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10 Ways to Prep Your Garden for Fall
Do these things now for healthier plants and vegetables during the growing season
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Key takeaways
- Fall is not the time to stop paying attention to your garden.
- Getting rid of annuals in the fall can help prevent disease in your garden.
- Autumn is a great time to get trees and shrubs in the ground.
After a busy summer of watering and weed-pulling in the garden, it might feel good to slow down in fall. But this is no time to slack off.
In areas with killing frosts, autumn is the season to nourish the soil with organic material, take steps to prevent disease and get a jump on spring with planting and transplanting, among other tasks.
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Don’t think of the garden season as ending, says Kevin Kelly, a retired family physician and master gardener who’s been gardening in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, since the 1980s. Kelly says the fall is when he thinks: What does the garden need from me to function and be beautiful throughout the winter?
Kelly, 69, turned his one-third-acre suburban lot into a jam-packed, four-season garden of perennials, shrubs and annuals, with an emphasis on native plants and bird and pollinator habitat. He used to put his garden to bed for the winter, “almost like you were cleaning the house before guests would come for the holidays.”
Now, he uses the time to fill in gaps, adding fall leaves for compost and leaving the stems of plants like mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) for insect habitat, winter interest and the occasional waft of scent. “Even though everything has browned, it’s a stiff stem. It looks great. It holds snow really, really well,” he says.
So what should be on your to-do list this fall? Here are 10 chores that will help keep your garden healthy and get it ready for spring.
Test your soil
“That’s when we do all of our soil testing on the farm ... the fall,” says Adam Choper, 40, farm director at the Hilltop Hanover Farm and Environmental Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, which is owned by Westchester County Parks.
“If you have a pH issue, fall is a great time to lime your soil because then it gives it a chance for the pH to adjust,” Choper says. But it’s not the time to add sulfur if your pH is high, because that only works via soil microorganisms breaking it down when the soil is warmer, he says.
Quick pH tests are available commercially, but consider mailing or taking a sample to your state extension service for a broader look. The University of New Hampshire Extension, for example, charges home gardeners $25 for a standard profile that includes pH results, organic material content and lead screening, as well as recommendations for conventional and organic fertilizing.
Toss annual flowers and vegetables
Leaving annual plant debris to rot in the garden leads to disease, says Choper, who was formerly at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, where annuals are removed after the first freeze. And Kelly warns gardeners to destroy plants affected by fungi and other diseases rather than compost them, to avoid spreading contagion.
Plant new crops
Ashlie Thomas, who recently downsized from a 2,000-square-foot garden to a 250-square-foot kitchen garden in Sedalia, North Carolina, starts pulling vegetables like tomatoes and cucumbers in late August, even though her first freeze isn’t until late November. That leaves room for winter crops like leafy greens, root vegetables, turnips, collards and cabbage.
“The fall garden is my favorite garden. It’s low maintenance,” says Thomas, 38, a.k.a. the Mocha Gardener. She is the author of How to Become a Gardener and is pursuing a Ph.D. about how homegrown food can improve health outcomes.
Divide and move perennials
Fall is the best time to move perennials because you can see where the gaps are rather than relying on photographs or memory, says Choper. And you’ll probably save on water since the roots are establishing as the weather cools down rather than heating up, he says.
“The roots are continuing to grow even when the top goes dormant,” he says. But if you see a plant “flagging” — drooping like a flag on a day with no wind – then it’s time to water, he adds.
Plant trees and shrubs
Fall is also the best time to plant or transplant trees and shrubs, Choper says. While nursery trees might look dull after they’ve dropped their leaves, planting them when dormant is better for root development.
That’s particularly true if you’re planting larger specimens, he says. The size of the root ball for, say, a 12-foot tree is limited by having to be a practical weight for the nursery, so the root system is much smaller than it would be on an established tree, he says. Planting it when dormant sends the power to the roots rather than the leaves.
VIDEO: How to Regrow Three Foods From Scraps
Add compost and top dress gardens
Adding compost in the fall gives organic material a chance to break down and add microorganisms to the soil, Choper says. He covers his home garden with shredded leaves. Kelly also uses leaves and a system known as “chop and drop.”
“If I prune or cut back something, I just cut it into pieces and drop it around the garden,” he says. Come spring, he can move organic material to where he needs it.
Plant a cover crop
Once the summer crops are done at Hilltop Hanover Farm, the fields are planted with cover crops like winter rye or vetch mix that help prevent weeds and break up the soil. Other cover crops, like clover, add important nitrogen, Choper says. Come spring, cover crops can be turned into the soil, or seedlings can be planted directly into them.
Create a system
Thomas has a science background, so she uses a database to track seeds, planting times, what worked and what didn’t. “Some of the data I track is where I source my seeds from and the year I source them,” she says. That led to the discovery that many seeds are viable for several years from the best-buy date on the package. She checks her database before ordering new seeds in the fall.
Even something simple works, says Choper. “Get a little notebook and write down the date, what you’re doing whenever you’re doing something, “ he says. “It is worth its weight in gold at the end.”
Cut back perennials, judiciously
Kelly, who is planting more and more native plants, cuts perennials back based on what they bring to the winter garden ecology. That means pruning plants that do not have seeds, berries or stems that provide support or habitat for birds or insects, he says.
And he finds beauty in the exposed structure of his garden in winter, such as a drift of snow on grasses or seed pods. “You don’t have flowers and color to fake you out and distract us,” he says.
Enjoy, preserve and share your harvest
Fall is the time to enjoy your harvest, as well as freezing, canning or pickling your bounty.
It’s also a great time to share your bounty, says Thomas. “That’s where a lot of our produce goes to — preparing Sunday dinners where we invite our friends and our family. No technology. We found that folks just really enjoy talking with each other and eating a home-cooked meal.”
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