It's important to get your garden in shape before winter comes in order to guarantee a great start to next year's growing season.
Clean Up
Remove all spent annuals and seasonal vegetables before the snow flies. Leaving this debris on your garden can provide a place for pests and diseases to hide and survive the winter. Your spring garden will not start off well with these intruders taking over. Throw any healthy growth on your compost pile, but put anything that is already diseased or pest ridden in the garbage. Also, remove any weeds or leaves covering your garden to make it difficult for any garden pests to survive. Identify your perennial plants and cut them down. As long as the roots are intact, these plants will come up again next year. Simply cut down the excessive growth to a few inches above the ground.
Photograph and Plan
If you haven’t been taking pictures all summer of the various stages of your garden like some zealous gardeners do, now is a good time to take some photos and make some notes. Draw a diagram of your garden and flowerbeds and note where the perennials are planted so you can avoid damaging them in the spring while they lay dormant. This is also a good time to reflect on the growing season and make notes about what worked and what didn’t in your garden. Did your corn disappoint? Make a note and learn what you can do to make next year’s crop better.
Soil State
Once your garden is cleaned up, it is an excellent time to test your soil for things like pH level and nutrient content. Once you determine what your soil needs you can add amendments to improve it. Organic material such as your own compost, manure, blood meal or bone meal can be added to your soil to make it better for next year’s garden. Adding these elements in the fall will give your soil plenty of time to absorb all the healthy ingredients before you’re ready to plant in the spring. Top off your garden plot with 3 or 4 inches or mulch or compost and let it lie there all throughout the winter. Then incorporate it into the soil in the spring before planting. This final layer also helps protect any plant roots you’ve left in the soil.
Plant Spring Bulbs Now
Before the ground freezes, plant any hardy, spring-blooming bulbs you want to appear when the weather warms up again. Protect them from scavenging rodents by scattering the hole first with rough gravel or cover the bulb with hardware cloth. You can also plant shrubs, trees, perennials and cool weather annuals and vegetables.
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