The Garden Almanac

Today in the garden

Wednesday, September 16 · Waxing crescent, 27% lit · 12h 13m daylight · equinox in 6 days

In the garden this September

The cheapest soil test you own is blooming right now.

A mophead hydrangea reads the chemistry of the ground it grows in and prints the answer in color. Blue means acid, pink means sweet. How to read the shrub by the front walk, and how to change its mind.

Read your hydrangeaSee the planting calendar
Blue and pink mophead hydrangea shrubs blooming side by side in golden evening light

Tip of the day

Step like a heron.They feel vibration, not sound. Slow, soft steps get you within arm's reach; a normal walk empties the lawn ahead of you.

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Two mature maples side by side at the edge of a lawn in low evening light, the nearer one turned orange-red on one whole side while the rest of its canopy and the tree beside it are still summer green

Watering & care · Sep 16, 2026

The Tree That Turned Early

A field note from the back lawn. One of the two maples went orange on its west side in the first week of September while its twin stayed green, and the tree was not announcing the season. It was announcing a root. What I found at the base in the morning, which early colours are normal and which are a flag, and the three things to look for where the trunk meets the ground.

One apple hanging on its stem among leaves, turned so that its sun-facing side is deep red and its shaded back is clearly green, with more apples and an old ladder soft in the background

Kitchen garden · Sep 16, 2026

Why the Apple Is Red on One Side and Green on the Other

Turn an apple on its stem and the back of it is often a different colour from the front. The red is not sent up from the leaves and it is not a sign of ripeness. It is made in the skin, on the spot, and only where light lands. How the skin does it, why a green apple cannot, what the orchards in Japan do with paper bags, what cold nights add, and the one thing red never tells you about an apple.

A section of pumpkin vine lifted off dark garden soil to show fine white roots growing from a leaf node, with big lobed leaves and a ripening orange pumpkin soft in the background

Watering & care · Sep 15, 2026

The Pumpkin Vine Plants Itself as It Goes, and That Is Why the Borer Did Not Kill It

Lift a pumpkin vine tonight and look under the leaf joints. At every joint that lay on damp soil there is a tuft of white roots, a second root system the plant grew for itself on its way across the bed. What those roots are for, which squash grow them and which cannot, how they save a plant the vine borer has hollowed out, and the one time in the season it is safe to move a vine.

A glass jar of freshly cut basil stems on a weathered wooden kitchen counter by a window in low warm evening light, kitchen scissors beside the jar and a dark garden soft in the window behind

Kitchen garden · Sep 15, 2026

Bring the Basil In Before Fifty

A field note from the kitchen step. Basil is the one plant in the garden that dies of cold weeks before anything freezes, and the night it happens is the night the forecast says forty eight. What I found on the step the morning I did not listen, why the tomatoes next to it never noticed, and the two ways to keep the last of it.

“Sow peas and beans in the wane of the moon; who soweth them sooner, soweth too soon.”

Old garden saying

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Split common milkweed pods spilling white silk along a fence line in golden September light, seeds lifting on their floss

Planting & timing · Sep 6, 2026

How to Collect and Sow Milkweed This Fall

The pods splitting along the roadside this month are the easiest wildflower you will ever plant, and fall is the only season that works without a refrigerator. Which pods to pick, how to get the silk off in thirty seconds, where the seed goes, why you never bury it, and the one milkweed not to plant in the South.

A groundhog at the mouth of its burrow beneath the corner of a weathered garden shed in low golden lightGarden myths · Sep 4, 2026The Groundhog Under Your Shed Is About to VanishBy late October the groundhog that has been flattening your beans will seal itself into a chamber below the frost line and slow its heart to five beats a minute. Here is what it is doing down there, what the burrow is doing to your ground, and the one fence detail that actually keeps it out of a bed.A gardener's stained hands pulling a spent tomato vine off a stake in low golden light with a wheelbarrow of vines behindKitchen garden · Sep 4, 2026What to Do with Tomato Vines When the Season EndsThe vines come out in the next few weeks, and what you do with them decides how much blight you plant next spring. Here is the order to pull them in, what goes in the compost and what goes in the bag, why your hands come out yellow, and how to get the stain off.A loose flock of American robins feeding in a crabapple tree in low golden lightGarden myths · Sep 3, 2026Where the Robins Really Go in WinterThe robin on your lawn is about to vanish, and most of them are not going south. Here is what the flock does from now until March, why the first robin of spring is usually a bird that never left, and the four shrubs that keep the flock on your street.

Did you know

An inch of rain on a 1,000 square foot garden is about 620 gallons of water.

Garden myths, tested

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A tan walnut-sized praying mantis egg case glued to a dry brown stem in a garden bed, frost on the case, low winter sun

Garden myths · Sep 8, 2026

The Praying Mantis Egg Case in Your Garden: Find It, Leave It, Do Not Bring It In

The mantis on your porch dies at the first hard frost, and everything she leaves behind is a tan foam case the size of a walnut, glued to a stem. What it is, how to find it when you cut the beds down, and the one mistake that fills a kitchen with a hundred mantises in February.

A black-capped chickadee perched on a sunflower-seed feeder dusted with early snow in warm morning light

Garden myths · Sep 7, 2026

What the Chickadee at Your Feeder Does All Winter

It does not fly south and it does not freeze. Starting this month the chickadee hides thousands of seeds, grows a bigger brain to find them, and spends every winter night alone in a tree hole with its body turned down twenty degrees. The whole winter of the smallest bird on the feeder.

A single coyote standing at the dewy edge of a suburban lawn at first light, looking back over its shoulder toward a treeline

Garden myths · Sep 6, 2026

The Pack You Heard Last Night Was Four Coyotes

September is the month the coyotes start singing behind the field, and it always sounds like twenty of them. It is usually a family of four, sometimes two. Why your ear doubles the count, what the biggest urban coyote study ever done found in their diet, and the one honest rule for the cat.

An eastern box turtle with an orange patterned shell resting in leaf litter at the edge of a vegetable bed in warm evening light

Garden myths · Sep 5, 2026

The Box Turtle in Your Garden May Be Older Than Your House

Box turtles live past a hundred and almost never leave a patch a few hundred yards across, so the one eating your fallen tomatoes has likely been there for decades. The kindest thing most people do for one, carrying it somewhere safer, is the thing that kills it. What to do instead, this fall and on the road.

2026

The planting calendar

Month by month: what to sow, what to plant, and what to bring in.

Open the calendar

Sow now

  • Spinach
  • Lettuce
  • Radishes
  • Milkweed seed

Plant now

  • Mums
  • Asters
  • Garlic (late month)

Harvest now

  • Tomatoes
  • Peppers
  • Winter squash
  • Apples
The Fall Planting Planner, printed and spiral bound, on a garden table

New from the almanac

The Fall Planting Planner

Count back from your first frost, and nothing is left to chance. Sixteen crops, a complete garlic guide, and working pages to write in. Twelve pages you print at home, emailed the moment you buy.

See the planner, $9
The Garden Almanac engraved sunflower mark

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