Andy Tullis / The Bulletin file photoCompost spread over garden beds will nourish them through the winter and protect the roots of perennials.

Fall begins today, and while our gardens may continue to grow, the first frost of the season has already struck in many places.

So how do you best prepare your garden for the winter months ahead? Pat Kolling, OSU master gardener and co-coordinator of the Hollinshead Community Garden, and Denise Rowcroft, sustainability educator at The Environmental Center, have some tips for the care of your fall garden to ensure better spring planting.

Kolling suggests waiting until the hard frost before removing anything. “You’re going to want to remove any debris from your garden. You want to clean (it) up for spring planting,” Kolling said. Remove weeds, rocks, diseased plants and anything that’s going to cause problems. Adding a layer of organic compost or manure over your flower beds for the winter gives it lots of time to break down and be ready for planting in the spring.

Kolling suggested using raked leaves that are chopped up with a lawn mower, or layering pine straw from pine needles as a cover. You can also use a layer of organic bark mulch or compost to keep the weeds down.

“If it’s your vegetable garden, you want to have something organic that will break down, with no dye,” Kolling said. By covering your garden in a layer of manure or straw, you’re protecting the roots of perennials from the cold temperatures.

Both Kolling and Rowcroft suggested planting a cover crop or “green manure” over your garden beds. A cover crop is something you plant in time for it to germinate in the fall, lie dormant over the winter and then grow in the spring. “It adds nutrients to your soil and biomass,” Rowcroft said. Before you plant your spring garden, you till the cover crop into the soil. Some common cover crops in Central Oregon are winter rye and maple peas.

Kolling said one of the most important things people should do is write down a record of where they planted things.

“You’re not going to want to continue planting tomatoes in the same place every year. You need to rotate crops,” Kolling said. “Now is a good time to record what you planted and where.”

Rowcroft advises gardeners not to leave any grass clippings or leaves in their yards, as snow mold can grow. Put your dead plants, grass clippings and leaves in your compost bin, but be careful to layer in green and brown waste evenly. Compost decomposition slows in winter, and a big problem from fall yard cleanup is a thick layer of woody debris that sits in the compost bin and doesn’t break down. You can choose to winterize your outdoor compost bins, but most people don’t. Rowcroft doesn’t at The Environmental Center gardens.

As far as pruning certain shrubs to keep them safe from snow breakage, Kolling said, “it really depends if there’s is a lot of snow in the winter.” Some snow you can walk out in the yard and brush off your plants, before damage occurs. Kolling suggests that now is an excellent time for some good garden maintenance, so if you’re worried about certain shrubs you might as well prune. You can also prune your perennials down. Some sources suggest pruning them to the ground, but Kolling said she leaves around 4 to 5 inches in her garden.

“Really, annuals are not going to survive the winter, so once it frosts, remove them and clean up the flower bed,” Kolling said.

Fall is a good time to plant perennials and native plants because “they have all winter to sort of get comfortable in their place so that in the spring when they grow they’re ready to go,” Rowcroft said. “You want to plant (them) well before the frost.”

Another plant that does well when planted in the fall is garlic. “You plant the cloves and then you walk away,” Rowcroft said. “The water is off, we’re not tending to it at all and it just comes up in the spring.” One clove of garlic will turn into a whole bulb, so, for example, if you have eight cloves, you will get eight bulbs. “It’s a pretty sustainable, little-effort thing to do,” Rowcroft said.

So remove those dead or diseased plants, plant some garlic, make a garden map or journal and cover your garden beds with something nutrient-rich, and your spring gardening will go as smoothly as ever.

“The more you can do in the fall, the easier it is to get ready for the growing season in the spring,” Kolling said. So get out there while the weather is still pleasant and start preparing for spring.

— Reporter: 541-383-0351, swilkins@bendbulletin.com