The Kerby's E-Newsletter
November 9, 2017
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| An experiment with Halloween candy. |
So, we all know what the day after Halloween is called, right? It's National Eat-All-Your-Kids-Candy Day! Well, maybe we should just rename November National Eat-All-Your-Kids Candy Month. They usually collect enough candy trick-or-treating to keep us eating sweets right on through Thanksgiving. I mean, it's for their own good right? (I promise, we do let them enjoy some of the candy, just not a whole pumpkin-pail full . . .) But we also found something just as fun as eating candy to do with a few of our treats. Kim and the girls put skittles in a circle on a plate, poured in some water, and voila, a rainbow of colors ran into the center. It was a neat experiment on water stratification (and a great way to not eat some of our Halloween candy.) But I really think that it just goes to show how amazing water is. I mean, we all know how important it is for our bodies and for our gardens, without it, neither would live. And here on a plate, with a little bit of candy, it really shows us that it is an amazing molecule.
Water sure is important for our gardens, and as we enter our dry season, don't forget to water your plants. They get used to the rainy season and regular afternoon showers through the summer, and can sometimes show a little stress when those rains go away. Since the daytime temperatures aren't too hot, you don't need to over-do it, but keep an eye on all of your beautiful plants to make sure they are getting the water they need.
I don't know about you, but I am loving the warm afternoons and the cool mornings. I don't really like the time change - I'd much rather have the sunlight later in the evening, but it does give us some daylight to sit out in the mornings with the chickens and enjoy our gardens. It is definitely a lovely time of year!
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Happy Gardening, The Kerby's Nursery Family 
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| Unique flowers add fun to your garden. |
Billy Buttons
Craspedia
The Billy Buttons have unique bright-yellow flowers that resemble little golf balls. The flowers stand above a grass-like silvery foliage that adds its own beautiful texture to a garden. They are extremely drought tolerant and are great for adding to dry, sunny landscapes or planting in sunny pots.
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| Check out the lady bug larva! It doesn't look anything like a ladybug does it? |
Lady Bugs in your Garden
We worry a lot about getting rid of bad bugs like aphids, thrips and grasshoppers. But there plenty of really important bugs that we want to have around. Bees are of course important for pollinating, butterflies are something that (almost) everyone wants to attract to their garden, and of course you want to have ladybugs in your garden. But you may not recognize a ladybug through all of its life-cycle stages. Ladybugs go through the same stages as butterflies: egg, larva, pupa and adult. We all know what the adults look like, but the larva are so different that you might think they are a bad bug. In the picture at left, the larva is sitting on the milkweed stem above the caterpillar - the orange and black bug that looks a little like a mini-cockroach. If you didn't know what it was, you'd be pretty likely to remove it from your garden. Even as larva, the ladybugs are voracious aphid-eaters and so in any part of their life cycle, ladybugs are great to have in your garden.
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Just In |
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Geraniums Nothing says Cool-season in Florida like geraniums. |
Cool Season Annuals Petunias, Pansies and Snapdragons  4.5" Pot - $1.99 each |
Fall-Blooming Cassia
Beautiful Fall Blooms!
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