Guest Contributor, Erica Jones, Master Gardener
Fall is a great time to get out in the garden. Hopefully, the summer pressures of keeping up with ripening vegetables and chasing weeds has slowed down. Sunburns are harder to get too which is an added bonus.
There are still lots of things you can do outside this time of year…
Grass/lawns. Lawn grass does not like being covered with leaves to try to rake or blow them off. One approach if the leaves are not too deep is to mow them, which chops up the leaves and blows them over. Leaves are easy to deal with, especially after they have been mowed. Keep them restrained in piles, wait about eight months, and you will have lovely compost. Watering the piles helps keep them from blowing and speeds up the decay process. Or if you don’t want compost, bag them up and give them to someone who does.
Don’t cut your lawn so short in the fall. I think a lot of people cut too short anyway, but your yard overwintering benefits from slightly longer grass which reduces erosion from rain. The grass will wear over the winter and not be growing, so give it a chance to hold up with the foot traffic. Nitroen should not be applied in the fall, but if your grass is doing poorly, consider taking a soil test. Your pH might be lower than grass grows best at; pH of 6.0- 6.5 for short fescue, and 6.5 – 7.2 for bluegrass. Never seed with tall fescue – it is for making hay. Your extension office can tell you how to take a soil test.
There are some vegetables that overwinter with a little care in this part of Virginia. The several types of kale, collards, Swiss chard, and sometimes spinach can make it through the winter to give you earlier spring greens. By mid-October though, the plants should be up and growing and will need a good mulching to help them through the cold months. October tends to be one of our driest months, so it is better to mulch when the ground is damp vs dry ground. If you mulch when it is dry, it acts to keep that soil underneath drier. Lettuce can be covered with plastic which will extend its life into early winter, but it will generally not overwinter.
You still have time to do that fun fall ritual – plant spring bulbs. This gives you something to look forward to all winter. (But mark where you put them!). Again, if the ground is dry, water the bulbs before mulching. Shop around (or order online) and plant something new this year besides daffodils, tulips and hyacinths. There are small earlier bloomers like fritillaria and snowdrops. Allium mostly bloom after tulips and are really tough. If you want tulips, try the ‘Darwin’ type and plant them really deep – 8” and space a couple of inches apart for ‘mass’ effect. Deer adore tulips; maybe more so than other foliage and flowers from bulbs, so plan accordingly
Gardeners can get more things done in the fall than you might think. Enjoy the cooler weather and stay outside!
