Agriculture

What better place for a tree with red and green leaves than Red Orchard Park?

Even better, this tree really stands out because it’s nailed to a barn.

How is that, you ask?

The tree is a quilt pattern adorning a barn just inside the park’s entrance.

The Kentucky Cover Lovers Quilt Guild, which encompasses seven counties, designed and constructed the quilt, which was hung on the barn on Nov. 4.

I have a nice stand of turnip seedlings that I hope to harvest for their tops and roots before winter sets in. They were about the only thing I could get to germinate in late August as I prepared for the fall garden, so I feel an extra appreciation for them.

And, this time of the year, approaching All Hallow’s Eve to be exact, I contemplate their esteemed role the tradition of carving a vegetable so you could use it to light your way!

I spent most of last weekend tackling all of our mixed perennial borders. Quite frankly, things looked awful. In my defense this state of the garden has nothing to do with me, it’s the droughts fault.

Crispy, wilted and barely blooming was about all my beautiful borders has to show for this October, so I made the decision to get to work early and cut back all the herbaceous perennials that were making me depressed instead of happy.

Our current weather conditions demand that we rethink some of our fall chores. Fall lawn and tree fertilization should come later this year then normal because of the drought conditions.

An application of high nitrogen now would only burn up what little green grass you may have and force trees to work more then they should under stressful conditions.