A great spring garden all depends on what you do in the fall. Do these fall garden chores for an abundant spring garden!
Mulch your garden with leaves
Take advantage of all that available mulch in the fall (AKA leaves). These leaves are full of nutrients for your plants and can act as a protective barrier against harsh winter conditions.
In my annual garden I lay down a good 6-8 inches of fallen leaves. This mulch will break down over the winter and leave you with the best soil imaginable. Here are a few reasons you should mulch your garden.
This mulch will also protect the soil from the constant freezing and thawing that goes on in winter. Mulching your garden in the fall is a must.
Remove diseased plants
If you had any tomato plants with blight, cucumbers with powdery mildew, or any other diseased plants it is best to remove them in the fall.
Keeping the diseased plants and their foliage out of the garden will help protect next years plants from the same diseases. All of your healthy plants that died can be composted to use as a fertilizer.
Save seeds
Fall is a great time to save seeds from your garden so you can plant them next year. You can learn to save marigold seeds, zucchini seeds, and more here.
Plant vegetables
Believe it or not you can grow some vegetables in the fall. Here is a list of 9 fall vegetable plants to get you started on your fall garden.
Amend your soil
Fall is one of the best times to amend your soil. Besides adding mulch for organic matter you can add compost, manure, and animal bedding.
Compost, manure, and spent bedding will all improve your soil life so that next year's plants grow strong. Make sure that you won't be harvesting anything from the garden before you add manure and bedding as these can spread diseases.
Manure and fresh bedding needs to sit for six to eight weeks before you can safely harvest anything from the garden.
Start a compost pile
With all the dead plant matter, there is no better time to start a compost pile than in the fall. Add things like dead plants, animal bedding, vegetable scraps, leaves, and other dead plant matter to start your compost pile.
If you start a compost pile in the fall you should have compost by spring! You can read how to start a compost pile here.
Let your chickens do the work
Fall is a great time to let your chickens in the garden to help prepare it for winter. Your chickens will turn the soil, eat weed seeds, and clean up leftover vegetables. Here are a few ways that you can put your chickens to work.
Pull weeds
You don't want any weeds to overwinter in your garden because they may come back worse next year. Before you put your garden to rest make sure to pull all of your weeds, especially any that have gone to seed.
Plant fall perennials
Fall is the time to plant walking onions, hard-neck garlic, echinacea, and many other perennial plants. These plants need the cold winter weather to grow correctly next spring. You should also plant some perennial flowers like tulips and daffodils in the fall.
Cut back perennials
In late fall once you have had a good frost you can start to cut back all of your perennials. Strawberries, Echinacea, and most fall plants need to be cut back in the fall. You can learn how to cut back perennials here.
Harvest all your vegetables before the first frost
Tomatoes, peppers, beans, zucchini, cucumbers, and many other vegetables should all be harvested before your first frost. Other plants like collard greens and lettuce don't need to be harvested because they can handle the cooler weather.
You can find your first and last frost dates here. These date won't be exact so make sure to watch the weather!
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