As the days get shorter and temperatures start to dip, it’s time to prepare your vegetable garden for winter. Take a few simple steps now and follow our fall garden checklist to keep your garden healthy and productive come spring.
Some call this process “putting your vegetable garden to bed,” a great metaphor because a good winter’s rest will replenish your garden and get it ready for action in the spring!
Fall Garden Checklist
We’ve presented these fall vegetable garden tasks in the order you’ll most likely do them, but you can do them in any order that makes sense to you.
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Plant Fall Crops
Wait, before you put your garden away, don’t forget that you can plant several vegetables in the fall, both for a late-fall harvest and a spring harvest.
These hardy vegetables, such as radish, spinach, and kale, can withstand colder temperatures and extend your harvest season by a few months. Planting them now will give you a fresh crop of veggies in late fall. Check out our article on Planting a Fall Garden for more information!
Harvest Final Veggies
As summer ends, harvest any remaining vegetables from your garden. This includes tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and squash. If your veggies are past their prime, don’t throw them out! Instead, compost them to nourish your soil for next year’s plants.
If you have vegetables that aren’t quite ready yet, consider covering them with a covered raised bed row cover to help protect them from frost. Have a bunch of green tomatoes? Harvest your green tomatoes and follow these tips to help them ripen.
Preserve the Harvest:
If you have more vegetables than you can eat fresh, preserving them is a great way to enjoy them all winter. Canning and pickling are two popular preservation methods.
However, if you don’t have time or equipment for canning, freezing your veggies is a quick, easy way to keep them fresh.
Plant Garlic
Fall is also a great time to plant
Plant garlic in the fall, and come spring, you’ll see green sprouts pop up as one of your first vegetable garden crops. Our guide to growing garlic has everything you need to plant this favorite (and easy!) allium crop.
Clean Out Garden Beds
After you harvest your veggies, it’s time to clean out your garden beds. Remove dead plants and weeds so they don’t take up valuable space or harbor pests over winter.
To replenish your garden soil, consider cutting the stems of your veggies at the soil line and leaving the roots. They’ll decompose over the winter and nourish the soil.
You can put most of the weeds and plants you remove from garden beds into your compost pile, but if any are badly diseased, place them farther away from your garden or in the trash so the disease doesn’t carry over into spring.
Amend Garden Soil
If your soil looks a little worn after a summer of planting, amending it with organic matter is a great way to boost it. You can test your soil to see what it needs or spread a layer of compost or manure over your garden bed and dig it about six inches deep.
This will improve drainage and aeration while adding important nutrients. Let the compost sit over the winter to settle and prepare your beds for spring.
Mulch
Mulching is another great way to nourish your garden beds in winter. Spread a layer of mulch (straw, leaves, grass clippings, etc.) over your garden beds before the first frost hits.
The material will decompose over the winter, adding nutrients to your soil. Plus, this coverage helps prevent weed growth before frost hits. In spring, you can simply turn any mulch products into your soil using no-till garden methods. For more info on mulch in garden beds, check out this related article.
Plant Cover Crops:
To advance your garden beds this winter, consider planting cover crops. Cover crops are plants that are grown to protect and enrich the soil. They help to prevent erosion, add nutrients, and improve drainage.
Plus, they add valuable organic matter when you turn them over in the spring. Common cover crops include alfalfa, winter wheat, rye, and triticale.
Put Away Cages, Stakes, and Markers:
If you want your tomato cages, bean stakes, and garden markers to last for years, put them away so they won’t rust or get damaged over the winter. Store them in a covered corner of your garden, shed, or garage.
Protect Fruit Trees and Bushes from Pests
As winter arrives, many animals will look for that last bit of green in your garden. Be sure to protect fruit trees, bushes, or any remaining vegetables in your garden from pests by covering them with garden fabric or wrapping them with fencing or wire.
Clean Garden Tools
Clean all your garden tools before storing them. This includes removing all dirt and debris, oiling metal parts, and sharpening blades.
This will help prevent rust and damage over the winter and ensure that any diseases transferred to your tools when cleaning out the garden don’t overwinter and show up again in spring.
Drain Hoses
Frozen hoses are no fun! To prevent this, drain all water from hoses before storing them for winter. The same applies to irrigation, rain barrels, and other water supply systems for your garden. Drain and empty these systems before storing them for the winter.
Clean & Prepare Seed Starting Equipment:
If you plan to start seeds indoors this winter, prepare your seed-starting equipment now. This includes cleaning pots, trays, heat mats, and sterilizing tools.
Do this now while the weather is warm enough to work outside, and there’s still enough sun to help sterilize your equipment. For complete directions on cleaning and preparing seed starting equipment, check out this how-to article.
Document in Your Garden Journal
Don’t forget to document everything you’ve done in your garden journal! This will help you track what worked well this year so you can replicate it next year.
It will also help you remember what didn’t work so well to avoid making those same mistakes again. Need a garden journal? Check out our downloadable garden journal.
Taking time now to prepare your vegetable garden for winter will pay off big time come springtime. Following the simple tips in this fall garden checklist will keep your garden healthy and productive for years.
Carrie Williams Howe is an educational leader by day and an aspiring homesteader by night and weekend. She lives on a small homestead in Vermont with her husband, two children, and a rambunctious border collie. She blogs about her family's homestead life at The Happy Hive.
