It’s Fall Week. So Many Fall Garden Chores, The Pressure of Time

The week before your first expected frost requires flexibility and time. As well as sanitized pots, sanitized soil and space.

The Average First Frost Date for my area is October 1st. About a week before this date, I begin obsessing about the forecast. After a few days with concurring agreement between different weather source regarding which day is F-Day, I make a plan and get to work.

Decisions Decisions

1. Decide which plants are coming inside.
2. Be realistic about the space and time you will have to nurture plants indoors.
3. Inventory your equipment. Do you have the pots, lights and soil you need for the plants you wish to grow indoors?
4. Sanitize the pots, greenhouse and any other tools that will be in contact with the plants.
5. Map out where leaves, compost and other yard and garden refuse is going to go.
6. Make a transport plan if you will have plant refuse you can’t use in yard. In my case, the far-too-many sunflower stalks will be dropped off at the free local refuse drop-off the city provides beginning at the end of September. Buy yard waste bags if you have a service to pick them up.
7. Which tubers and bulbs need to be dug up? How many will there be?
8. Prepare the labels and containers you will need for the bulbs and tubers.
9. Inventory. Do you have the bags, boxes and filler material needed to save them?
10. Make notes on your schedule or in your calendar of your bulb and tuber checks. I check monthly.
11. What is the bug plan? Anything I bring in from outside is likely to bring some lovely little friends with it. Where I live, aphids are guaranteed. I do plant to remove as much outside dirt as possible and do a quick dip of the whole plant in water. That will wash it and get roots wet before planting into potting soil. Additionally, I will have bug sticky paper.
12. The holes from the dug up plants, what is the plan? I’ll fill them with kitchen scraps or lawn clippings if the holes are large enough to do so. Make my own compost in place and feed that soil over winter. So for a few weeks, there are holes in the yard waiting for scraps. I dig them as i go, a few ahead of time, so if I only have a minute to dump and cover, I don’t need to grab the shovel.
13. Before deciding how much almost ripe veggies are going in the house the day before the first frost, what are you going to do with it? Do you have the space? Do you have the containers? The refrigeration, if needed? The time to process?
    
    -blushing tomatoes will be allowed to ripen inside, then canned
    -one gallon bag of green tomatoes will be saved to make fried green tomatoes
    -all hot peppers will be harvested and either made into hot sauce, taco sauce or chopped and frozen to be used throughout the winter
    -seasoning peppers will be chopped/diced and frozen
    -carrots will be left in ground to use as needed until hard frost/deep snow
    -winter squash goes into the garage
    -day before frost, I pick all the flowers that will die, take pretty photos and make a gorgeous bouquet for the house.
    -herb plants will be brought indoors to grow overwinter
    
14. Seed collecting, do I have the bags labeled? Where will I store them?
15. Take notes for menu planning. Have unexpected crop? Plan for it.
16. Be willing to let unneeded produce feed the soil via compost if you can’t find enough homes for it.
17. It’s time to jam!
18. Woodchipper time
    ~
    

The goal is to make Spring you happy that Fall you left very little to handle over the winter

Good Luck!

~