Gardener's checklist for fall

What to do in your garden in the fall

SEPTEMBER

Maintenance

Reduce irrigation times as day length shortens and plant growth slows.
Compost disease-free annuals and vegetables that have finished producing.
Add two inches of compost to the top eight inches of soil for fall and winter vegetables and annuals.

Propagation

Harvest vegetables promptly for continued production.
Buy bedding plants for fall color, including annual cosmos, snapdragons and zinnias, and perennial asters, chrysanthemums and salvias.
Renovate your lawn by seeding bare spots, dethatching and fertilizing. Consider reducing your lawn area.
Divide overgrown perennials as they finish blooming. Before replanting them, weed and amend garden beds.
Plant ornamental grasses, shrubs, perennials, evergreens and groundcovers.
Transplant starts of cabbage and cauliflower. Plant artichoke rootstock.
Sow seeds of fava beans, leeks, peas, radish, spinach and turnips.
Harvest herbs and dry them for winter use. Make pesto with basil, cilantro or parsley and freeze in small batches.
Cut strawflowers, statice, yarrow and other flowers that preserve well. Hang them to dry for use in arrangements.
Collect your own seed and store in a cool, dry place, along with any leftover seed packets.
Shop for bulbs at local nurseries.

Feed & Fertilize

Feed azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons with a 0-10-10 fertilizer.
Give citrus their last feeding of the year.

OCTOBER

Maintenance

Reduce your irrigation times significantly as day length shortens and plant growth slows or stops.
Compost disease-free annuals and vegetable crops that have finished producing.
Clean up diseased and damaged plant materials so the pathogens don’t overwinter.
Remove dead roots, leaves and stems from your vegetable garden and pick up fallen fruit. Dispose of them in your green can.
Add compost and soil amendments to your garden; cultivate into soil, but don’t disturb shallow-rooted plants.
Visit your garden after dark with a flashlight and handpick snails and slugs. Control measures in fall will help reduce populations in spring.

Propagation

Plant cover crops, like fava beans, crimson clover and vetch, to improve soil structure and fertility in bare vegetable beds.
Visit nurseries to see trees and shrubs with outstanding fall color; determine if there’s a place in your garden that would benefit from one of these selections.
Plant ornamental grasses, shrubs, perennials, evergreens and groundcovers. Winter rains will help establish sturdy root systems.
Buy bedding plants for fall and winter color, including calendulas, cyclamen, Iceland poppies, nemesia, osteopermum, pansies, primroses, snapdragons and violas.
Plant nursery starts of cool-season vegetables. In foggier microclimates: artichoke (rootstock), fava beans, cabbage, garlic, leeks, peas, spinach, Swiss chard, lettuce, radish (small varieties), shallot sets. In sunnier microclimates: artichoke (rootstock), fava beans, cabbage, cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, garlic sets, leeks, peas, radish (small varieties), spinach, Swiss chard.
Reseed bare spots in your lawn or install sod. Consider reducing the size of your lawn or removing it entirely to conserve water.
Dig up corms and tubers of gladiolus, dahlias and tuberous begonias after the foliage dies, if you’ve lost these plants over past winters. Store them in a cool, dry place.
Put tulip, narcissus and hyacinth bulbs in the refrigerator in breathable bags to pre-chill for six weeks prior to planting. Do not store them with apples, which emit ethylene gas that will sprout the bulbs.
Start amaryllis, narcissus and paperwhite narcissus bulbs inside for holiday gifts.
Prepare planting holes now for installing bare-root plants and trees in winter.

NOVEMBER

Maintenance

Mulch bare soil to hold in moisture, keep out weeds and prevent compaction by hard rains.
Prune dead or broken branches on trees and shrubs.
Remove the bands of corrugated cardboard used to trap codling moth larvae from around apple tree trunks and dispose of them.
Compost fallen leaves. Layer green and brown materials in your compost pile.
Create new planting areas by layering sheet mulch (click herefor a how-to video) over weed patches or unwanted lawn.
Turn off your irrigation system for the season; continue to water plants under overhangs.

Propagation

Sow native wildflower seed.
Plant perennials and evergreens.
Dig, divide and replant overgrown perennials for more profuse blooms next spring.
Plant bulbs for spring color, including daffodils, crocus, freesia and hyacinths.
Plant garlic and shallot sets.
For larger camellia blooms, remove all but one fat bud from each stem.

Contributors:
Faith Brown, Elizabeth Finley, Dot Zanotti Ingels, Diane Lynch, Marie Narlock

Sources:
A Gardener's Companion 2011 by the UCCE Placer County Master Gardeners, Golden Gate Gardening by Pam Peirce