PEST-PROOFING THE GARDEN AND OTHER NOVEMBER GARDENING TIPS
In November Mom Nature begins to place issues to mattress for the lengthy winter. It’s time for gardeners to do the identical by defending vegetation for the winter, storing backyard instruments, and tidying up the backyard for the subsequent rising season. For those who haven’t cleaned up previous vegetation and particles from vegetable and flower gardens, accomplish that earlier than winter comes. Leaving plant particles permits illnesses to overwinter and resurface within the spring to assault crops.
Take away spent canes and reduce lifeless foliage of perennials to about 4 to 6 inches of the bottom. If desired, go away some seed heads or different fascinating options so as to add winter curiosity to the backyard. Rake up damp leaves round vegetation to forestall matting, which may smother or rot your vegetation. Round Thanksgiving, it’s time to mulch non-hardy perennials and strawberries with a thick layer of straw and put up a snow fence to guard blueberries and tender shrubs from drying winter winds. You additionally have to prop up limbs or put constructions over plantings underneath rooflines which might be prone to be broken by the load of ice and snow.
To keep away from injury to tree trunks from mice and voles, don’t put any mulch round them as this creates a habitat for little critters. As a substitute, wrap a bit of quarter- or half-inch mesh {hardware} material across the trunk of the fruit tree. Make this guard two toes excessive–or extra if you’re in a snow belt. Bury it about three to 4 inches beneath the soil floor. For those who’ve had extreme rodent injury in previous winters, a rodenticide utilized in mixture with the above practices could also be wanted. Contact your native backyard heart for info on baits and bait stations. Watch out to not put poison in containers that is perhaps discovered by kids, pets, or different wildlife accidentally!
Deer management is all the time difficult. Fencing is the best, albeit costly, resolution. However even a brief fence, simply 4 or 5 toes excessive, can defend most small gardens since deer don’t prefer to be enclosed. Giant areas require a tall fence, eight to 10 toes excessive since deer can soar. A shorter angled fence or two brief fences a couple of toes aside usually work to confuse deer and, thus, can maintain them out. Much less efficient choices embody repellents comparable to sprays comprised of sizzling peppers, rotten eggs, or soap-like elements. Make certain that business merchandise are labeled for the crops you plan to spray them on. After rains or over time, these should be utilized once more to take care of repellency. With reasonable deer stress, you might have success hanging deodorant cleaning soap bars in threatened timber and shrubs. Depart the wrappers on, drill holes by the bars, and cling abundantly. The important thing to utilizing repellents is to get them in place earlier than the deer get used to feeding in an space. Take time to care now in your garden and backyard tools. Change the oil and spark plugs in your rototiller. Clear the lawnmower and have the blades sharpened. Drain the gas tanks or add a fixative (that is completely different from dry gasoline) designed for gas-powered engines that will probably be idle for lengthy durations of time. Clear and oil your backyard instruments earlier than you set them away for the season. Gentle rust will come off with metal wool and slightly elbow grease. Or fill a big pail with sand and slightly oil, then slide your backyard instruments out and in of the sand to scrub. For heavy rust, use navel jelly. As soon as instruments are clear, coat with a light-weight coating of used mineral oil. Sharpen shears and pruners. And don’t neglect the backyard hoses. They have to be drained and rolled up. Then ensure you flip off the water provide to any outdoors taps to forestall pipes from freezing this winter.
Empty container vegetation, including the soil to the compost pile or backyard. Scrub and sterilize the pots earlier than storing them to be used subsequent 12 months. In case you have a small greenhouse for beginning vegetation, empty it and sweep up any grime and particles. Then wash down the glass or plastic sides and roof with disinfectant. Clear pots and planting benches. Lastly, stock your provides, making an inventory of what you have to to purchase this winter to begin seeds for subsequent 12 months’s backyard. November can also be the time to take a superb take a look at your landscaped areas. Make notes on the place you’ll need to plant a brand new shrub or bush subsequent 12 months, or what’s getting overcrowded and would require thinning. Maybe you wish to change the border of a flower mattress or create a brand new mattress in a special a part of the yard. Jot it down now, so that you don’t neglect subsequent 12 months.
Tag branches (or make a psychological observe) that may have to be pruned in early spring. Take away storm-weakened branches now to forestall them from falling and probably inflicting damage to the tree or an individual this winter. Different actions for November: put up chook feeders and fill up on birdseed; make plans to attend upcoming horticultural conferences; examine saved crops for spoilage; shred and stockpile fallen leaves to be used when composting meals wastes this winter.
By Dr. Leonard Perry and
Dr. Vern Grubinger
College of Vermont Extension
