Good news, you do not have to rake leaves!  Leave the leaves. It’s better for your garden soil, plants, shrubs, lawns, and trees if you do not remove the leaves. Leaves are filled with nutrients and beneficial microbes to replenish and fertilize the soil. Why would anybody want to get rid of something so beneficial?   My recommendation is simple… shred them in place with your mower or just leave the leaves.  It might take a couple extra passes to chop them enough but that is the best way to enrich your soil, and it’s FREE.  If you have some extra-large maple trees that deposit too many leaves on the lawn those are an excellent raw material for your compost or mulch around shrubs. 

Not doing compost?  Mower shred all those leaves in place right on your lawn and leave them there.  Chopped up they will enrich your soil (no fertilizers needed!), add organic matter to hold moisture in dry spells, and suppress weeds.  It’s a win-win-win.  Either way, forget those rakes and leaf bags, please.

Start Composting. Given the availability of all those leaves this is a great time to build up your compost for next year.  Mower-shredded leaves are a source of Carbon rich organic matter for compost.  Adding kitchen scraps, green lawn clippings, and manure as a Nitrogen source and you have the ingredients for the best fertilizer, all made from free stuff you already have.  The basic formula for a successful compost is simple:  combine Carbon “browns” with Nitrogen “greens” in a ratio of about 3 to 1. The recipe is flexible and you can adjust it to what you have available.  There are a few basic principles to keep in mind: 1) Cut, chop, or shred your ingredients; the smaller they are the faster they break down, 2) Moisture is essential but not too much.  Compost should be moist like a wrung-out sponge, not soggy or dry (I had to water my compost this year!), 3) Aeration with occasional mixing to introduce oxygen into the mix for the microbes. Your garden fork or pitchfork is the perfect tool for this, better than a shovel which cuts earthworms in the compost.

Almost everything from your kitchen can be composted including peelings, spoiled fruits & veggies, eggshells (smash them), pasta, rice, moldy bread, used paper towels & napkins, newspaper (tear it up), tea bags, and coffee grounds (including the paper filter).  These are all “greens” (Nitrogen).  I keep a pile of shredded leaves next to my compost bins to add whenever I add kitchen stuff to keep the 3 to 1 ratio.  Nothing goes to “waste”, everything gets recycled.

There are a few things to avoid in composting: meats, fish, and cheeses.  These items will degrade but may generate offensive odors or attract unwelcome bears, racoons, dogs, rats, etc.  Diseased plants or branches should not get mixed into your compost, bury or burn them so the pathogens don’t get a chance to re-infect things next year.  Other items to avoid include pet feces and grass clippings from herbicide (“weed & feed”) treated lawns.  What happens to compost in the winter?  Simple, it freezes and all action stops.  That’s OK, you can keep adding your kitchen wastes and they will be ready to go in the spring.  Here’s a new short video (https://www.bhg.com/gardening/yard/compost/how-to-compost/) to help you get started.

Plant Garlic!  Late October to late-November is the time to plant your flowering bulbs and garlic. Garlic is an easy crop in New England and it’s great to have something to look forward to for next year. You will never accept store bought garlic after you’ve had fresh garlic from your own garden!  Mild temperatures have caused me to delay planting this year but now through mid-November is the time to sow your garlic, along with other bulbs for next spring.  Let’s look at a few tricks for a successful garlic crop next year.

Garlic can be divided into two major groups, “Hardneck” and “Softneck”.  Both are good and can be grown in Vermont, but most people favor Hardneck for its hardiness and great flavor.  Softneck garlic is the principal garlic grown commercially in California and stores very well.  Personally, I’ve had best luck with Hardnecks but you can try either.

Garlic doesn’t produce reliable quantities of seeds so is propagated “vegetatively” from the cloves.  That means the genetics of the next generation will be the same as the parents and if you grew a variety that does well, you can stay with it by keeping some of your own bulbs to plant now.  A good rule of thumb to estimate quantity to buy is that a pound of garlic bulbs will have up to 50 cloves.  Not all the cloves will be large enough to plant (eat the smallest ones!) so you may end up with 40 cloves, enough to plant a 20 ft. row. Bigger cloves produce bigger plants. Note that most supermarket garlic has been treated with an anti-growth chemical to extend shelf-life (it’s not fresh!) and some garlic has even had its roots cut out to hide any diseases it might carry.  Source your seed garlic locally to get started and then save your own each year.

Since garlic is an early spring grower and heavy feeder, it’s best to put the essential nutrients in the soil when planting.  My practice is to apply a layer of compost (1-2 inches deep) over the bed surface.  No need to work it in, nature will take care of that over the winter.  I plant a double row spaced about 1 foot apart in raised beds by digging two parallel trenches about 5 inches deep.  Before planting I then apply a thin layer of rock phosphate or colloidal phosphate plus azomite or greensand (for micronutrients) mixed 50-50 along the trench bottom to make the soil snowy white.  Bone meal would do the same plus provide some nitrogen.  These are organic, slow release sources of phosphate, potassium, and calcium needed for early spring growth.

Plant your selected cloves, pointy end up and the flat, root end down (yes, it matters) spaced about 6 inches apart.  Cover the planted trench with soil and gently tamp it down. The top of each clove should be about 1-2 inches below the surface when covered.  Mark the ends of each row with visible stakes so you will know where to watch for the first shoots of spring.  Finally, cover your garlic bed with about 4-6 inches of straw mulch (or mulch hay), very gently tamped down so fall winds don’t blow it away.  The mulch is very important to prevent freezing and heaving of the cloves during winter plus it will suppress the spring growth of weeds and keep the young plants moist during their critical early summer growth.

The same mix of rock phosphate & azomite (or bone meal) is an excellent way to feed other bulbs you plant in the fall.  Give each bulb (tulip, daffodil, crocus, lilies, etc.) about a level teaspoon of this starter in the hole and they will have the nutrients for strong roots and vigorous growth for several years to come.

This is the 100^th article of Vermont Home Gardener since beginning in early 2020! Have you read them all?  They are archived online on our website and free at Vermonthomegardener.com