All the Dirt on Gardening

Photo: Variegated dogwood Sometimes the Blogger software is cranky and today is one of those days so this will be a short entry with only one photograph. I rescued some seeds of a Powder Puff shrub at a public garden and was looking for propagation advice on the Internet. One of the sites that came up was a John Deere Regional Gardening newsletter from 2001. A really good piece of advice on the newsletter is one I had forgotten about. Here is the short version: Sterilize the soil when the last crop has come out of a bed. "Cover the vegetable garden with clear plastic anchored down with stones to heat up and sterilize the soil once spring crops are finished producing. The soil temperatures can reach 135-F under the plastic, high enough to kill insects, weed seeds, and many diseases. June to October is the best time to do this technique in Florida. " The link to Muskogee's Upper South Regional garden newsletters is http://content.garden.org/johndeere/regional/report?actio...