Backyard Gardener: Fall chores around the yard
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Hello Mid-Ohio Valley Farmers and Gardeners! The growing season will officially come to an end next week as nighttime temperatures will dip to near 32 degrees F. However, backyard gardeners have many tasks to complete around the home.
If you are cleaning up the garden consider planting a cover crop. Many cereal grains and legumes are available to build up organic matter as well as prevent soil erosion over the winter.
Winter wheat mixed with Austrian Winter peas or hairy vetch is one I use. Plant winter wheat at 4-6 pounds per 1000 sq. feet and hairy vetch at 3 pounds per 1000 sq. feet. Fall is also a great time to apply soil amendments such as lime, compost and manures.
Many homeowners have large trees in the yard. Gather the leaves in the yard by raking them up or shredding them with the mower. You can add them to the compost pile or make a separate one just for leaf mold. Leaf mold is a nutrient rich soil amendment produced through fungal decomposition of tree leaves.
Unlike traditional compost that undergoes a heat generating, bacterially driven process, leaf mold is produced through a cooler and much slower fungal driven process. The resulting decomposed material is an excellent additive to soil. It can be mixed in during tillage, or used as a surface mulch for no till gardening.
Leaf mold is different than other compost. Tree leaves are high in carbon and low in nitrogen compared to other compostable materials. Because of this, tree leaves cannot be conventionally composted without adding a nitrogen rich material to increase the carbon to nitrogen ratio.
Tilling leaves directly into soil is not a good idea, due to the high carbon to nitrogen ratio. The soil microorganisms will use up the soil nitrogen in an effort to break down the leaves, which leads to nitrogen deficiency in plants. However, given adequate time and moisture, leaf mold results in an excellent material that can be added to the soil.
We also need to dig up and store flowering bulbs which will not survive the winters. The bulbs of gladiolus, caladium, dahlia, tuberous begonia, calla lily, and canna lily should be dug and stored to be planted next year to once again enjoy their summer beauty.
All of these plants should be dug after frost has browned the foliage. Allow them to dry for about a week in a shady, well-ventilated site such as a garage or tool shed. Freezing temperatures should be avoided. Remove any excess soil and pack them in peat moss, vermiculite, or perlite.
Caladium should be stored between 50 and 60 degrees F. The other bulbs mentioned should be stored as near 40 degrees F as possible. Finding a good spot to store the bulbs may be difficult. Some people place them against a basement wall farthest from the furnace and insulate them so the wall keeps them cool.
If you have not planted spring bulbs, there is still time. In most cases it is recommended to plant hardy bulbs such as crocus, tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils in October to give them enough time to root before winter.
But it is certainly not too late to plant them in early November. As long as the soil temperatures are above 40 degrees F, the bulbs should continue root development.
When purchasing bulbs, buy only top quality bulbs that are large, firm, and of good color. Choose a site that is well-drained and receives at least six hours of direct sunlight a day. If the soil is poorly drained, consider raised beds.
For a nice show of color, plant bulbs in front of evergreen shrubs or among perennials and other flowering shrubs. Formal tulips look best planted in beds in symmetrical arrangements while daffodils should be planted in informal plantings.
Plant bulbs upright, pointed ends up, at the recommended depth. As a rule of thumb, bulbs should be planted three times as deep as the bulb's greatest dimension. Use a shovel, trowel, or bulb planter, and space bulbs according to size.
Large bulbs such as tulips and daffodils should be placed four to six inches apart. Smaller bulbs such as crocus, snowdrops, and squill should be placed one to two inches apart.
Research has proven that fertilizer added to the soil before the bulbs are planted increases growth. The improvement in growth is not evident until the second year when the bulbs that were fertilized at planting maintain vigorous growth and large flower size, while those not fertilized tend to become smaller and poorer in quality. The best fertilizer is a complete commercial one such as 10-10-10.
The Black Walnut harvesting is wrapping up across the Mid-West. They have a stronger flavor than English walnuts, but are a native tree to our area and are a very sustainable food product. Black walnuts are a rich source of bioactive compounds capable of promoting multiple health benefits and can be used in many recipes.
Harvest black walnuts as soon as the outer husk softens, but is still green. If you can leave a finger depression in the husk, the nut is mature. Most people wait until nuts start to drop before gathering but mature nuts can be shaken from tree limbs or dislodged with a long pole.
If you are gathering walnuts, make sure you wear gloves. The outside husks will stain just about anything and are used to make natural dyes.
The American Black Walnut is an integral piece of Midwest culture. Most black walnuts are gathered by hand, so thousands of people every fall are working together to collect nuts.
If you have Black Walnuts and want to sell them, there is a hulling location at Integration Acres near Athens, Ohio. Hammons Black Walnuts has over 215 local buying stations across 11 states.
These stations hull and weight the nuts and truck them to the Hammons processing plant. The main processing plant is located in Stockton, Missouri. It has grown over the years to shell roughly 25 million pounds of nuts annually, producing Black Walnut nutmeats for food ingredients and ground nut shells for industrial uses.
Finally, fall is the best time to test your soil. This is still a free service provided by West Virginia University. Soil and weather conditions are often more favorable for sampling in the fall. Do not take samples of frozen or wet soil because it will be difficult to handle and mix.
No matter if you need soil tested for farm crops, gardens, flower beds or lawns it is important to know the pH and nutrient levels in the soil to know what you are lacking. After the lab analyzes your soil, you will receive a recommendation sheet suggesting how much, if any, lime and/or fertilizer to apply.
You can find more information on the WVU Soils Lab website at soiltesting.wvu.edu. Contact me at the WVU Extension Office if you need assistance filling out the forms or need help interpreting the results from the lab.
This is my last column for 2021 so I hope had a great harvest and I will talk to you next spring.
Contact me at the Wood County WVU Extension Office 304-424-1960 or email me at jj.barrett@mail.wvu.edu with questions. Good Luck and Happy Gardening!