I stand corrected, last week I had mentioned that the Giant Leopard moth didn’t live in our area and I was wrong. In fact the Giant Leopard moth can be found in most of zone 5 now, so many of the all black caterpillars that are being seen may very well be that of the giant leopard moth. The easiest way to tell is when you pick the caterpillar up and it curls into a ball, you should be able to see dark orange bands between the black segments. So I learned something new that I didn’t know last week. 

Customers always ask where I get all my knowledge, when in fact it just accumulates over the years. I’ve been gardening all my life, as my grandparents had a large garden in Liberty when I was a kid, and they grew all the vegetables that they would need for an entire year. Some crops were stored in the root cellar, while others were canned and stored in the basement. Grandma never got excited by a can sale at the local grocery store because she had everything she needed downstairs. I started selling plants when I was 16 back in 1983 at Liberty Agway and most of what I know today is knowledge from experience not a book. 

Talking to farmers, landscapers and garden enthusiasts over the years is where this knowledge has been gathered and I’m not done yet. Recently I was watching an Australian gardening show as they are growing into spring down under and learned even more gardening tips and tricks. If you’re older like me, you probably have a prescription for something. Well inside those prescription bottles they sometimes have those silica pods to keep moisture from ruining the medication. Those pods can be used for over a year once the bottle is opened. So if you save seeds from one year to the next, put one of those pods in with them so that they don’t collect moisture and mold. Also if you want to save seed of some wildflowers that would normally be scattered to the wind once they mature, you can take a nylon stocking and place it over the flower stalk and tie it on. This way when the seed is mature the nylon will catch it so that you can collect it. The nylon is breathable so that it won’t hurt the plant. If it gets wet it will dry quickly and the openings are small enough to trap even the finest of seeds. So next time the missus wants to throw her old nylons away, save them to save some seeds. No matter what, I keep learning so no one can call me a know-it-all, because I don’t.

One thing I do know though, is that the cold weather that we are starting to get now will probably be here to stay. This past week over a foot of snow fell from the Rockies to Michigan including most of interior Canada. With that amount of snow even if they get a few warm days, that is not likely to melt until spring. That snow will make daytime temperatures even colder as the snow reflects the sun’s rays that would normally penetrate and warm the ground. So daytime temperatures will be kept lower and nighttime temperatures will drop even lower still, allowing any precipitation to come in the form of the white stuff, spreading even further across the country. So if you haven’t prepared yet for the white stuff, you better get crackin’, as your days are numbered.