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Gardening Advice

Is Your Garden Prepped to Survive Winter and Flourish Next Spring?

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By implementing a few simple gardening techniques to your garden in the fall you can help nurture a healthier vegetable garden that’s enriched and revitalized when the spring growing season rolls around. You’ll also enjoy the benefits of a more productive vegetable patch and harvest fresh produce far earlier and with less effort.

Fall Garden Clean-Up

The first step is to shift some of the routine gardening tasks that you normally perform in the springtime, and instead take care of them during the fall. At the end of your summer growing season clear out all of the weeds, garden debris, spent vines, and any left over fruits and vegetables that weren’t harvested, rather than allowing these items to remain in the garden over the winter.

This “garden-cleaning” will speed spring cultivation work, eliminate left over fruits and vegetables whose seeds can turn into unwanted volunteers next summer, prevent weeds from becoming established during autumn, and reduce the likelihood that insect pests and diseases spend the winter nice and comfy in your garden beds.

While you’re at it, also remove and store those plant stakes, cages, trellises, and gardening tools that are scattered about throughout the garden. A little care will reward you with a longer useful life and avoid loss and damage to expensive gardening equipment.

Cultivating the Soil in Autumn

Autumn is also a great time to apply and incorporate compost, mushroom soil, or even leaves into the garden beds. This will give the organic soil amendments additional time to break down or mellow, and will also reduce the risk of burning or over-fertilizing young seedlings in the spring.

If you till or cultivate your garden in the fall, do so very shallowly to avoid bringing weed seeds that were buried in the soil up to the surface levels where they can easily germinate. I garden in raised beds which eliminates the need for tilling the soil altogether.

With raised beds a quick turning of the soil surface of the beds with a digging fork or wheel hoe is all that’s ever needed before planting. Raised beds are never walked on and they naturally resist the compaction that forces many gardeners to till their garden each spring.

Stretching the Growing Season

Once your garden is nice and tidy, why not plant something? There are a number of cool weather crops, especially leafy greens such as lettuce, kale, collards, mustard, and spinach that will grow right into winter and provide you with plenty of delicious fresh produce from the garden.

It doesn’t stop there; these same plants can actually survive winter in the garden and produce additional harvests in early spring. So, from a single planting you receive multiple harvests of tasty leafy greens, protect the garden’s soil over the winter, and prevent weeds from growing unchecked in an empty garden bed.

Not interested in fall vegetable production? Well how about planting a cover crop, also known as a green manure, to protect and enrich your garden’s soil over the winter, as well as to crowd out weed growth? There’s a long list of crops that can be planted as a fall cover crop and remain in place until they are turned under to enrich the soil in the spring.

Annual Ryegrass is my favorite choice for planting in autumn to serve as a quick growing, green manure. If it doesn’t survive the winter it will still provide cover and is easier to turn under than many of the other green manure crops. A few other choices include winter rye, rape, barley, and Austrian Peas. Even everyday edible vegetable crops such as fava beans, peas, kale, and mustard can function as fall cover crops.

Fall Mulches for the Garden Bed

Think it’s too late for you to sow a cover crop in your garden? Well at the very least you can cover the garden during fall and winter with a mulch of compost, mushroom soil, or a layer of leaves. A three or four inch layer of shredded leaves in particular will restrict weed growth and encourage earthworm activity. The leaves can be incorporated into the soil in the spring, or be removed and composted.

Speaking of leaves, they’re abundant and free in most areas to anyone willing to go out and gather them up. Shredding will make the leaves easier to handle and store. Each fall I use a leaf blower to shred all the leaves that I can get my hands on and store what I can’t use right away until springtime.

Implement these ideas this fall and your garden will be protected from the elements and erosion while you improve the texture and fertility of your soil and encourage the activity of earthworms and soil organisms all year-round. You’ll also experience less weed growth, harvest more fresh produce and get your garden off to a quicker start in the spring.

Regardless of the season it’s a great idea to keep something growing, or at least covering your garden at all times. Be sure to visit my website to discover additional timely ideas and tips for growing and improving your backyard garden and edible landscape.

Kenneth Point has been gardening for over thirty years including managing production on an organic farm in Pennsylvania. For free tips visit his blog at http://www.veggiegardeningtips.com which contains ideas on fall vegetable gardening and other information related to growing fruits, vegetables, and herbs in the home garden.

Gardening Advice

Using Unusual Garden Features

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In many ways, gardens are very personal creations, each choice and each hour of tending yields specific results. After several seasons, however, the garden you dreamed may have never bloomed or no longer pleases you as you thought it might. At these times it is worthwhile to consider some more unusual, that is to say, more interesting or less common garden features. The most important thing when planning the space of your garden is keeping in mind the visual balance between the various elements. Stone elements always add excellent contrast to a garden. By using stone to offset your garden you will draw attention to all of the textures in your garden. A coarse sandstone finish will help display glossy green leaves, helping them to look lush and vibrant by drawing attention to the edges of individual leaves. A matte gray stone will help bring out the reds in your roses while a shiny marble will best offset flowing water and large “roundish” plantings.

Lights are an ever-increasing popular feature in gardens. Gone are the days when lights in gardens only give alert of intruders. There are many different kinds of lights that can be used to set your garden glowing at night so be sure to choose carefully for your purposes. Too much light will overpower the natural peacefulness of your garden while too little may create long and discomfiting shadows rather than giving your garden gentle illumination.

Placing a waterfall in your garden will change the overall landscape and ultimate impact of your garden. A garden waterfall provides a relaxing accompaniment to other garden sounds as the water falls gently or skips along its path. Large waterfalls will likely offer a feeling of luxurious grandeur that may not be desirable in every garden. Tiny spaces are better suited to the smaller, less sprawling waterfall arrangements. With many options available, think about how much space you are willing to give over to your waterfall.

Remember to be careful to consider texture when selecting your waterfall. There may not be a great deal of statuary and stone in your garden already, but when adding a large attraction like a waterfall, be sure to select a color and kind of stone that looks natural in your area. Different plants are best accentuated in different ways so it is important to select landscape elements with a deliberate eye for contrast and texture.

Another interesting feature that you can use in your garden is a birdbath. A birdbath is a slightly more sedate source of interest in a garden and will not have as much impact on the overall look, but it will provide interesting balance and contrast to the leafy and flowery. There are many types of birdbaths, ranging from small low to the ground constructions to Romanesque columns.

Try moving your birdbath around and look at it from several directions and during several different times of the day. Arrange flowers and other garden elements carefully around your birdbath so as not to distract its charm.

If you have a very limited amount of garden space, but a large patio, deck, or veranda, use planters to arrange greenery in the space you do have. Accent your planters with a trellis or coax a vine along another standing structure to increase the height of your arrangement. By arranging several different planters in a small space it is easy to create the illusion of a much larger garden.

A trellis can also be used effectively to block unsightly constructs in your vicinity. Many climbing vines grow (especially annuals) quickly, without much care to add attractive height, color and texture to your space.

Another way of adding height to your arrangement is by using a wall fountain. Wall fountains provide graceful lines to areas that usually remain unornamented. The advantage of structuring your garden around such inanimate objects is lasting, low maintenance attractiveness.

Think about the shape of each object you are using and how it balances its companions. Two planters of the same height but very different shape should probably not be placed side by side because it creates an awkwardness in the visual flow. Use other pieces of statuary to move the eye along a more graceful line.

Many people have trouble arranging their garden in ways that please them. There are a few key design elements that may help you create a garden that provides lasting visual pleasure and is reasonably easy to maintain.

1. Use permanent objects to define the boundaries of your garden. Limits help to create relationships between objects and will help you determine what is missing.

2. Use movable objects to create change and keep yourself from feeling trapped within an inflexible design (your garden should make you happy!).

3. Remember that not every item in your garden can be the center of attention. Although it is often a good idea to work outward from a large central object, symmetry is actually the hardest kind of pattern to do well. Asymmetrical patterns are actually far easier to work with for the average gardener.