Preparing Your Garden Planter for Autumn
The final month of the gardening season is upon us, bringing cooler temperatures and shorter days. But there’s still time left to get your garden ready for the colder months ahead whilst preparing your garden planter for autumn
If you have a garden planter, your plants will be safer from the frost, rainfall, and other harsh winter conditions. While it’s probably best to leave your planter outdoors until the first freeze hits in October or November, there are tasks you can do right now to get your planter ready for winter.
Image Source: FreeImages
Preparing your raised garden planter for autumn involves a few simple maintenance steps that will help keep it healthy well into next spring.
You can ind out all about raised garden bed planters at Bestraisedgardenbeds.com
Clean Your Planter
You should clean and store your planter before the first frost hits. If you’re still using soil from the growing season, you’ll want to refresh it now with fresh, new soil.
This will help prevent any pathogens from the old soil from lingering in your planter and infecting next year’s plants.By changing your soil it is the perfect opportunity to examine your planter to see if any of the materials might have deteriorated and need replacing such as the inner walls, the drip tray if it’s cracked or the water tray if it’s broken.
Make sure to clean out your planter thoroughly, removing any remaining soil, pebbles, and other debris.
Condition the Soil
The garden soil you’ve been using to grow your plants may seem like a good idea for next season, but it’s packed with living organisms that will break down in the soil and cause it to lose its texture, pH level, and nutrient content.
This is especially true if you’ve been using a commercial potting soil. Instead when you come to resoiling your raised bed use a soil conditioner that has built-in vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that will break down in the soil over time and be ready to plant in the following spring.
Iy is not everyones preferable way to replace the soil however if you are planning to grow vegetables ,herbs in the following spring this is the best way to get the best results. If you do decide to retain your soil for whatever reason and whikst the weather holds a warmer climate you may want to add a temporary layer of mulch to your outdoor planter. It will help to insulate the soil and keep it warm.
This is especially important if you live in a cooler climate where the first frost could hit as early as October. Adding a mulch layer now will help to protect your plants from the frost and preserve as many as possible for next spring.
You only want to add a thin layer of mulch, about 1-2 inches. If you add too much, it could prevent air from penetrating the soil, which is what keeps it moist.
Repot Your House Plants
If you’ve been growing house plants in a planter, you might want to consider repotting them before the first freeze hits.
This will help protect the roots from winter’s chill and give them more room to grow and expand as they draw in energy again next spring. It’s best to repot house plants at least a month before the first frost whicj can hit as early as October in some places.
Add a Fertilizer Incorporator
If you’ve been feeding your plants with a liquid or granular fertilizer, you may want to switch to a fertilizer incorporator now. Fertilizer incorporators are designed to dissolve slowly in water over time, providing your plants with a steady supply of nutrients as they need them.
This is especially important if you’re growing your plants indoors. Most indoor plants don’t have access to natural sunlight, so they don’t have the same energy source that outdoor plants have. Adding a fertilizer incorporator will help keep your indoor plants healthy, strong, and growing well into the new season
Start to plan for the Spring
Start Planning Your Next Garden
As you begin to close out your garden bed planter you will want to start planning what you want to grow in your garden next year. You can start by taking note of what worked well for you and what didn’t. For example,
If there was one vegetable that grew particularly well or tasted exceptionally good, then you might consider growing more of it next year.
Plan Your Vegetable Garden Layout If you are using raised beds, then plan out where each bed will sit in your yard , garden or patio then sit bac and look forward to the following spring
