Green Thumb Summer Is Over: Time to Plant Something
quick and impossible to disappoint. Carrots take their sweet time and test your character. Respect the dirt. Much of our soil is closer to concrete than earth, and caliche has ended more gardening careers than any heat wave. Mix compost into your beds, dig wide holes, and do not take it personally when your shovel bounces off something rude. Water like a nervous parent. New plants are needy. Water them often at first, then ease off as roots settle in. Plant in the morning, and give seedlings a little shade if a hot afternoon sneaks back for an encore. Keep a bedsheet handy. Our first frost usually holds off until late fall or winter, but tender plants like petunias appreciate a blanket on chilly nights. Yes, your old sheets finally have a purpose. Check your guidelines. Before turning the front yard into a cabbage farm, review Verrado’s landscape rules. Nobody wants a strongly worded letter about their kale. Plant now and by spring you will have color, salad and serious bragging rights. Your tomatoes will return in a few months. They are not dead. They are resting.
Congratulations, Verrado. You survived another summer in which the sidewalk could fry an egg and your patio furniture developed opinions. Now October has arrived with temperatures a human can stand in, and your yard finally gets to be more than a very expensive collection of gravel. This is planting season in the low desert. While the rest of the country rakes leaves and sighs, we get to put things in the ground on purpose. Start with color, because you’ve earned it. Pansies, violas, snapdragons, petunias, alyssum and dianthus love cool weather and will bloom until spring. Tuck them into pots by the front door and your house will look like it has its life together, even if the garage says otherwise. Vegetables that actually cooperate. Set the tomato dreams aside for now. Fall belongs to leafy greens and root crops. Sow lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets and radishes from seed, and set out transplants of broccoli, cauliflower, kale and cabbage. Radishes sprout in days, making them the golden retriever of vegetables: eager,
26 Estrella Publishing - Main Street magazine
October 2026
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