Seasonal Care For The Cultivated Landscape

By Martha Klein

Gardeners talk about “putting the garden to bed” for winter, an apt metaphor for the living yet subdued garden tucked under its winter blanket of straw and mulch. Autumn is the time to foster soil conditions that lead to healthy spring plants. Fall yard and garden clean-up is really a balance of deciding what should be removed and what should remain.
Weeds should be removed before they go to seed in the fall. Weeds are opportunistic and most likely to grow in disturbed, bare soil, so to prevent weed invasion, minimize digging and disruption. Shaded soil is less prone to weeds, so keeping the soil well shaded with mulch is advisable. In vegetable gardens, removing the entire plant of tomato, potato and eggplant, as well as any of its unharvested fruit or vegetable, helps to prevent blight in next year’s garden. This vegetable matter should be bagged and thrown away, as there is the risk in a compost pile of insufficiently warm temperatures to kill blight spores. Flowering plants prone to blight and disease like peonies and roses should be cut back, and this material, as well as diseased parts of any plant, should be disposed of in bagged garbage, not on the compost pile.
Conversely, plants in the brassica family like broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and cabbage, have natural pest defenses which protect spring seedlings, and therefore these plants should be left in the garden over the winter. Some root or bulb vegetables, for example parsnips and leeks, can be covered by one foot of straw after frost has occurred, and can continue to be harvested until the ground is frozen. If one has an abundance of root vegetables and inadequate storage space, consider a make-shift root cellar, made from a trash can sunk in the ground outside, or in the dirt floor of an unfinished, unheated basement, with eighteen inches of straw loaded on top for insulation.
Fall blooming native perennials, of which Norfolk has a rich abundance, should be left standing to feed birds and other animals into the winter. The local varieties of aster, coneflower, goldenrod, sumac and sunflower provide crucial sustenance to birds, bees, and other pollinators throughout autumn and into the winter. Many native ground covers, like May-apple and Jack in the Pulpit, produce berries in fall, a food source for birds and mammals. As gardeners, we may put out bird seed, yet discourage wildflowers, which are a form of “free bird food” and magnets for numerous species. Birds are significant to the survival of plants by propagating seed and promoting genetic diversity.
Fall is a good time to remove invasive shrubs and vines, as they are easier to find now. Plants such as Japanese honeysuckle, Japanese barberry and Oriental bittersweet keep their leaves longer than native plants, and Euonymus or “burning bush” turns bright pink. They can be dug or pulled up, or cut them back to the ground and note their location for removal in the spring.
Raked leaves are like gold to gardeners, and serve many purposes in the home garden. Leaves form the basis of rich compost which becomes a nutrient filled soil enhancr for the vegetable or flower garden. It is ideal to keep at least part of the raked leaves separate from grass clippings, and use these leaves to make “clean” compost, which will not introduce grass and weeds into the garden. Clean compost can become a component for sprouting spring seedlings. Leaves which are shredded with a mower and bagged will decompose faster, and can be used as mulch in the autumn garden. Save some raked leaves in bags to use during winter to cover fresh food scraps on the compost pile. Leaf litter is required by insects, amphibians, birds, and some mammals for habitat and survival, and some should always be left on the property.
If testing shows that soil amendments are needed, fall is a good time to add organic matter, as rain and snow help push beneficial nutrients into the soil. Horse manure is an ideal soil enhancer, depending on the type of garden. Synthetic fertilizers tend to promote short term growth spurts, which weaken plants in the long run, and lead to stream and lake killing algal blooms. Rather than attempt to change the pH of soil by using lime or sulfur, a gardener could choose plants which are best suited to those soil conditions. Fall is a great time to plant spring flowers or flower seeds, especially native ones which often require a winter season to fully germinate.
The well-cared for garden is enriched and strengthened to meet the challenge of the next season, and is never left stripped and in need of artificial nourishment. It is easy to have a colorful, healthy, long seasoned garden blessed with abundant biodiversity in the “Icebox” of Connecticut, if the gardener respects the local soil and climate.