Fall Fun in the Garden

There’s plenty to do in the garden at this time of year.

Continue to water.
Trees may be showing signs of salt burn (brown tips on leaves) due to lack of deep watering.

To water deeply: Lay your garden hose about 18′ from the trunk, turn on hose so it just dribbles out as if someone didn’t turn it off tightly. Let it run for several hours, or all night. This will ‘cleanse’ the soil of accumulated salts and give a deep soak. This is also helpful for newly planted trees – to soak deeply into the root ball.

A lot of bugs are busy now!
Continue to hose off plants – keep them clean! Watch for Giant Whitefly (look for fuzz on the back of leaves) and aphids. Insect populations tend to ‘peak’ during hot weather. It will get better as the weather cools! If you have to, use an insecticide such as Ultra Fine Oil Spray.

Get rid of those weeds!
So… maybe the weeds have already taken over. Don’t give up! Remove them now or they will be twice as bad in the spring. Patches of bare soil invite weeds, so plant a cover crop that you can work back into the soil in early spring, or cover the bare soil with mulch.

Fall is a great time to plant shrubs and trees.
They won’t have to put energy into flowers or fruits, and can devote their resources to growing healthy root systems. As long as the soil is around 40 degrees or above, roots will continue to grow.