Five great fall garden tips to make things fun and easy next season!
Five great Fall gardening tips that can alleviate mid-Autumn’s jumble of conflicting emotions: holiday season begins, growing season ends, pride of harvest and processing the year’s bounty, disappointment in crops that failed, more time, now that the garden season ends, less time because…holidays begin. Shorter days lead to lethargy.
“Next year will be better”. Have you said this before while working in your fall garden?
As a list person, I make note of things that work (or don’t) as they come up (or don’t) in the garden. Sometimes I in my notebook. Or, my garden journal, or my phone notes. Maybe a screenshot on my computer or phone.
Note to self: choose just one or two of these places for easier organization.
Ah….but isn’t this the blessing/the curse? We have so many options nowadays, that dipping our toe into more than one organizational outlet means overwhelm.
Tip One: Choose One (or two, at most) places to keep garden notes. Then stick to saving them there, and review on a monthly, or seasonal basis.
Not only will you see results in the near future, but you avoid the infuriating occurrence of finding notes that would have been so helpful, if only you’d checked your phone screenshots before ordering different kinds of garlic for your zone. Or purchasing a perennial that is not deer-repellent at all.
Tip Two: Learn the scientific names for those seeds. Then save them in alphabetical order.
Okay, this is a note to myself, for myself. But for your benefit. Trust me. Every plant has a scientific name, many are hard to pronounce.
But now, thanks to Google, you can look them up, write them in permanent marker on the seed envelope, and learn to pronounce them properly (finally!!!)
Later, this will help the frustrating occurrence of learning you filed yellow squash under “Y” and “S”. Instead of just under “Cucurbita”.
Not only will learning the proper scientific name help you more easily determine the resultant plant’s best growing conditions, but it also cuts down on the possibility that you will share or purchase seed of the wrong name long after you’ve forgotten these five great tips for your fall garden.
Tip Three: Rid your seed box (or suitcase) of any seeds that are more than a couple years old.
You know the ones. Are you really going to grow those Tithonia from your former good friend next year? They’ve been in the box for more than five years.
It’s more likely you’ll really plant all the seeds if you have less of the ones you haven’t wanted or needed for more than a few years.
If it makes you feel better, you can put them aside and cast them all on top of the compost pile now, or next Spring after last frost. Any resulting plant is a bonus!
Tip Four: Take photos of everything in the garden throughout the growing season.
As a professional gardener, I used this “trick” to send photos to clients of how glorious their gardens were in July, when it is mid-February.
This accomplishes a few things: it allows them to “see” the garden and not all the work that needs to be done. Seeing it at this time of year, when almost everything is asleep and the days are dreary is a welcome tonic, and it reminds them of what a great job their gardener did.
Finally, it is a helpful tip for your fall garden to review photos and see pockets where there will be room for a perennial or a cluster of nasturtiums, so they can plan to purchase plants and seeds from their favorite nurseries or catalogs as the time comes.
If that gardener is you, even better!
You won’t be able to see all the weeds in 8 month-old photos, either. It is really in those photos you can see your garden perhaps more how others see it. With the beautify and love you have put into it, not all the tasks you haven’t done.
Tip Five: Order those seeds and plants by the year’s end.
Thus commences the last tip of my five great Fall gardening tips. I know, I know! I just said in the paragraph above to send these photos in mid-February.
But the truth is, since 2020, there are MILLIONS of new gardeners (which is great!) and a literal run on the inventory of all seed houses ever since. Especially suppliers like these selling organic, open-pollinated and heirloom varieties of vegetables.
If these are the things you hope to add to your garden NEXT year, why not save some time and peace of mind and order those seeds this year?
Ask for those seeds and plants for gifts, if you are low on cash. Some of these sites have wish lists. Use them, and next year when those seeds come up, you have other people who will be delighted to see those garden photos!
“Gardening is a lesson in patience and an exercise in perseverance” M.M.
I hope these five tips help you to have a more organized garden and fun planning for next season. Maybe you will even save some time so you can spend it enjoying your space, instead of feeling like there is “never enough time”. With these five great Fall gardening tips, may you delight in the flowers, vegetables, herbs and fruits of your labor!