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             The Gardener Guy of Tulsa, Oklahoma

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It's the End of the Season

I wrote my first gardening column in 1998 about putting the garden to bed because I was aware that many gardeners never bother to do much with their gardens at the end of the season. I wanted to alert people to the fact that every hour spent cleaning up the garden in the fall will save hours of work later, and will reduce pest problems.

A good cleanup helps minimize the overwintering of pests and diseases. Instead of leaving the stems and leaves of dead plants as winter condos, get rid of them. Want to reduce apple scab? Rake up the leaves under your apple tree. Want to minimize powdery mildew on your phlox? Cut them down and take the stems far from the scene of the crime. These steps will not totally eliminate a problem, but they will help. And you'll be glad, come spring, that your garden is clean and ready for you.

Weeds are the bane of many gardeners. By mid-August, weeds are big and fearless. And many gardeners give up, saying, "What the heck! I'll get some tomatoes anyhow, and a few weeds won't stop that." True enough. But it's good to clean up the weeds now. That will help to prevent them from depositing seeds in your soil seed bank.

Weeds deposit their seeds in the soil, and many will survive for years, waiting for the proper time to germinate. If you can prevent seeds from getting in the soil, you reduce your work in years to come. If your weeds are loaded with seeds now, as most are, don't bang them hard against the ground or a tool in an effort to get off every morsel of your precious topsoil. Instead, cut off any tops that are loaded with seeds, and toss them into a bucket. Then you can pull the weed bodies without fear of distributing seeds over your soil.

I prefer a knife to scissors or pruning shears, as a knife is less likely to tire out your hands or cause carpal tunnel syndrome. Lee Valley Tools has a nice root knife for $6.95 that I like for cutting down weeds or the tops of perennials. (www.leevalley.com or 1-800-267-8735).

Along my stream I let some curled dock - a big weed - go to seed. I like to use the seeds, when green, in flower arrangements and sometimes even sell them to a local florist. But this year I didn't harvest many, and the seed heads have all ripened; I'm in danger of having them spread like crazy next year. A quick fix is burn off the seeds with my flame weeder. This "flame thrower" attaches to a propane tank I use with the gas grill. I can direct a blast of blue flame and kill the seeds, so I like this solution even better than cutting off the tops, as ripe seeds drop off easily when disturbed by picking or weeding. Flame weeders are available from Fedco seeds (www.fedcoseeds.com or (207) 873-7333). Smaller ones are often available at garden centers.

Weed seeds are currently blowing around on the fall breezes. Soil which has recently been weeded or cultivated is rough and porous, and can easily snag blowing seeds. But, by cutting off the tops of your annual flowers instead of pulling them, you can make your soil less receptive to them. Hard, smooth soil is less likely to catch seeds than freshly cultivated soil. As an added advantage, some of the roots of your annuals will break down, adding organic matter to your soil. You can pull out the roots of tough things like sunflowers (that don't fully decompose) in the spring.

Leaves are wonderful soil amendments. Trees mine the minerals of the soil, often from deep below the surface. I like to run over the leaves with a lawn mower on a dry day, using the "mulch mode" of my lawnmower to break up the leaves. Then I put on the grass catcher and essentially vacuum them up. As I harvest my vegetable garden, I weed the beds, and put down a thick layer of leaves and grass. This adds free organic matter that is pretty much weed-seed free, and keeps wind-blown seeds out of the soil. Earthworms love the leaves, and will move some of the organic matter into the soil. Sometimes I fork a layer of leaves into the top 6 inches of soil before covering the soil.

Crisp fall days with blue skies are a gift. Accept the gift, even if it means playing hooky from your work, and get out in your garden. And if your boss complains? Blame me. I'll stick up for you.

Henry Homeyer is the VT/NH associate editor of "People, Places and Plants" magazine. Write him at gardening.guy@valley.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, N.H. 03746.