It’s fall in your garden, the busiest time of year for prepping for spring blooms, clean up, putting perennials to bed, and planting winter veggies.
1. Pull up your spent annuals and any weeds that have invaded your beds. Spread fresh home-made compost or store-bought mixtures. Plant early spring flowering seeds like larspur and poppies by sprinkling over prepped beds. Sprinkle potting soil over the seeds and gently pat down for seeds to make contact with the compost.
2. Clean up perennials by trimming back to within 4-6 inches of ground. This includes all bulbs as well. You don’t want to leave brown bulb fronds in your beds under which snails and slugs breed.
3. Cover all your pruned perennials with leaves you’ve collected from neighbors,yourself, and the road ditches. I have a great leaf shredder which vacuums up leaves, shreds, and collects this natural mulch in an attached bag. I empty my shredded leaves directly from the bag to the beds.
4. If you haven’t planted your lettuce and other greens yet, do it now! Also plant brocolli, swiss chard, brussel sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower. Watch the weather channel for freezing temperatures in case you need to cover your seedlings with plastic sheeting.
Don’t try to do everything in one day! Prioratize getting your seeds and seedlings planted first, and then portion out the next chores as you have time. Gardening is for enjoyment and playing in the dirt, not hard work and sore muscles!
How will you play in the dirt this week?
When the frosty kiss of Autumn in the dark
Makes its mark
On the flowers, and the misty morning grieves
Over fallen leaves;
Then my olden garden, where the golden soil
Through the toil
Of a hundred years is mellow, rich, and deep,
whispers in its sleep.
Mid the crumpled beds of marigold and phlox,
Where the box
Borders with flossy green the ancient
Walks,
There’s a voice that talks
Of the human hopes that bloomed and withered here
Year by year,
Dreams of joy, that brightened all the laboring hours,
Fading as the flowers
Yet the whispered story does not deepen grief;
But relief
For the loneliness of sorrow seems to flow
From the Long-Ago,
When I think of other lives that learned, like mine,
To resign,
And remember that the sadness of the fall
Comes alike to all.