Fall Gardening Checklist – Part 3
Fall Flower And Gardening Checklist – Part 3
Before we wrap up this Fall Gardening Checklist series we wanted to give you a few more valuable and important tips. These are things you should also be preparing to take care of during the autumn and before the cold arrives.
VEGETABLE STORAGE
Beets, carrots, parsnips, potatoes (late) must be stored in a cool place. All except the potatoes could stay outdoors for a longer time by ridging soil over the rows in the garden. Other means of storage are pits dug in the ground and the vegetables covered with boards and hay. For small lots bushel baskets, or boxes submerged in the ground will do. Celery can be kept by covering with soil in the row. Cabbage is best dug and put in a cold cellar or pit.
Eggplant, peppers, and pumpkins must be stored where the temperature is mild. Tomatoes picked before frost and individually wrapped in newspaper will ripen in 2 weeks.
Radishes, lettuce, endive and other greens can be carried along in the garden for some time by covering each evening with cardboard, burlap, or the more enduring plastic sheeting.
COMPOST AND HUMUS
All but diseased and insect-infested material can be composted. Burn all questionable material.
Leaves can be put in a separate heap if there is space, or all materials mixed in one pile.
Begin with a bottom layer of coarse leaves, corn stalks, or dried stems. Next spread layer of the mixed materials 6 inches deep. Sprinkle a pound or more of any fertilizer, compost activator, or dried cow or chicken manure over 4×5 foot surface, then a thin layer of soil. Wet thoroughly.
Repeat layer by layer to build the pile. A 5 foot height is enough. The pile can be as long as desired. Keep the width to 6 feet. Mulching attachments for power tools are handy for fall work.
The humus supply in the soil is increased too, by sowing rye, or rye grass seed on areas left vacant by removal of crops in the garden. Three pounds per 1,000 square feet is ample. Rake the seed in, as in lawn making. Rolling is not necessary.
SOIL IMPROVEMENT
Before hard frost threatens, dig the soil and leave rough over winter. Where manure or compost is available, spread and dig in. Stiff soil is especially benefited. If soil needs lime, this is applied as ground, or pulverized limestone, 3 pounds per 100 square feet. It is merely spread over the surface after digging.
Soil on sloping ground must be covered to prevent washing. A cover crop of rye, a layer of compost, leaves, hay or the like will prevent erosion. Fall is a good time to dig in soil conditioners.
PROTECTION
In winter protection of outdoor hardy and semi-hardy plants, no covering is applied until all growth has ceased. Growth is ended by frost which opens tissue and prepares the plants for winter. Roses can be covered after several frosts, by mounding the soil up and around the base of the stems. Not all northern rose growers agree on covering, but I prefer it. The pink spirea (caryopteris), shrubs like the crape myrtle of the South, and those of similar tenderness are also covered.
The stems are tied loosely together with soft twine or burlap strips and wrapped with burlap. Where winters are severe, hay is used inside first, then burlap, or chicken wire surrounding the shrub. Fill with dry leaves and top with a piece of canvas. An inverted bushel basket stuffed with leaves is the best for low plants.
Climbing roses are protected where the winter temperatures go below zero. The stems are taken down from their sup-ports, tied together, laid on the ground and covered with 3 inches of soil.
It’s a practice in extremely cold sections to loosen the roots on one side and tip the whole plant over into a trench. No bending can be done when the stems are frozen. They will snap off. So do it early. Pansies and English daisies are covered with marsh (salt) hay.
EVERGREENS
These are protected in a different way and for a different reason. Exposed to winds, the leaves dry out, especially if the roots are in frozen soil. Protection consists in covering the root area with a mulch of leaves, and using a wind barrier of some sort. Burlap attached to stakes, branches of pines pushed into the ground, or smaller ones tied to several stems of the plants serve to break the wind.
PERENNIAL PROTECTION
Last to be covered are strawberries, hardy perennials, and rock garden plants. This is best done when ground is frozen. Covered while still soft, the plants will rot.
Soft crowned plants: delphinium, columbine, liatris, anchusa, are best covered with a cone of coal ashes, or 3 parts of soil mixed with one part of sand.
Others are covered with a light layer of marsh hay held in place with light twiggy branches. Provision must be made for water to drain off and not collect around the plants in prolonged wet weather.
Beds of spring flowering bulbs must also wait until they are thoroughly frozen before being covered else mice may harbor there for the winter.
SNOW PROTECTION
Bushy evergreens are, in regions of heavy snows, prone to injury when deep snow collects in the interior splitting them apart. Strips of burlap wound spirally around will give some protection. Tying the stems to each other in the interior is still better.
TREE PROTECTION
The stems of fruit trees, especially those newly planted, are in danger of having the bark peeled off by rabbits and mice during winter. Surround these with a band of close meshed chicken wire 2 feet high. Newly planted shade and flowering tree stems are wrapped with burlap strips, or the special craft paper used by tree men. This is protection against frost injury and the action of freezing winds.
Be prepared and ready to go with your fall flower gardening protection plans. You will be thankful you did come next spring!
How To Protect Plants From Frost & Bugs
More Fall Flower Garden Protection Tips
Mulching: Spread Organic Materials In Fall To Protect Plants
Mulching: Spread Organic Materials In Fall To Protect Plants, Improve Soil. Mulching is the simplest and most advantageous thing you can do for your garden. And it needn’t be pricey — whatever of the prizewinning mulching materials. Leaves: Collect leaves in the fall. Chop with a lawnmower or shredder.
How to Protect Plants in the Winter: Tips for Protecting Plants
Wrapping Plants in Cloth Will Also Help Protect Them During the Winter. Using old blankets, burlap sacks, sheets, towels or other thick fabric will help to protect tender plants from frosts and high winds.
How To Protect Perennials And Roses For Winter
But the sun will get lower on the horizon and the leaves will turn red and fall from the trees. Winter is inevitable. It’s time to plan and prepare before that first frost. Protect. Gardens need protection in the winter. In the north, the snow cover acts as a thermal blanket. But it isn’t the cold that kills the plant or shrub. It’s the drying winds and the freezing and thawing.
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Seeding and feeding are best done now. There is less weed competition and grass grows best in most places, in autumn. Cut and remove crab grass before it sheds its seeds. Clean out other weeds too. Loosen the soil in bare patches, work in grass fertilizer or a complete plant food, then sow with a grass mixture suited to your conditions. If fall-planted grass gets an early, strong it can stand the late fall raking of leaves without damage.
Transplant evergreens any time in September or early October. This applies to conifers, pine, spruce, hemlock and the like and the broad-leaved kinds: rhododendrons, mountain laurel, azaleas and similar plants. All growth has matured. The plants come with a ball of soil. Set the plants at same depth they were in the nursery. Their roots are near the surface and will be injured if buried deeply. All must be watered thoroughly and the soil packed against the ball. Mix good soil with peat moss or humus plus a handful of 5-10-5 fertilizer per plant.
Peonies are also lifted, divided and replanted in autumn. The whole plant is carefully raised, the soil washed out from the roots and the plant separated into sections… each section or piece with no less than three eyes (buds); five to seven are better for there is more chance of flowering the next year. Peonies planted in fall get a good spring start.