The Hort Report: Keep planting things like trees and tulips until soil is frozen

From Laura, Hillary, Sandra and I, we pray and hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving and remembered to thank God for all your blessings.

Spring for me will start Jan. 7. That will be the first South Shelby Adult Vo-Ag horticulture class for 2025. It will start at 5:30 pm in the South Shelby Vo-Ag classroom. The class will meet on Tuesdays, with the last class on April 29.  If you have any questions, call me at 573-588-2040 or 573-406-7267. 

Winter is here, and there are several things you need to be doing in the coming days before it gets very cold. I have talked about how you can save seeds from flowers and vegetables. This is the best time to finish your seed saving. Store the seeds in paper bags in a cool dry place until spring. 

Fall planting of trees, shrubs and bushes is something that Laura and I have done in the past few days. All the energy goes into the roots of them once they are dormant for the winter. 

You can keep planting until the soil is frozen. Make sure you get enough loose soil around the roots, watering them in. We made sure that we covered the soil around the trees with the fescue grass and their roots. We made sure to save them when we dug the holes. Watering their roots helps them grow, keeping the tree roots protected during the winter months so they will get off to a great start in the spring.

Planting in the spring is another good time to be planting, but you will need to make sure that you keep plants watered. In the spring, the trees are trying to not only grow new roots but put on new growth and leaves, so they need a lot of water. In the past few years, we have had drier than normal springs. 

When cleaning up our garden and flowerbeds, we pulled up all the vegetable plants like tomatoes, peppers and corn. We use most of the plants, if they’re not diseased in the compost piles, in raised beds to break down as compost over the next few years. 

We will prune the tops of all the flowers, allowing the seeds to self-seed themselves for next year and then pruning the rest of the stems, leaving them as mulch in the perennial flowerbeds. 

We have been cleaning up all tomato cages and cattle panels we used in the garden to let tomato and peppers grow in. 

Cover all your perennial vegetable plants with straw or mulch to protect them from freezing over the winter. I use straw, making sure we get it down around the base of the plants where it comes in contact with the soil so the cold air doesn’t get down into the root system of the plants. 

We will make sure all the perennial flowerbeds are covered with mulch, mostly from the leaves we have ground up after mowing them. Sometimes we will use the stems and leaves from the perennial flowerbeds. 

As you clean up your garden and flowerbeds, plan what you will plant in them in 2025. As you begin to get seed catalogs in the mail, start a list for what you want to plant.

If you want to take a chance, try to plant tulips this fall. You can plant them until the ground is too frozen to dig into. Once you get them into the ground, water them in and cover them with mulch. 

I appreciate all your questions in the past thanks. Keep them coming. Call me at 573-588-2040, visit me at Shelby County Implement in Shelbina, Mo., email me atsci63468@hotmail.com or go on Facebook at Greenwell’s Greenhouse Group. Ask me anytime you see me. 

I pray you enjoyed Thanksgiving. 

Pat Greenwell is the owner of Shelby County Implement in Shelbina, Mo. He was a high school agriculture teacher for 11 years. He has taught adult vocational agriculture since 1987. He also is a research assistant at the Truman State University Ag Department Farm.