Fall is the time to prepare garden for spring

By Bev Johnson | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, October 13, 2007

If you are tight as bark on a tree, now is the time to buy potted trees and shrubs.

Since we can't guarantee six more weeks of growing weather, dig a hole and bury the tree, pot and all. Keep the tree/shrub well watered and mulch it well for the winter. This will ensure your tree will live through the winter.

Now is the time to reseed or start a new lawn. The soil is still warm so the seed will germinate quickly and the cool nights will encourage root growth. Use "winterizer" fertilizer on the grass now.

It encourages root growth. It is also a good time to kill broad leafed weeds as they are pulling food into their roots to get ready for winter. They will pull the poison in along with the food they need to come up next spring.

If you have bare soil showing in your flower bed, put a light coat of leaves on them. This will stop weed seeds from falling on the soil and sprouting. It may also cut down on tree seedlings in the spring if the leaves aren't full of maple seeds.

Put your foot of leaf mulch on after a hard frost when you pull up diseased annuals. Pull up any dead vines in the vegetable garden and discard.

They could go in the compost but don't till the up worth a darn. They just wind around the tiller tines causing the tiller operator to use language unacceptable in polite company.

It will also raise his blood pressure when he has to cut the darn things out of the tines.

Leave any leafy vegetables, cabbage, lettuce, carrot tops, etc., to be tilled in. If you till in leaves, add some nitrogen. Any mulch uses nitrogen to decompose. Bark and sawdust use the most.

Cut off and discard the leaves from iris and peony. They both carry diseases through to next summer.

Keep watering trees, shrubs, newly seeded grass and flowers. Plants need to take their food up in a solution. If they don't get enough water, they go into the winter stressed.

Foundation evergreens that have winter killed branches, or more often, the whole side of the shrub, should be protected from winter winds.

Often a burlap bag wrapped around the victim and stuffed with leaves between the bag and the plant, will do the trick. If your plantings get smashed by snow and ice falling from the roof, a board leaned against the house and over them may be enough.

A larger plant may need a wood frame covered with burlap to protect it.

Now is the time to get out and enjoy the weather. Snow is not that far away.

Bev Johnson is a master gardener for West Otter Tail County.