Don't Fear the Fall Cleanup
A spirited sweep of your garden clears the way for creepy collaborators to feed your soil.
Wailing wind, lashing rain, and darkening days tilt more haunting than hospitable but, like a great full moon (howling optional), these next few months are an important cycle in your garden’s seasonal continuum. It’s time to rethink fall garden cleanup to build a more resilient and healthier garden environment.
Begin your seasonal sweep by removing any diseased plants, paying particular attention to problem areas, like spotty roses, struggling fruit trees, and the vegetable garden. Applying amendments that are slow to break down, such as agricultural lime, bone meal and rock phosphate, in autumn allows time for natural processes to work, ensuring that nutrients will be readily available when plants begin growing next year. Hold off on adding fresh manure and nitrogen-rich amendments (blood meal, cottonseed meal and alfalfa meal) that break down quickly until spring. Cold temperatures prevent plants from taking up nutrients, which means rain-leached, water-soluble nutrients are a potential source of contamination—not to mention a waste of your resources.
On the other hand, fallen leaves are a valuable source of no-cost garden riches, yours free for the gathering. Rake or blow (if you must) to remove leaves from the lawn to prevent smothering the grass. It’s also a good idea to keep pathways clear to avoid slippery surfaces. But everywhere else, leave leaves to lie where they drop or gather them up to spread around garden shrubs and perennials where they will slowly break down over winter, adding valuable drought-busting organic matter to the soil.
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