5 ProTips for Fall Gardening
The biggest difference between a new gardener and a seasoned gardener——the ability to plan ahead! Fall is a great time to get your garden ready for winter AND for spring! One of the reason I love fall gardening is the same reason the plants love fall planting…..its cooler. It seems like I can work all day and not get tired because its a little cloudy, maybe rainy, and the ground is a little easier to work. Just as I can work all day, the plants seem to work all day too. They set down strong roots, get established before the ground freezes, and pick up steam because they aren’t so stressed by the heat or bothered by the pests.
So if you are ready for a little fall gardening, here are 5 things I’m doing now that you might also want to do to improve your garden game next year.
Spray Beneficial Nematodes - To combat Japanese Beetles, Cucumber Beetles, Thrips, and more, get a battery operated backpack sprayer and spray your garden soil and yard with these powerful beneficials. Doing this consistently in the fall and spring is instrumental in our pest management strategy. You can find them online at Arbico Organics. They are 40% off right now!
Plant Early Spring Flowers - We are planting things like transplants of hellebore in different parts of the garden to see where they might grow better for us. We are also planting woody shrubs like snowball bush, flowering almond, quince, forsythia, and hydrangeas. You can find many of them on sale at local nurseries in the fall. While it’s a little late in the season for seeds, we are still scattering hardy annual seeds in the ground so we can get an early flush of flowers in the spring.
Plant or Divide Peonies - Planting peonies in the fall is the best time to plant them, as well as divide them. We will be selling some extra bare root peonies during our November Holiday Market. Stop by and get a few peony roots to tuck into the ground now so you can begin to establish a spring garden. My best advice in designing your dream garden is to try and have something beautiful blooming each season from early spring all the way until late fall. Think of your garden blooming in waves from April all the way until October.
Plant Bulbs - Fall is always a great time to tuck tulips, daffodils, muscari, and hyacinths into sunny parts of your landscape. If you have a shady area, try planting Spanish Bluebells and letting them naturalize in your landscape. Also, remember to tuck a few bulbs into terra cotta pots (layer them like lasagne) and put them someplace cool so you can force bulbs indoors during the winter. This is one of my favorite things to do to help me naturally get through those winter blues.
Calcium - Calcium is the quiet hero of the garden. We’ve been obsessed with calcium for the last several years and have seen our plants respond in big ways. This year we are adding calcium to the soil in the fall to give it time to absorb into the soil structure. You can buy calcium in the form of garden gypsum at most garden centers. When calcium and magnesium is balanced in the soil, it unlocks the ability for your plant to receive more nutrients. Having too much calcium is not harmful to your plants so there is no risk in overdoing it.
These are just some of the things we are doing this fall to plan for spring. If you are interested in more gardening education, my Online Gardening Course will be open for registration later this month and will release in January. Learn more here.
Here’s to cultivating more beauty from the burbs,
Gina