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Fall is a good time for a garden clean-up

As temperatures cool and daylight hours decline, plant growth tends to slow. In addition to being an excellent planting season in our Mediterranean climate, fall is also a good time to clean up our gardens so that they’re healthy and fire-smart.   So…where to start?

Gather your supplies

Fall is an excellent time to clean and sharpen gardening tools. Photo: Creative Commons
Fall is an excellent time to clean and sharpen gardening tools. Photo: Creative Commons

  • Pruning tools and disinfectants to clean your tools.
  • Separate containers to hold material for the compost, diseased plants, leaves, roots, and stems for the landfill.
  • Pots for cuttings to propagate.

Clean up

Stacks of unused pots can become hiding places for snails, slugs, and rodents. Photo: Peter Sigrist, Flickr
Stacks of unused pots can become hiding places for snails, slugs, and rodents. Photo: Peter Sigrist, Flickr

  • Pick and discard old fruit still clinging to the tree as well as fallen fruit. It can spread disease in the garden and attract undesirable wildlife.
  • Thoroughly clean your vegetable garden. Save seeds for next year’s crops, remove diseased material, and compost the rest.
  • Remove diseased leaves, season-ending annuals, leaves and stems of summer blooming perennials, and other garden clutter.
  • Take special care around roses, camellias, and fuchsias, all of which can harbor undesirable larvae, pests, and disease.
  • Use your landfill container for plant debris located under and around plants that may be infected with disease or other pests.
  • Clean and store unused pots and containers that might offer desirable hiding places for snails, slugs, insects, spiders, and rodents.
  • Disinfect garden trellises, tomato cages, posts, and other plant supports to prevent diseases from over-wintering.
  • Clean the various clips and ties used to train and support vines.
  • Wash your garden gloves.
  • Remove soil from your garden tools and clean them with a disinfectant or a 10% bleach solution.  Apply a light coat of oil to prevent rusting if you are retiring the tools until spring.

Check irrigation system

  • Run through each zone of your drip irrigation system to check for leaks or other problems. Although you probably won’t be watering much during the colder months, it’s a great time to get your system in good shape for spring and summer.

Prune and shape

  • Prune summer flowering shrubs. Remove dead flowers and prune to control the size and shape of the plant.
  • Cut back herbaceous spring and summer blooming perennials to encourage spring growth.
  • Learn more about pruning.

Weed

Pull weeds before they spread to other areas of the garden.  Photo: UCANR
Pull weeds before they spread to other areas of the garden. Photo: UCANR

  • Pull weeds before they set seed that will spread to other parts of your garden.