Preparing for Your Fall Garden

Avis Licht is a landscape gardener, educator, and author of the wonderful book, The Spring Garden Made Easy. Her passion is to create beautiful gardens that incorporate edibles that can be harvested year round. With fall approaching, I asked Avis to share some of her pearls of wisdom for the fall garden.

Avis: As fall approaches we get conflicting messages from the weather. One says, “It’s still summer and hot and the garden is growing like mad.” The other is, “Nights are cool, the days keep getting shorter, and winter must be getting close.” We’re pulled in both directions: ACTION! and Hybernation zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Which one is right? Well, both are true and it’s time to get your garden ready for colder weather and put it to sleep. Both the garden and the gardener are restored by the rest imposed on us by winter.

What does it mean to put your garden to rest? For your perennial flowers and vegetables, it means to cut them to the ground, remove any diseased foliage, and mulch them. Their roots will continue to grow and store energy for the next season. For your fruit trees, it means picking up fallen fruit so that unwanted critters won’t establish themselves in the trees. Rake and clean up underneath the trees and mulch with compost.

For your vegetable garden, it means when a crop is finished you will either replant the area with cool weather crops or plant it with a cover crop that protects the soil surface and improves the soil fertility. Cover crops include nitrogen fixers like fava beans, bell beans, and vetch. These plants actually take nitrogen out of the air and put it into the soil. With the right plants, we can restore vitality and fertility into the soil.

Those of us in temperate climates have the opportunity to grow cool weather crops that will grow over winter. These include broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, chard, kale, spinach, lettuce, beets, carrots, peas, and garlic. These plants not only can withstand some frost, they even taste better with the cold weather!

To learn more about your specific climate and growing zone, talk to neighbors who garden, go to your local nursery to see what plants they have. The internet has lots of information. Sifting out what you need to know can seem daunting, but it’s worth the effort. In my blog, Edible Landscaping Made Easy, I write about all aspects of landscaping, and you can find lots of information on plants, soil, growing zones, and more.

During the long winter evenings you can start daydreaming about your ideal garden, and come spring, be ready to dig in!

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Rosa m.

11:21AM PDT on Oct 4, 2012

Thanks for sharing. I'm just about to start garden clean up in my veggie garden. I'll also be planting more garlic for next summer.

October 4
send a green star

Cheryl I.

3:33AM PDT on Sep 17, 2012

Thank you.

September 17
send a green star

heather g.

2:46AM PDT on Sep 17, 2012

This doesn't seem like advice for Temperate areas like BC. Other residents have ripped out their entire vegetable gardens as if guided and driven by years of higher knowledge - which leaves me as "the odd one out" again.

My kales, tomatoes, strawberries and chards are still flourishing - so they're staying put until the cooler evenings bring them to book. Two broccoli plants went to seed but have now starting producing properly - so definitely meant for cooler weather.

The idea of planting a nitrogen fixer like Fava Beans sounds like a good idea. Thank you...

rene d.

11:08PM PDT on Sep 16, 2012

thank-you!

September 16
send a green star

Ajla C.

8:01AM PDT on Sep 16, 2012

thank you

Karen M.

7:08AM PDT on Sep 16, 2012

where I live I'm just getting ready to put in my garden. NOTHING grows here in the summer except cotton and sugar cane. So, back yard, be prepared! I come after you with a shovel!

Duane B.

6:53AM PDT on Sep 16, 2012

Thank you for sharing.

Elisabeth T.

5:50AM PDT on Sep 16, 2012

Thanks for this information....

Michele W.

1:38AM PDT on Sep 16, 2012

Thank you

Amy S.

5:32PM PDT on Sep 15, 2012

Good information, thank you