Today?s column is by guest writer Lisa Kaplan Gordon, a contributing writer for HouseLogic and a builder of luxury homes in McLean, Va.
Growing season is winding down, but your garden still needs your love. Spent vines, stubborn weeds, and greens gone to seed make your garden look sloppy and tired.
Here are some fall vegetable-garden cleanup tips:
BURY THE DEAD
Nothing looks sadder than leggy tomato vines, yellow zucchini leaves and dried-up perennials that long ago displayed their last bloom. So pull and prune the dead or dying plants in your garden.
Bury spent plants in your compost pile. Double-bag diseased and infested plants, and place in the trash. Empty mulch bags are great final resting places for these plants, so be sure to stockpile the bags in the spring.
If your tomato vines are still bearing fruit, keep staking and pruning them until the first hard frost, when they?ll likely die.
Give the birds a break and leave some seed-bearing but spent blooms for them. They love sunflowers, coneflowers, berries and black-eyed Susans.
PULL THE WEEDS
This is the last time this season to pull weeds. Pluck them before they flower and send seeds throughout your garden that will rest in winter and sprout in spring.
If you have a mulcher, chop the weeds and throw them on your compost pile. If you want to be extra sure that weed seeds are dead, bag weeds in black plastic and place in a sunny place for a couple of months. The heat will kill the seeds. Then throw the cooked weeds on your compost pile.
HARVEST THE GOOD SEEDS
One way to cut garden expenses is to harvest and store seeds. One large sunflower, for instance, can provide seeds for hundreds of plants next spring. Here are some seed guidelines.
? Harvest seeds from heirloom vegetables and standard plants.
? Disease can spread through seeds, so only harvest seeds from your healthiest plants.
? Don?t harvest seeds from hybrid plants, which often are sterile or will look nothing like the parent plant.
? Only harvest mature seeds from dry and faded blooms and pods. Mature seeds are often
cream-colored or brown.
? After seeds are dry, store them in envelopes or glass jars in a cool, dry place.
GATHER THE SUPPORTS
Stack and cover metal tomato cages. Bundle wooden or bamboo stakes and store them in a dry place so they don?t rot over winter. Be sure to retrieve pantyhose vine ties that you can reuse next spring.
Instead of throwing out broken cages and stakes, repurpose them. Snip off remaining cage legs to use for pepper supports. Broken tomato steaks will support smaller plants if you whittle one end into a point so it easily slips into the ground.
House to House is distributed by the Arkansas Realtors Association. For more information about the ARA, visit www.ArkansasRealtors.com.
More from columnist Arkansas Realtors AssociationSource: http://news.homesarkansas.net/?p=4142
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