You know fall is on its way because the mailbox is chock full of bulb catalogs and stores start displaying Halloween candy. It wasn’t even Labor Day and they were trying to push orange and black candy?

Although I’d be willing to lobby for a law against store holiday displays more than a month before the actual holiday, chrysanthemums will bloom like mad today and continue until the first hard frost. Longer, if you cover them or take them inside on the early nippy nights.

If your day lilies are droopy, your hostas are holey and your petunias are pouting, the mums’ bright spots of color might be just what the plant doctor ordered.

Just about every grocery store and plant nursery has a display these days and, for the most part, those pots of mums are relatively inexpensive.

Look around your yard and at your house and select a color that will work with the color scheme you already have. Mums are likely to be the loudest gal at the party, so you might as well pick something that really pops.

Dirt Cottage is gray with a bright red door. I usually pick a striking deep purple because most of the flowers that are blooming this time of year in my garden are white or in the sunflower-gold range.

Because you’ll need to pick off dead blooms and make sure the plants don’t dry out, I’d recommend massing mums near a door or a path you use all the time.

Most nursery mums need to be watered at least once a week; I usually give them a drink and deadhead any spent flowers on Saturdays and check them again midweek. Because they are packed with blossoms and won’t recover after a big wilt, give these fall divas a little pampering.

As for spring-flowering bulbs, I prefer picking them up at a local store where I can check out their heft and health for myself. I’ve had one too many bad experiences with catalogs.

Pick ’em and pose

As we move into harvest season, it’s time to pick your favorite produce and pose with it.

Email your favorite shot to garden@jg.net and put “Veggies” in the subject line. Photos should be in jpeg format.

Please include your name, the name of the posing person or pet, type of produce, where you live, a phone number and a brief description of what you do to make that tomato or pumpkin all plump and delicious.

Photos, which are already starting to come in, are posted on The Journal Gazette’s gardening blog, “We’re Digging It.”

If you cook up your produce, we’ll also take photos of your harvest in that form. If you have a great recipe to use up all those zucchinis, we’re happy to post that as well.