The most painless way for me to get these tasks done is to continue with the 15-minute rule I use all season long: as soon as I get home and change, I march out to the garden and work for 15 minutes. Sometimes it feels so nice to be out there by myself listening to the random sounds of my neighborhood and feeling the evening sun and breeze on my face that I stay out much longer. Still, even if I am hating every minute of it, 15 minutes is doable and in a week’s time, I have accomplished a lot of these chores with just these small increments of time.
• Why, why, why don’t I pick up plastic garbage at the time it is generated? From the first transplant I set out, I promise myself that I will never leave non-compostable garbage behind when I go into the house. Most days I walk around the garden with a plastic grocery bag hanging from my side, so that I have something in which to put those crushed six packs and commercial nametags. Yet, here it is August and I see bits of plastic liter all around, especially gallon milk jugs that I used to haul compost tea or chicken poop tea out to certain plants (like my pumpkins) that I baby all summer long. So, one of my fall chores is to pick up all the plastic stuff that has accumulated in the corners and crannies of my garden.
• I have a 33-gallon plastic trash container that sits at the corner of the garden all summer. I keep it filled, either with rainwater from the gutters or hose water, so that the sun will warm it to a temperature more appealing to my tomatoes. I also use it to mix up fish fertilizer, which I apply one gallon at a time to my pumpkins, tomatoes and dahlias. As a result, by the end of the summer the garbage can is grungy and usually has some algae flourishing in it. In late August, I use the last of the water and refill it about half way with fresh water, adding enough bleach to get a 1:10 ratio of bleach to water. (Actually, last year I used vinegar, since it too is a disinfectant.) I toss in the six packs, four pack and single containers I plan to reuse next year (some of them I have just finished collecting from the garden). About an hour later, I fish the containers out and throw them into the net bags I have collected over the last few years, from things like grocery store potatoes and onions. I hang them up in the garage to let the containers air dry before I nestle them inside each other for winter storage. Then I use a brush to give the garbage can a good scrub. Jug by gallon jug, I ladle the now dirty water out and pour it over weeds that have sprouted along the driveway or between paving stones in walkways; it takes a stronger dose of vinegar or bleach to kill off all weeds, but even this milder concoction will discourage some invaders.
• When the entire harvest is in, I gather up the garden garbage — things like cabbage stalks and leaves or pea, bean and tomato vines. Either they go in the compost heap or I run them through the chipper shedder and spread them out on the garden so they can decompose over the fall and winter. There are folks who swear that they will decompose on their own if just left in place for the winter, but that has not been my experience. I would rather put in the work now, than face a spring of pushing aside slimy remains from this year.
• Dahlias are my great love, especially the dinner plate sized ones. However, the tubers are expensive to buy new each spring, and it is relatively easy to keep them alive year to year. Wait until the stems have turned dark and soft from our first frosts, and use a sturdy, sharp knife to slice the stalks off at ground level. Dig up the tubers; if you have never done this before, be warned that the ordinary sized tuber you put into the pot when starting the plants in March, will have grown into a huge clump of babies clinging to the original mother. They can be very cumbersome to dig up without breaking pieces off, and heavy to heave out of the ground, so don’t expect it to be like pulling up potatoes. Leave the clumps intact and put each one on a table or a garage floor for a day or two or three, until the dirt dries out and can easily be brushed off. Then put each clump in a box, burying it in sand, vermiculite or sawdust. You can put more than one set of mother and babies in a box, but they should not be touching each other. Keep the box in a place where the temperature will stay between 40 and 45 degrees.
• As I mentioned last fall, a few years ago, I started having trouble with tubers dying out. This stopped when I followed some advice from a gardening magazine and began lining the tuber boxes with about eight pages of newsprint and then covering the filled box with more newsprint. This keeps the moisture in so the tubers don’t dry out. The second piece of advice in the same article said to put each tuber in a plastic bag with a few air holes punched out, add coarse vermiculite and put each plastic bag into a doubled brown bag. None of my tubers dried up with this method, although several did rot.
• Even though hearty perennials don’t need to be dug out of the ground, they can’t be left to fend for themselves or you risk losing them to our winter freeze and thaw cycles. Per the advice of Michele Hebert, of Cooperative Extension, every fall I cut back my perennials. Then I apply bone meal to them, at the rate of six cups per 100 square feet, and then I mulch them with chopped up straw.
Next week: more chores.
Linden Staciokas has gardened in the Interior for more than two decades. Send gardening questions to her at dorking@acsalaska.com.
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