It is tempting to close the garden gate and let nature take its course after the frenzy of early-spring planting and the height of the summer harvest. You’ve already accomplished the difficult spring labor and earned the rewards of the summer.
Consider some of these suggestions for putting your garden to bed if you want to lessen the workload you’ll have to deal with during the spring rush of the following year.
1. Remove unhealthy plants.
Leave everything else alone. While many dead plants can decompose and enrich the soil with nutrients, unhealthy plants might contaminate others with pathogens, bugs, or fungi. Now is the ideal moment to eliminate any plants that showed disease symptoms earlier in the growing season, but you could not take action. If you leave the rest of your harvested crops in situ over the winter, they will safeguard the soil and prevent erosion. Additionally, they can serve as homes for pollinators that overwinter.
2. Get rid of invasive weeds that might have grown over the growing season.
Do you recall how your raspberry patch became overrun with bindweed? Or the Himalayan blackberry that has overtaken the boundaries of your garden? The moment has come to deal with those outlaws. They can be dug up and disposed of or buried under tarps or garden fabric. Refrain from just moving invasive weeds to another area of your garden because the majority of invasive weeds still thrive in compost or weed piles.
3. Prepare the soil for spring.
Although most people save this activity for spring, fall is an excellent time to add organic fertilizers like rock phosphate, kelp, bone meal and soil amendments like manure and compost. In most climes, providing nutrients gives them time to decompose, enhance their soil, and develop the biological activity. By amending the ground now, you will have completed some tasks before the busiest season.
4. Grow cover crops.
It’s ideal for planting cover crops like rye, vetch, or clover in many areas in late summer or early fall. These plants improve the organic matter content of garden beds, reduce soil erosion, and loosen up compacted areas. In addition to adding nutrients, cover crops can assist your soil in absorbing atmospheric carbon. Generally, it would help if you planted cover crops about a month before your first deadly frost. Still, certain cover crops are more complex than others. To learn more about plant stores in Melbourne be sure to visit All Green Nursery.
5. Trim perennials carefully.
Fall is an excellent time to prune some perennial garden plants, but be cautious when selecting them. Focus your fall pruning efforts on plants like roses, herbs like thyme, rosemary, and sage, and veggies like rhubarb and asparagus. Fall cleanup is also advantageous for blackberries. Eliminate any spent or crossed canes to aid in controlling the plant’s aggressive spread.
There is always something you can do to get ready for the gardening season the following year, no matter where you reside. These actions can be taken immediately to increase your spring and summer operations and your long-term yields.
