Prepare Your Garden for Fall

You've had all spring and summer to enjoy your flower and vegetable garden. Hopefully, you've had an abundance of beautiful blooms and fresh, delicious food. As fall approaches and we're faced with the prospect of a long, cold winter, it's important to begin to prepare for next year's garden. Here are some steps you should take this fall to prepare your garden for next spring.

Weed

Once you've picked the last berry or dug the last vegetable, it's time to give your garden a thorough weeding. Clear out every weed, all the dead vines and any spoiled or discarded fruits and vegetables that remain behind. Don't allow these materials to remain in your garden through the fall and into the winter. They'll become home to bugs or rodents, and the seeds from any weeds will undoubtedly get a head start on you next spring, causing you extra work when you prepare the garden for planting.

You might want to consider covering your garden with burlap as a way to keep down hearty weeds that might try to grow in the fall before the first frost, or in the earliest warmth of spring.

Till

Softer ground will be far easier to work with once you start work on your garden next spring, so tilling in the fall can give you a head start. This shouldn't be a deep, complete turnover of the soil. You want to avoid bringing dormant weed seeds up to the surface where they can germinate before the first frost of the fall or once winter is over. Use a garden rake or a small hand tiller to prepare the soil by loosening up just the top three to four inches of dirt.

Mulch

Use a garden chipper or a mulching lawn mower to chop up pine needles and leaves as finely as possible. Then, mix this mulch into the three to four inches of garden soil that you have already tilled. This will give the nutrients all fall and winter to work their way into the soil, and prepare the ground to be the best possible environment in which to plant next year.

In colder climates, you could consider putting down a layer of hay over the garden as a mulch. Be sure to check with your local garden center for a good, clean mulching hay. You aren't planting this stuff, after all. Check the hay for seed heads, and lay it on top of your garden late in the fall, after the first frost, when the ground is very cold.

Plant

Fall is a great time to prepare your flower garden by planting many of the bulbs that will bloom in spring. Your local nursery or garden center likely has fall bulbs for sale right now. Small bulbs for the earliest bloomers - like crocus or grape hyacinth - can go into the ground in the fall as early as September. Larger bulbs - like tulips of daffodils - should be planted later in the fall, perhaps in the middle of October.

When you plant these bulbs, be sure you do so with pointy tip of the bulb heading up towards the sky. If the bulb doesn't have a pointed end, lay it in the ground sideways. Be sure to leave enough room between bulbs to allow them adequate room to grow.