October Tasks for the Organic Gardener
Fall is not the time to quit gardening. Putting a garden to bed properly in the fall will make waking it up early in the spring easier. And remember, it’s all about the soil. You feed the soil, water the soil, mulch the soil, and weed the soil and so on. Indeed, fall cleanup in your garden should be aimed at keeping your soil healthy come spring.
- Get a soil test. Learn your soil’s chemistry and composition. Is your pH reasonable for the type of plants you are growing? Have you applied too much fertilizer over time? No fertilizer should be applied until you understand what the soil needs.
- If you are planning on making new garden beds, or expanding current ones, why not do it now and save yourself some work during the hectic spring gardening season? You can even just cover an area of grass with thick newspapers and mulch and have an area ready to amend and plant next spring -- without having to remove sod!
- Plant trees, shrubs, bulbs and perennials. Fall is the perfect time to plant; the weather is cooler, rain more plentiful, and the soil still warm. Plants put out terrific root growth, giving their above-ground growth a head start in spring. (Do not: magnolias, birches, firs, hemlocks, ginkgos or ornamental pears. They root slowly, so may not survive the winter.)
- Plant Care: Move Peonies, Divide spring blooming plants such as iris, brunnera, dianthus, lamium, and primrose. Protect recently-planted perennials from frost heaving by mulching after the ground freezes. Protect ornamentals such as azaleas and berry bushes from bud-eating deer with deer netting.
- Clean up and cover beds with compost: Fall is also a good time to clean up foliage from roses, peonies, and any other plant with diseased foliage. Just make sure those parts are bagged and put out with the garbage too. Mulch to maintain soil quality. Use chopped-up leaves and grass clippings. Clean out old annuals and weeds before seeds drop. Remove dead branches from roses and fruit trees (no pruning yet). Remove all rotten fruit from the ground around trees-infestations last through winter.
- Leave free bird food standing. Avoid the temptation of cutting back all of the dead stalks in your flower gardens. Let purple coneflower, black-eyed Susans, sunflowers, and other plants with seeds and berries stand. They'll provide hours of enjoyment as you watch birds in the winter. Especially leave any local, native plants standing, since they're the most likely to be edible for local wildlife.
- Leave some hiding spots. logs, brush piles or dead groundcover for beneficial insects such as spiders, solitary bees, ladybugs and other beetles to overwinter in.
- Save your leaves. Instead of putting your leaves out with the trash, let them break down over winter; throw them on a pile, and in a few years you'll have a rich garden amendment called leaf mold. To use them sooner, shred them with a lawnmower or a leaf blower set on reverse.
- Clean tool blades with vegetable oil and handles with sandpaper. Bring in any pots that can't take a freeze -- terra cotta, ceramic, and many plastic pots.
- Kick back and relax. Enjoy the quiet that our New England winter provides. Take a walk in the woods, it’s spiritually refreshing. Did you know that there are sites in Devils Den where artifacts were found from encampments from native peoples 4-5000 years ago? You can even walk up to the rock outcropping, look out and see the same view seen by hunter-gatherers from the Stone Age.
