Fall Clean-Up for Home Gardeners

During the fall season, you may think you are wrapping things up in the garden for the year. However, fall is an important time in taking steps to ensure a good start for next spring. For example, thorough sanitation of plant residue will reduce disease-causing pathogen populations for the next growing season. You can implement many of the san¬itation practices listed below throughout the growing season to minimize the impact of plant diseases in your garden.

■ Remove dead or diseased plant material (flow¬ers, fruit, leaves, stems, twigs, branches, roots, etc.) and dispose of it properly—not by com¬posting. While non-diseased dead or dormant plant material can serve as animal habitat during the winter and contribute to a healthy ecosystem in a garden, it is important to ensure that any diseased plant material is removed to prevent carry-over to the next season.

• What should you look for? Sometimes, it can be challenging to determine which plants might be suffering from a disease. For example, environmental stressors can mimic certain plant disease symptoms. Common plant disease symptoms to look for include leaf spots, stem cankers, fruit spots, wilt, yellowing (chlorosis), stunting compared to counterparts, and root rots progressing up the stem. In trees and woody perennials, look for these symptoms and fungal fruiting bodies like conks (i.e., shelf or bracket fungi) and thread-like fungal growth under bark that falls off easily. See Figures 1, 2, and 3 for examples of symptomatic diseased plant material.

• In the case of perennials afflicted with cankers or galls, prune several inches below visually apparent symptoms.

• Severely infected plants should have above-and below-ground tissues collected for removal. When in doubt, it is usually best to remove the plant.

• Tillage of plant material deep into the soil will help encourage decomposition. Tilling is a good option when total removal is imprac¬tical.

■ Disposal methods of infested plant debris are: burying, burning, or designated yard waste pick-up or drop-off locations. It is not recom¬mended to compost pathogen-infested plant debris, as this will potentially spread the patho¬gen to new areas where compost is distributed in the future.

■ Weed management

• Weed management is important for several reasons, including the fact that weeds can be hosts for plant pathogens or habitats for insects that harbor pathogens within their bodies.

■ Sanitize all cutting tools between each cut with a 1:10 bleach dilution, Lysol, or 70 percent rubbing alcohol.

■ Sanitize earth working tools with a 1:10 bleach soak solution after use. To sanitize, remove any clumps of soil from the tools. Immerse the portions that come in contact with soil in a 1:10 ratio of bleach and water (i.e., fill a 5-gallon bucket with 1 quart of bleach and 2 ¼ gallons (9 quarts) of water), then soak for at least 10 minutes. Finally, rinse and wipe tools clean, allowing them to dry thoroughly and apply tool care products as needed before storing to prevent rusting.

■ Sanitize garden gloves by laundering or by wiping with 70 percent rubbing alcohol.