly, Associate Extension Professor and Consumer Horticulture Specialist. Please bring a sack lunch and join us for this fun and educational program. You will come away from this bursting with gardening vim and vigor, guaranteed!
Well, it’s that time again! It’s time to place your MSU cheese and gift-product orders for Christmas, and as always, we will be glad to pick up your orders.
The orders will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. This year, the MAFES Sales Store is telling us that some of the cheese will go fast. Since there is no guaranteed date this year, the sooner you place your order(s) the better chances you have of receiving it for Christmas. Therefore, if you would like to place an order and have us pick it up before Christmas, please complete the order(s) one of two ways:
1. Send your order form(s) directly to the MAFES Sales Store. If you place your order in this manner, please call us or provide us with a copy of your order so that we know to pick it up.
2. Call our office at 675-2730 and order directly through us. We need all orders in our office no later than Friday, October 16, 2009. No orders will be guaranteed, so the sooner you get your order to us, the better your chances are of receiving it.
Please check on the form(s) if the orders will be picked up or if it is to be shipped directly to you or to someone else as a gift. If any of the orders are to be shipped, please refer to the shipping charges on the back of each order form.
We will pick up all orders in early December. If there are any questions, please call our office.
Horticulture Tips:
Put Oct. 16 and 17 on your days reserved for gardening. The Truck Crops branch of the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Research Station is holding Garden Fest. The station is about a half hour south of Jackson on I-55 and the garden this year is filled with hundreds of varieties of different vegetables and flowers including heirloom tomatoes, lettuces, beans, peas, cauliflower, greens, verbenas, ornamental grasses and bananas. Drop by anytime between 9 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon.
The slightly cooler weather makes this a good time to plant onion seeds. Seeds now will produce green onions for the Christmas table and bulbs next Spring. Be sure the onion is a short day or intermediate day variety. Be patient since onion seed are slow to germinate and onion seedlings grow slowly. Onions are very shallow rooted, so make sure the soil doesn’t dry out.
Gardeners deciding to clean up the garden and call it a year after the rains of this fall should consider planting a cover crop of vetch or crimson clover. Either of these two will fix enough nitrogen from the air to produce crops next Spring. Be sure to innoculate the seed with the proper bacteria if you have never grown the plants in your garden before. It is better to make the beds before you plant the cover crop. This will allow you to get into the garden earlier if we have a wet Spring.
Scout berry bearing evergreens now for use later in decorating your house. The orange berries of pyracantha and some nandina can be used to make Fall wreaths and sprays with the leaves of deciduous trees. The red berries of hollies and other nandina can be used for Christmas decorating. Locating these now in warm weather will make it easier to gather in the cold later.
