A little planning and preparing can rev up and help your lawn be ready for the winter. And Fall is the best time to clear out your lawn beds, manage the quality of the soil, get sod ready, and minimize issues in the new growing season. It is also the perfect time to plant spring-blooming bulbs and pick out summer bloomers.
Once your lawn has been prepped in the right way, you can rest assured knowing you’ll get the most out of your fall gardening. Below are some fall gardening tips to help you along the process.
- Best Crops for Fall
When you are choosing what plants to harvest during the fall, gardeners often recommend root and green vegetables. Leafy green vegetables like mache, chard, spinach, lettuces, arugula, etc. and root vegetables such as radishes, rutabaga, carrots, and bets, etc. can grow in shorter and colder days of the fall.
- Getting the Timing Right
Late summer is the ideal time to start your fall gardening. In order to determine the dates you want to start growing each variety, consider the date of maturity mentioned in the seed catalog.
Add one or two weeks to this date to consider the shorter length of fall days. Subsequently, counting backward removes the day from the average first fall frost date.
- Flower Gardening
Plants that bulb should be stored in a cool, dry place. And the best time to do bulb planting is between middle and late November. Hyacinths, iris, crocus, tulips, and daffodils are some of the best choices. Moreover, it is also an ideal time to separate perennials with perennial seeds for the next spring.
- Clean Out the Unwanted Growth
The end of the season is the time to take out dead vegetable plants and clean out the weeds and plant debris. Moreover, you shall also winterize the lawn water features and furniture. Raking leaves away from your lawn as well as mowing them using grass catchers are the best ways to prepare your autumn garden. Additionally, the mix of carbon and nitrogen offers a great cover for the vegetable garden. It enhances fertility and prevents weeds.
- Organic Gardening
You can make good use of the fallen leaves. Spread the fallen leaves on the ground and run a mower over them. They are easy to break down. After that, you can add organic amendments to the beds. Moreover, they pull double-duty, acting as an important mulch layer for the winter months.
- Stretch the Season
Extend the fall harvest a month extra by protecting the plants from hard freezes. Here is how you can do that:
- Covering low-growers using a thick layer of straw leaves or mulch. You can simply pull them aside during the day.
- Floating row cover
- A clear plastic tarp
Autumn is the perfect time to put the garden to bed. By taking some preparation time now, you can save a lot of time and effort next spring when the growing season comes back. Above, we have shared some useful to-do lists that will help you to with your fall landscaping this year.
Contact Calgary Lawn Care Experts today if you need help or assistance with your landscaping needs.