Clean Up the Garden to Clean Out the Pests

Created on 9/18/2009

Jack Frost is knocking at the door in many areas if he hasn’t already arrived to stay. So far we haven’t had a frost in Great Falls – in reality, we’re enjoying record high temperatures – but we’re already discussing cleaning up the community garden since it’s going to be such a big project.

It would be ideal if we had enormous compost bins in order to process the copious amounts of green material, but we aren’t quite ready for that endeavor at this point. Since it’s painful to haul away this much organic matter, some of the people on our steering committee asked why we can’t just plow in everything this fall. It’s an excellent question.

One of the biggest reasons it’s not a good idea to simply work in the season’s spent plants is because of potential viruses and diseases. Parts of the Northeast are experiencing terrible outbreaks of late blight on their tomatoes. When we were visiting family back in Ohio last week, I couldn’t believe how many plants were completely dead. It looked like a frost hit early. Red tomatoes hung like Christmas ornaments, but the rest of the plant was brown and drooping. If you till these plants back into the soil, you’re perpetuating the problem. Actually, even cooking them in the compost pile can’t ensure the spores are dead. It’s best to put them in the trash.

Another issue with leaving large amounts of garden debris is it’s a haven for rodents and other pests. I can speak from experience. Many years ago I had quite the surprise when I moved a big pile of dead plants I piled up in the fall, and had mice run out from underneath it.

Taking away the plants also helps check the life cycle’s of some insects. Tomato hornworms and cutworms are just two of the many pests that do their best when they overwinter in garden waste, particularly when it’s their favorite species of plants. Cleaning up in the fall is one more thing you can do to make their life difficult, and hopefully cut down on their numbers for next spring.

If you are composting a large amount of garden plants, be sure to layer your brown and green matter and water it enough to encourage it to heat up in order to eliminate any eggs or larvae that might be on plants. It can take some effort to make it “cook,” particularly at this time of year, but it’s important to do.

If you don’t have a hot compost pile, you can toss it in the trash or (my favorite) burn it. Last year when I was pregnant, I didn’t clean up the garden as well as I would’ve liked, but I certainly had fun torching my dried out pile of squash vines and sunflower stalks this spring. Keep in mind, however you choose to clean up your garden this fall you’re actually gaining ground on battling pests for next seaso