Month: November 2025

Gardeners Give Thanks for a Garden’s Gifts

Maryland Grows7 Comments

Gardeners are a grateful lot.  Why? We toss a handful of seeds in the soil and up come all manner of flowers and food. The sticks we plant turn into roses. Acorns become oak trees. It’s all quite miraculous. Granted, in between there’s a bit of work. We water and weed, hoe and mulch, and spend an inordinate amount of time on our knees. Perhaps it’s that prayerful stance that graces our harvests.

Perhaps it also helps us to accept the vagaries of wind and weather, rain and frost that would make lesser humans weep. We know, somehow, not to toss in the trowel when things go wrong. It’s character building, I’m told. Tomorrow the sun will shine.  The frost will nip only the outer buds.  The torrential rains eventually end.  When disaster departs and we are left with dew-dazzled leaves, the warmth of the sun, and the smell of musty earth, we are grateful.  It could have been worse. 

A close-up image of a bee on a sunflower flower feeding on nectar and covered with pollen grains.
A bee dusts itself with pollen as it feeds on nectar in a sunflower
Photo credit:  Joan Willoughby

So, we celebrate the first handful of fresh peas, the juicy tang of a tomato. We savor the wine-tinged nectar of a grape and the heavenly scent and squish of the first strawberry. My, but there is so much to give thanks for that feeds both body and soul. Beauty abounds in a garden. It stirs the breeze with a butterfly’s wing. It hums with a pollen-dusted honeybee.  It sings in birdsong and glows in a lemon-yellow tulip. As gardeners, we are front row center to all this loveliness.

A close-up of a monarch butterfly feeding on the nectar of a milkweed plant.
A monarch butterfly sips on a native plant at the Boonsboro Library pollinator planting. 
Photo credit:  Jackie Schwab

And we appreciate the mental and physical workout that gardening provides. Bending and stretching to pull weeds, tie up vines, and turn compost is good exercise. No gym can compete with the fresh air and sunshine we get in tending our plots. We also value the lessons learned. What’s that bug? What caused those spots?  What tree would work best there?  What shrub?  We look it up, phone a friend, or Ask Extension. We never stop learning.

A smiling woman working in a garden.
UME Master Gardener Tracy Barlup helps with a restoration planting at Kiwanis Park’s Monarch Waystation. Photo credit:  Ann Aldrich

Gardening friends are a godsend.  They bring a sympathetic ear, a scrap of advice, a tender cutting, and abundant camaraderie. Most of my closest friends are gardeners, and I value them dearly. Together we live the seasons. Spring brings rain. Summer brings heat. And fall brings the avalanche of harvest.  Bushels of potatoes, tomatoes, beans, and squash fill our larders and set our canners boiling. We gladly share our bounty with friends and family. 

A carton of chicken eggs and harvested vegetables, including carrots, tomatoes, and butternut squash, on a table outdoors.
A celebrated harvest at the Master Gardener
demonstration garden. Photo credit: Ann Aldrich

Who among us is able to get through a holiday season without giving a few gifts from the garden? Jars of jam, tins of lavender cookies, homemade applesauce, and herbal liquors are wrapped with care. We give of ourselves and our gardens. So, in this season of thankfulness, we gardeners are especially grateful.  For we touch the earth and it gives back so much.  Food.  Beauty.  Knowledge.  The fellowship of gardening friends.  We grow with our gardens and count ourselves richly blessed. 

By Annette Cormany, Principal Agent Associate and Master Gardener Coordinator, Washington County, University of Maryland Extension.  Read more by Annette.

Root Crops in the Fall

Maryland Grows4 Comments
Radish, golden beets, and white turnip

If you’re seeing all kinds of lovely root vegetables at farmer’s markets this time of year, start planning now so you can grow them yourself next fall! I am so glad I decided to put in seeds for beets, turnips, and radishes back in August. These are all super-easy crops to grow, if you follow a few simple guidelines.

Here are the steps from thought to harvest:

  • Plan ahead! Buy your seeds for fall planting when you get the ones for spring and summer, because they may be hard to find later on. (Autumn root crops are usually grown from seed; buying plants is a waste of money since you only get one root per plant.) Radishes, beets, turnips, and carrots are all good choices.
  • Make space. Allowing room for fall crops can be difficult in a small garden. If some of your summer crops are not looking too great, take them out and prepare the bed for fall seeding. Or plant a bed with a summer cover crop or a quick-growing crop you know you’ll be removing soon, such as bush beans.
  • Prepare your soil. Root crops like a loose soil – try inserting a trowel into the soil, and if you have to force it in, you will not get a great root harvest. Add some compost! Raised beds provide the ideal environment, since the soil seldom gets compacted. Make sure your planting area gets plenty of sun.
  • Know how long your root crops will take to mature. It’s disappointing to not get edible roots because you didn’t allow enough time. Check HGIC’s planting guides for general information on timing, and also check the seed packet which will give you specifics for the variety you’re growing. Root crops are hardy and will tolerate frosts, so you can plan harvest for anytime from early October to late November, but the later you start the seeds, the slower the plants will grow. (This has more to do with the amount of sun than the temperature.) For a crop that lists 60 days to maturity from seeding, plant in mid-August (you’re allowing an extra week or two for the fall slowdown). Quicker crops like radishes can be planted in succession from late August to late September. Most root crops will sit in the ground just fine in cool weather, so you can harvest them as you need them.
  • Plant as directed. Don’t worry too much about spacing since you will be thinning later on.
  • Keep paying attention as the plants grow. Water regularly if it doesn’t rain, and take out weeds as soon as you can recognize which are the desirable plants. If your soil is low in phosphorus or potassium (which is unlikely), you may need to fertilize, but regular additions of compost through the year usually do the trick with these quick-growing crops. Thin the seedlings when they are several inches high – this means pulling out the plants in between a final set that are several inches apart. Think about what the roots will look like in maturity (what they look like when you buy them), and allow that much room plus a bit extra between plants. I find it easier to thin in two stages, taking out bunches when the plants are small and then a few more as they mature. You can eat the thinnings in salads, if you wish; they’re all edible and delicious.
  • Harvest when ready! All of these root crops will show some of the root portion above the soil, so you can check on size without pulling them out.

In practice, I’m often not on top of thinning, and it was hard to water enough this year with our persistent drought. So some of my root crops, especially the beets, are smaller than they should be. (On the other hand, some of the radishes are enormous.) But even with mistakes I manage to get good results! Try root crops next year and harvest some treasure from underground.

By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.