Fall Gardening Thoughts
Fall gardening? What’s to do in the garden in the fall time? Here are some of my fall gardening thoughts.
Don’t Forget!
If you do nothing else this fall, do these two things: mulch and fertilize.
Use a nice, organic fertilizer and fertilize well. Your soil is most likely depleted from the growing season, so it’s time to replenish. Since organic fertilizer must break down to become available to plants, fertilize now to prepare for spring.
As well, cover your beds with a nice thick mulch layer. This will hold moisture in over the winter and create a nice layer of organic matter by the springtime.
Plant Bulbs
I’m writing this in late October and I think it’s safe to say that it’s not too late to plant bulbs. In the case of a vegetable garden, that means garlic.
It’s also not too late for radishes and turnips, if you like that sort of thing.
photo by Nino Barbieri
Don’t Fear the Reaper
If you haven’t had a freeze yet there are an abundance of things you can do to help protect against frost and light freezes.
One of the most important is to keep the garden watered. For one, water will hold heat and keep the garden slightly warmer. For another, the water acts as an insulator against the cold, keeping plant cells from freezing and bursting. It seems counter intuitive but true.
Fall gardening thoughts: water before a freeze.
An article in Mother Earth News advises running a soaker hose throughout the night of a predicted frost. Hooray! another use for soaker hoses.
The article also points out that frost can be very localized. For example a low lying area may frost or freeze a couple of weeks before other areas.
Trees, walls or buildings can create a small heat island that will also deter frost and freezing.
And, of course, you can always cover plants for protection.
A great book on keeping the garden going by providing protection is Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman. This guy grows year round in Maine!
Fall Compost
Fall is a great time to build a compost pile, since you probably have big piles of leaves. If you’re lucky enough to have grass clippings, mix these in with fall leaves for a jump start to great compost.
If you have an abundance of leaves and not much else, consider making leaf mulch. Leaf mulch will take a few years to process, so you will need a fair amount of space for it. I discuss leaf mulch in my free e-book on composting.
Fall gardening thoughts on leaves: use them.
If you’re short on space, consider worm composting. It can be done indoors, and if you have mild winters, outdoors. Actually it can be accomplished outdoors even in harsh climates but I have no experience with it.
Starting a worm bin now should give you enough compost to start seedlings in the spring and to make some awesome worm tea to drench your starts.
Fall gardening thoughts: start worm composting.
If starting a worm bin sounds like a good idea, I’ll be giving a free worminar on November 6th, 2010. You’ll get full instruction on how to build a worm bin and get started worm composting right away.
If you read this after November 6th, you can always check out my blog on worm composting by clicking the gardening with worms link.
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