| 10 Fall Cleanup Tips for a Better Spring Garden
Mulching, Leaf Removal, and Lawn Treatment |
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October is the perfect month to prepare the yard and garden for spring! With cooler weather and fewer insects, it's also easier to do this work in autumn, not during freezing temperatures.
Here are 10 fall cleanup tips for a better spring garden. |
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| 1. Rake Up Leaves
A small number of leaves is not a problem, but you shouldn't leave thick layers of leaves on your lawn. This not only blocks sunlight and air from reaching your grass but also gives pests and diseases a place to overwinter. | | Some yard owners use rakes. Others use leaf blowers. If your mower has a mulching blade, it will chop leaves into fragments as tiny as confetti, which can be left on the lawn. As the shredded leaves decompose, they will act as a natural fertilizer and weed control agent. They will decompose by spring.
Remember: Leaves are garden gold! Add those nutrients to your compost bin so that you have more organic planting matter next season. See more about the value of leaves.
After you rake (or leaf blow), be sure to de-thatch your lawn. Thatch is that yellowish-brown grass that lies underneath the living, green grass. It's important to avoid thatch buildup, as it keeps nutrients and water from filtering down to the grass's roots. Vigorously rake out the thatch on cool-season grasses in the early fall. This gives the grass time to recover from the stress of being de-thatched. If you have serious soil compaction, you also may need to aerate your lawn, which requires renting a lawn aerator from a home improvement store to create holes that will deliver oxygen, water, and nutrients into your soil. | | | Click Below to Take the ECHO Leaf Blower Challenge | |
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2. Fertilize and Weed Your Lawn
Early autumn is the best time to lightly fertilize your lawn to promote root growth and prepare it for the next growing season. Don't wait until spring, as the fertilizer will be less effective then. In the fall, your grass needs to recover from the summer heat and can best use the nutrients provided by a fertilizer. Use a turf builder or fertilizer meant for winterizing lawns (with a low middle number for NPK such as 32-0-10).
If you seed a lawn, you certainly want the seeds to thrive without competition for nutrients from troublemaking perennial broadleaf weeds. Fall is the best time to address this issue; don't wait until spring, when weeds emerge. Perennial broadleaf weeds are transporting food (carbohydrates) from their foliage to their roots in preparation for winter. Visit your local garden center to find out about organic and traditional weed solutions. | | 3. Check the Soil pH of Your Lawn
Autumn is a great time to ensure that your lawn will be healthy and happy next year. Get a soil test to see if your soil is lacking in nutrients or has a pH that isn't ideal for growing the type of grass that you have.
Contact your local Cooperative Extension, which typically provides free or low-cost soil tests, or purchase a test kit from your local home improvement store or garden center. If the test shows excessive acidity, you'll want to apply lime. If your soil is too alkaline, you'll apply sulfur. | | 4. Overseed Lawn Grasses
It's also a good time to overseed your lawn so that it's thicker and lusher next season. To overseed, first cut your grass shorter than usual, then remove the grass clippings and lightly spread seed across the entire lawn with a fertilizer spreader, following instructions on the grass seed bag for overseeding. Keep lightly watered until new growth is at least 3 inches tall.
5. Save Seeds, Cuttings, Flowers from Garden
If you are busy deadheading your flowers, stop! Take a look at the seed heads that you are cutting off. Instead of removing these seed heads, let some of them ripen until they turn brown and split open. These seed capsules are like salt shakers full of tiny seeds. Scatter the seeds anywhere that you would like them to grow or just let them drop where they are. And leave some dried seed heads for the birds, too! | | You can also collect any dried seeds from open-pollinated flowers and veggies to sow next year.
Another option is to dry some of those flowers, seed heads, and herbs, especially from plants like hydrangea and yarrow. Then you can enjoy the beautiful dried blooms indoors during the winter.
Finally, fall is a good time to take small cuttings of plants to overwinter before transplanting them outdoors in the spring. We especially love growing herbs indoors.
6. Winterize Garden Beds
With cooler weather and fewer insects, fall is the easiest time to winterize your yard, too. You don't want to wail until temperatures are already freezing!
Remove ALL debris and old plant matter from garden beds to prevent plant diseases and pests from overwintering. | | Also, cut back most perennials. (However, don't cut down plants too early. If the foliage is still green, the plants are collecting nutrients to last through winter; wait until leaves die back.)
Do not compost diseased plants, such as peony leaves infected with powdery mildew, as diseases may persist in your compost pile.
We like to put a thin layer of leaves over smaller garden beds (or, plant a cover crop for large beds) to protect the topsoil and enrich the soil. Just be careful to use only a thin layer of leaves; you don't want to create a habitat for diseases and pests. | | Some gardeners like to enrich their garden beds with compost in the fall. Others save their composting for spring, as it can be an expensive material. If you do have extra compost to add in the fall, do so, as it will help out the earthworms that work it into the soil. This may be preferable to tilling, which can expose weed seeds.
Finally, many gardeners will cover their beds with old carpet, tarp, or landscape fabric to ensure that no sunlight gets to those weed seeds and that you have a clean slate with which to work come spring!
7. Clean Your Gutters
Ensure that your gutters are clear of fall leaves, especially before the snow falls. Otherwise, you may have bigger problems as ice dams form. Remove leaves around your house's foundation, too, and in other places that invite rotting and mold. The easiest way to clear out blockages is to use a leaf blower with a rain gutter attachment.
8. Compost Your Leaves
The most efficient way to use leftover leaves is to add them to a compost pile—along with your grass clippings, vegetable waste, annual weeds, straw, and other organic matter. Once decomposed, the compost makes wonderful, free, nutrient-rich plant food. | | Before the snows fall, turn your compost and cover your compost bin with tarp so that all that work is stored for spring!
You can also create leaf mold with leaves. Unlike compost, a mix of different organic matter, leaf mold is made purely of decomposing leaves.
9. Winterize Trees and Shrubs
In regions with heavy snow, you want to give your trees and shrubs the best chance of surviving. Cover small trees and deciduous shrubs with a wooden structure to protect them from heavy snow. Or, circle them with a cylinder of chicken wire fencing and fill in the space between the tree and the fence with straw or leaves. Or, drive stakes into the ground at four corners around the plant and wrap burlap or heavy plastic around the stakes, securing it at the top, center, and bottom with twine.
For young fruit trees, it's often a good idea to wrap the lower trunk of the tree with a pestproof tree wrap, which will prevent mice and voles from gnawing on the tree's bark during the winter.
Slow down any watering in early fall; once the trees' leaves have dropped (but before the ground freezes), give all trees and shrubs a deep watering, covering the entire canopy area.
10. Clean Your Tools
Last but not least, late autumn is the best time to clean your tools! If you have a lawn mower, drain out the gas. Turn off the water for the hose. Clean, sand, and oil your garden tools before storing them for the winter.
Clean out cold frames if you use them for a head start on spring vegetable growing.
While you're cleaning, make sure that those bird feeders are cleaned up and ready for winter use!
And That's It!
We hope that this list of fall garden tasks helps to set you up for a better spring! |
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