Gardening in October and Preparing for Winter

Once the summer and autumn flowers fade, it is time to get busy preparing your garden for winter. This can depend mightily on the weather conditions in your area. Whereas parts of Montana, Wyoming and the mountains of Colorado are already beginning to see snow, we at the lower elevations still have many flowers and plants in bloom. Pay attention as frosts begin to…

Once the summer and autumn flowers fade, it is time to get busy preparing your garden for winter. This can depend mightily on the weather conditions in your area. Whereas parts of Montana, Wyoming and the mountains of Colorado are already beginning to see snow, we at the lower elevations still have many flowers and plants in bloom. Pay attention as frosts begin to come to your area. At least the cooler weather makes these gardening chores more pleasant.

Winter gardening chores can include digging over your garden beds. It is important, however, to be sure not to injure any perennials you should have in the garden beds. Where you may have quite a few of these together, it would be best to gently use a fork rather than a garden spade. The spade is much more likely to cut the roots of the perennials. Before digging, you can pull up the annuals that have gone by and compost the plants. You do have a compost pile/bin, don’t you?

Although many hardy perennial plants die down for the winter and their leaves and stems wither and die, they are still live plants. The roots are very much alive and in the spring beautiful fresh young growth will peep through the soil. So keep this in mind with any of your fall and winter gardening chores.

During the next few weeks everything should be made neat and tidy for the winter. All dead leaves, stems, etc., should be cleared away, and stakes taken up and stored except where plants still need them. By removing the dead material out of your garden, you are removing the hiding places of different gardening diseases and pests. If you do have some diseased leaves, twigs and stems do not add them to your compost pile. It is best to burn them if you are able in your local area.

This is a good time of year to add amendments to your garden beds to improve the soil. Now is not the time to add fast-acting fertilizers to your soil, if you so inclined, as it will be leached away before spring and this gardening task will have been for naught. It might also encourage some plants to grow and this growth would be killed by the fall and winter freezes.

Among your fall gardening chores, adding compost, lime and even manure to the garden is another task. The action of freezing and thawing will help to “work” this into the soil and to take the “heat” out of the manure. A suggestion is to find out what types of soil amendments are available in your area that you can use in your gardening inexpensively.

If you should like to add some more flowerbeds to your garden, this is a good time of year to do so. You can more easily remember what your summer garden looked like and know what and where you wish to add more. The winter will also give the newly dug garden beds some time to settle.

Now is also the time to begin looking at the requirements of your garden plants for winter protection. Do you need to dig some plants up and move them into a greenhouse or inside your home? Do you need to dig up some bulbs to be stored in a dry cellar? Now is the time to find the winter protection requirements for your garden plants. Be ready for this gardening chore when the time comes to your area.