10 Things to Do Now for a Better Garden Next Spring

For many of us northern gardeners, the gardening season has pretty much come to an end. We've had our first frost already, and only the hardiest brassicas and greens (along with the carrots and turnips) remain in the vegetable garden.

But that doesn't mean it's time to kick back and relax quite yet. There are several things you can do now to improve your garden and save you some work during the busy spring gardening season.

Fall Garden Tasks

1.Clean up your beds. Remove any damaged or diseased plants. Weed one last time, and remove any fallen fruits.

2.Add compost or composted manure. You can either dig it into your bed or just spread it over the top for now.

3.Plant cover crops in the vegetable garden. Fall-planted cover crops, such as winter rye, hairy vetch, or field peas will protect your soil from winter erosion. They can be turned into the garden in the spring to add nutrients and organic matter to your soil.

4.Make new garden beds. Easy, no-dig methods such as lasagna gardening and the newspaper method are perfect for this time of year.

5.Pull back the mulch from crowns of plants. Mulch pressed up against stems or trunks of plants can cause rot and kill the plant. Give the stems or trunk an inch or two of space.

6.Consider starting a worm bin for easy winter composting. The vermicompost produced by your worms can be added to your seed-starting mix in the spring, or spread right onto your garden beds.

7.If you haven't done so already, start a compost pile! All of that plant matter from your garden clean-up, as well as the leaves falling right now, are perfect ingredients for compost. 8.You can dig trenches in your garden beds now for easy trench composting this winter if you don't want to deal with large-scale composting. 9.Consider getting a soil test now, especially for areas in which things didn't grow as well as you'd have liked. The results will tell you what you'll need to add to your soil next spring for better results. 10.Make some notes! Where did you plant certain crops? Keep track of this so you'll be able to rotate your crops next spring. Which areas didn't produce very well? What did you enjoy growing, and what were the flops in your garden this year? What do you want to try growing next year? Making these notes now will provide useful reminders for you for when you're planning your garden next year. A little work now will save you some time next spring, and result in a healthier, more bountiful garden, as well.