Fall Garden Clean Up

Many gardeners call our toll free number at the Home and Garden Information Center this time of year to ask what they should be doing to get ready for next gardening season. In some cases they remember a disease or pest that they encountered this past summer and want to know how to prevent the problem or know where the pests came from in the first place. While some pests migrate great distances, most come from your own garden or nearby areas where they've been living on weeds or plant debris. Some pests and weeds survive as seeds, rhizomes, bulbs, spores, eggs or pupae in the soil. You inadvertently bring others into your garden on contaminated seed, transplants, soil or equipment. Sanitation practices otherwise known as a good fall garden clean up can reduce or eliminate many common garden pests.

Before planting again this next spring, be sure that plant debris from the previous year has been removed or completely composted. If done correctly composting is a good way to destroy most plant residues around the garden, and also control pests that may be harbored in the residues. Composting should control insect pests, nematodes and most disease organisms, with the exception of heat tolerant viruses such as tobacco mosaic virus. Composting also destroys most weeds, with the exception of oxalis bulbs, or amaranthus (pigweed) seeds. You can then use the compost as an amendment to improve your soil. If you’re in doubt about your composting skills then put the garden residues in with your yard waste to be composted at your local landfill.

Most garden sanitation practices are easy and make common sense. Make sure purchased seeds, plants and organic soil amendments, including manure, are free of weed seeds and pathogens. Buy only certified seed or stock whenever possible. Check plant divisions, especially plants that you are moving from another garden, for the presence of insects or diseases. Be sure to check the plant roots for symptoms of root knot nematodes. Do not move soil into your garden that you suspect may be infested with stems of quackgrass bermudagrass or nutsedge tubers. Nematodes and soil-borne diseases may also be transported in soil which adheres to cultivating tools and weed seeds and disease may be transferred on lawn mowers. Be sure to clean equipment when moving from garden to garden.

The following is an easy list of things to do:

• Rake leaves. Left on the lawn, they will cut off sunlight to the grass and trap moisture, encouraging fungus diseases. But don't discard them if you have a place to start a compost pile. Shredded and broken down for a few months, they are prime organic matter to improve your soil.

• Spread finished compost on perennial, vegetable beds or on the lawn to enrich the soil and make room for the new crop of leaves. Half-finished compost should go back in the pile with the new leaves as well as old annual, perennial and vegetable plants.
  
• Weeds may die when frost hits, but their seeds survive in the soil. So pull all you see and discard them in the compost or put them into the landscape waste.

• Tidy up. Any plant you suspect might be diseased should go in the landscape waste including diseased tree and shrub leaves. Otherwise, removing the stalks and foliage of perennials is a matter of taste: Cut them down if you are the neat type, or leave them if you like the look. Most people leave ornamental grasses standing.
  
• Clear out the vegetable garden.

• Put diseased plants in the landscape waste and the rest in the compost. Dig composted manure or other organic matter into the vegetable bed so by spring it will be nicely broken down in the soil. And once you've tidied up, plant your winter crops.

• Resist pruning. Pruning trees or shrubs now might stimulate tender young growth that would die now. Wait to prune deciduous trees and shrubs that need shaping until the plants are dormant.