Fall Gardening & Winter Rejuvenating
The days are getting shorter, and the leaves are turning beautiful colors, signaling the season of Fall. Now is the time to start getting ready for next year’s flowers and vegetables with fall garden work. Every season has many jobs to do, and I know that we are all busy. Getting some of these jobs done in the fall will give you a little more time to enjoy the spring season.
Clean off all the weeds with seeds that just got away from you. I would burn these unless you are a good composter. By removing the weed seeds from your garden, you do not add more to the weed seed bank in the soil. Keep track of the kinds of weeds that you have because they tell a story about your soil.
If the weeds do not have seeds, work them into the soil so that you can incorporate their nutrients into your garden.
Most weeds will bring the minerals that are lacking in the soil available for the next plant or tell you if your soil is compacted and/or anaerobic. Weeds are a first-response bandage per se to cover and protect the soil from erosion and the sun. The earth will heal from some natural disturbance such as a flood; it does this with the first flush of weeds, after that the grass will start to come, then the shrubs, and finally trees; this, of course, is a very generalized example. It can be a very long process and one that I need to speed up if I want to grow nutrient-rich food for my family. Once I started to understand why God created weeds, I have not looked at weeds the same way since. The question I ask now is, “How can I amend my soil to make that weed go away?”
The Canada Thistle is one weed that I have had issues with. On the permanent grass pastures, we have seen it go away with the benefits of rotationally grazing the cows; however, in my garden, it is still a problem. According to Charles Walters, Canada thistle likes low calcium levels and extremely low manganese. Poor residue decay and anaerobic bacteria domination are classic when this weed appears. All thistles exhaust their root reserves exactly at the same time when they are the prettiest. Mowing at that time can be lethal.
Velvetleaf is another weed I have problems with, and it likes the same soil conditions as the thistle. Indicating that I need to get my soil aerobic again. Aerating the soil, adding good microbes, and growing a cover crop so that there is a living root in my garden all the time are some of the ways I will use to correct the problem. These are just two examples of what these weeds are telling me about my soil.
Remove any diseased plant material since keeping it in the flower bed or vegetable garden could cause the spread of that disease to next year's plants. Most diseases are caused by a mineral imbalance in the plant, which causes the plant's immune system to become weaker and become sick, showing up as a disease. This is also an indication that the soil does not have enough healthy microbiology or its nutrients are out of balance, just like in the case of the weeds.
Now is the time to plant your spring-blooming bulbs like tulips, daffodils, and alliums. One of my favorite bulbs to plant now is Garlic. Click here to learn how to plant garlic. It is one of the first plants up in the spring. I like to get all the bulbs in the ground around mid to late October.
Leave perennial and annual flower beds alone so beneficial insects have a home for the winter. I leave the old foliage until mid to end of April so that the beneficial insects or butterflies have a chance to come out of dormancy. Another advantage to leaving the foliage is that it will help to keep the snow off the crown of the perennial plants. Also, if we were to get a freezing rain in the winter that causes an ice sheet across everything, having the stems and leaves will create air pockets and hopefully break an opening in the ice, so it does not smother and kill the plants.
Lay down compost and mulch around the perennials every couple of years. I use 3 sheets of newspaper as a weed barrier, put some compost around the plant, and cover with mulch. This will help keep weeds down, and hopefully you will have less weeding in the spring and summer.
Amending your soil in the fall is a great jump start for the Spring flowers and your vegetable garden. Compost is a great soil amender. For the vegetable garden, add manure from animals raised organically, and let it work into the ground over the winter, which is a form of sheet composting.
For the orchard, HyBrix Berry fertilizer that we sell in the greenhouse. This fertilizer has a lot of good micronutrients for the trees to produce more nutrient-rich fruit and help deter the insects. Boron is a much-needed mineral for fruit and grain development that works best to put on in the fall. I put the HyBrix on after the first frost, when the fruit trees are dormant but before the first snowfall.
Pick up the apples and dropped fruit around the fruit trees. Ideally, you want to keep the apples and fruit picked up as soon as they fall. This helps to get rid of some of the unwanted insects and pests.
Clean, sharpen, and put away your garden tools so they are ready for spring.
There is a lot going on under the soil even when we think that the earth is asleep. This is the time when Humification happens, the transforming of “dirt” into fertile soil. It is a slow, cool-temperature process that is fungal-dominated, which makes the long-chain carbon structures that are called humus. It's a resting, rejuvenating process. That’s why it is important to get nutrients out in the fall so that it can work into the soil, and then the soil organisms can change it into plant-usable nutrients.
Hope you have a great fall gardening season, and remember you need to rest and rejuvenate through the winter too, so you're ready for Spring and Summer.
Advancing Eco Agriculture John Kempf https://advancingecoag.com/
Lowenfels, Jeff & Wayne Lewis. Teaming with Microbes, A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
McCaman, Jay L. When Weeds Talk
Walters, Charles. Weeds Control Without Poisons
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