Autumn efforts bring spring satisfaction for gardeners

It is hard for me to believe that we are already into mid-October. This week I have been email­ing fam­ily mem­bers try­ing to decide whether to have our Christ­mas gath­er­ing as a brunch or din­ner. Christ­mas! Already? I am an over-planner and tend to always be work­ing months ahead.

While it some­times even dri­ves me crazy to be think­ing about wreathes and rein­deer in Octo­ber, it cer­tainly is a qual­ity that helps me as a gar­dener. Gar­den­ing takes time, patience and plan­ning. Unfor­tu­nately, you can­not admire your neighbor’s daf­fodils bloom­ing in March and plant some for your­self that same year.

Octo­ber is a bit like New Year’s in the gar­den. It is the time for res­o­lu­tions, changes and big-picture plan­ning. With much of the sum­mer gar­den wind­ing down but still intact, it is the per­fect time to assess and cor­rect your gar­den before cold sets in.

For instance, my veg­etable gar­den is a con­stant work in progress. In 2010, I was a lit­tle too inspired by the urban agri­cul­ture move­ment of grow­ing food in tiny spaces, and tried to grow about 20 vari­eties of veg­eta­bles in my 20x10 foot gar­den. I don’t care what any cool rooftop farmer in Brook­lyn says — one sim­ply can­not grow pump­kins in a three-foot square.

So then in 2011, I decided to focus on what I really wanted — toma­toes. I grew about 15 vari­eties of toma­toes. It was nice, but between try­ing to grow organ­i­cally and being too stingy to put up any sort of proper fenc­ing, most of my beau­ti­ful heir­loom toma­toes were enjoyed by rac­coons, rab­bits, deer and even chip­munks. So this sum­mer I decided to stick to what I know best — herbs, lots and lots of herbs. I even had some vol­un­teer tomato plants that came up and seemed to pro­duce vol­umes more than their par­ent plants had the pre­vi­ous year. The toma­toes came up between basil plants, and the old wives’ tale about grow­ing basil with toma­toes must be true, no pest problems.

We have all heard the phrase “hope springs eter­nal.” Well, as gar­den­ers, we noto­ri­ously prove this to be true year after year. And of course I think I have the per­fect, bal­anced plan for my veg­etable gar­den in 2013. This is the time of year to make those plans and start doing some of the work. For exam­ple, my veg­etable gar­den is only a few years old, so amend­ing the soil is a con­stant strug­gle. In the com­ing weeks I plan to spread a very thick layer of com­post and leaves to decom­pose and enrich the soil all winter.

One of the best ways to stop weeds in the gar­den is pre­vent them the sea­son before. Now that we have had a few frosts, weeds are weaker and eas­ier to kill. My pre­ferred method is sim­ply cov­er­ing with news­pa­per and mulch, because it adds nutri­ents to the soil and blocks out the weed with­out any chem­i­cals. How­ever, there are some weeds that sim­ply require the big guns. Spray them now with a weed killer, mark the spot with a tag, and very early in the spring spray a pre-emergent her­bi­cide. Get­ting a head start in the fall makes the process much easier.

Another great gar­den project to start this time of year is com­post­ing. While com­post takes a lit­tle longer in cool weather than in the heat of sum­mer, there are def­i­nite advan­tages. Com­post is essen­tially decom­posed organic mat­ter. Some­times decom­po­si­tion is not a lovely aro­matic expe­ri­ence. Your com­post pile is far less likely to smell in cold weather. If you are a begin­ner and make a mis­take, you have more time to cor­rect it if you start now.

This is also a great time to work with trees — plant­ing new trees or prun­ing exist­ing ones. It is the ideal time to plant trees because the root sys­tems have time to estab­lish before going into dor­mancy and then pro­duc­ing new growth in the spring. And that branch that hangs too low over your patio or walk­way? Autumn is also a great time for prun­ing. Mild weather and ample mois­ture will allow the tree to heal itself from even aggres­sive pruning.

Last but not least, bulbs. There are so many won­der­ful new hybrids of spring-blooming bulbs. A lit­tle bit of work in the fall pro­vides so much in return come spring.

Fall gar­den­ing is much more of an invest­ment in delayed grat­i­fi­ca­tion than going to the nurs­ery in the spring and com­ing home with flats of vivid flow­ers. But it is some of the most impor­tant work for the well-being of a gar­den one can do. Tak­ing the time to reflect on the suc­cesses and fail­ures of your gar­den this year, mak­ing some changes, and plan­ning for next year will make for the per­fect gar­den in 2013 — I hope so, anyway!

Stephen Jones is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on Oct 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.