PDF No matter how your garden grew this year (and cooler weather in Michigan and elsewhere doomed many a garden to miserly results, while heat and drought performed the same task elsewhere), there’s always next year.
Well, not for me … I’m going to let mine go fallow next year – it’s way overdue. (see Leviticus, chapter 25)
But MOST years, fall is a time of taking the last of the harvest and storing it somehow. My wife and I usually can as much as we are able, dry some and spread the rest quietly around wherever we see need.
Once you get the garlic planted, the soil nicely mulched beneath a bed of leaves or straw and the compost pile settled in for the winter, take some time before digging into the seed catalogs to take inventory.
Now is the ideal time to repair or replace tools. Your local hardware store may well be looking to sell rakes rather than store them. If nothing else, get your tools out and see which have had their final summer and pitch them now. That way you’ll have far less to do in the spring when you will be tempted to use a wobbly tool ‘just a little while longer’, adding a layer of frustration to what should be nothing but joy.
Check your pruning shears and other sharp implements and take the time to sharpen and oil them properly. They will need to be sharp for the mid-winter trimming of raspberry brambles and grape vines.
Look to see how old your leftover seeds are. Most seeds will give a reduced germination rate for at least a few years after the ‘packed for’ date. Just plant a few extra to compensate for the ‘no-shows’. If they are more than a few years old or if you only have a few left, you might as well pitch ‘em and give yourself a freer hand planning next years garden. Rather than being bound to use old favorites, you are hereby officially freed to try out new types of heirlooms or hybrids.
If you are NOT an organic gardener, now is a good time to stock up on fertilizer to have it ready for the spring. High nitrogen fertilizer is also useful as a de-icer on sidewalks.
If you also cultivate your lawn organically, now may be a good time to apply milky spore disease or bacillus thuringensis to protect against grubs. You will also want to STOP applying nitrogen (next year, stop in mid-August) and start lowering your grass height by a half-inch per cut until you’ve got it as low as you can go without scalping it (too much). This will lessen the amount of sugars in the grass blades for fungi to dine on under the protection of the snow. Snow mold is a silent killer and, by the time you know it’s there, it has already done its damage.
More in a few days, but right now, that’s what’s on my mind. What’s on yours?
