Prep your garden for winter

As we enter our most pleasant season, fall, the garden calls for attention before the cold days of winter. As I consider preparing my garden for the next season, I’m inspired by the research and recommendations of author Doug Tallamy, an entomologist, ecologist and conservationist. He is known for his book, “Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard.” 

This book is considered his most actionable and inspiring work, which outlines a practical blueprint for turning individual residential yards into connected conservation corridors for wildlife — which led to the creation of the Homegrown National Park.

He argues for changes in the way we view our gardens — our environment and ecosystem. He takes a strong stand on changes to current approaches to maintaining our gardens. In particular, he insists that we should not scrape up the leaves and plant materials that fall to the ground, leaving them to enrich the invisible living web underground. These materials provide nutrients to the soil and its many microscopic inhabitants.

We should not be deadheading all of our flowers and grasses — at least not until spring. The dead stalks of flowers and grasses provide winter protection and food for a variety of birds and pollinators, including our bees and butterflies.

However, there are several tasks we could accomplish at this time of year. This is the proper time to fertilize trees, shrubs and perennials once more before plants go dormant. In addition, or to replace chemical fertilizer, our garden beds should be topped with a few inches of mulch or compost. These added materials will hold moisture during the dry winter months, shade out any weeds that sprout, and decompose to enrich the soil.

While leaving beneficial plants through the winter, remove weeds that grew up with the recent rains. Winter freezes likely will kill off most of the annual weeds. However, perennial weeds, such as the silver nightshade, should be pulled out or cut down. If the weather remains warm, which keeps weeds actively growing, you may choose to spray weeds with a pesticide where necessary. Be sure to follow the directions on the container, as pesticides are less effective if plants are not actively growing or have gone to seed, the temperature is too low, or the wind is blowing.

When tackling any weeds in the garden, take care not to inadvertently remove young sprouts of  fall and spring flowers, such as desert marigold, salvia, California poppy, hollyhock and larkspur, to name a few flowering plants that come up with our late summer rains.

It’s getting a bit late to plant a fall vegetable garden. However, the soil still is warm and, if you have time to cover garden beds or containers at night to keep the seeds and seedlings warm, you still can plant winter greens, such as collards, Swiss chard, spinach, kale, cilantro and parsley.

We have another month or so before our first hard freeze. So, take some time to check the irrigation system for any problems that have developed over the summer and prepare to shut down the system for the winter. If you have flowers and vegetables to tend, be sure to leave access to a hose for watering. Unless we have a wet winter — we wish — we should plan to water our trees, shrubs, perennials and grass every four to six weeks during the winter months.

After a good tidy up from the long hot summer, allow yourself some time to sit in the garden with a warm cup of spiced cider and breathe in the cool air as leaves flutter to the ground — leaves that you can ignore for now.