Fall means that the weather is cooling down. It’s time for pumpkins and fall festivals and apple cider! But it’s not time to give up on your garden! There are just a few essential tasks for planting and caring for your garden in the fall.
Go ahead and clean up the summer garden before it gets too cold. Once the plants are dead, it is good practice to remove them as soon as possible. Fungal disease and many garden pests will overwinter in the dead leaves and stems.
Compost only the healthy plants that show no signs of disease. This is especially true of tomatoes which can harbor fungal disease that will spread in your compost.
A lot of my gardening friends will say, whoa wait a minute! A no-till garden is THE way to go! Sure, tilling does have some drawbacks. When done in excess, it stirs up weed seeds, disturbs the soil bacteria, fungi, and earthworm environment, and increases erosion. But there are some really good reasons you might decide to till your garden. For one thing, tilling is the quickest way to get the soil ready for planting especially if you’re starting a new garden bed. Tilling the soil helps break up clumps in hard and compacted soil. It will also break up the roots and kill some weeds.
Cover crops are used to add nutrients and organic matter to your soil, protect the soil from drying out and suppress weed growth. In our garden, we use mammoth red clover, Austrian winter peas, winter rye, and ryegrass for fall cover crops. Cover crops can be used in your garden beds the same way we use them on the farm. Choose red clover for an easy to manage nitrogen-fixing cover crop for your garden beds. Continue Reading from You Should Grow
