Even though your gardening season has ended with the first frosts and hard freeze of the year, there are still a number of things you can do to get a head start on the spring. Soil preparation, clean-up, planning, and even some planting should be done in the fall to make sure your garden is even better next year than it was this year.

One of the first fall garden tasks is clean up. Many of your plants were killed by the first frost and by now have been reduced to piles of brown stringy leaves. This is especially true of bulb plants. Things like lilies, hostas and irises should all be cleaned out and prepared for spring. Gently rake the dead above ground portions of these plants from their beds. Be careful not to pull up the bulbs. If the leaves won’t let go of the root portions, use garden shear to make a clean cut at ground level. If you want to transfer some of these bulbs to new locations, now is the time for that as well. Carefully dig up the portion of the bulbs you want to move. Check for disease or insects that might damage the bulbs, and then simply transplant them to the new spot where you’d like them to come up next spring.

Some bulbs are not winter hardy and should be dug up and stored in a cool dry place. Many tulips fit into this category. For these bulbs, you’ll want to dig them up, rinse them off, and store them either in the open air or buried in clean dry sand. Place them in a basement or any cool, dark and dry storage area. In the spring, when the ground thaws, and danger of a hard freeze is over, you can replant them outdoors.

Now is also a great time to prepare your garden bed soil for next year. If you compost, you can take your finished compost material and spread it on your garden. Add any fertilizers or other soil treatments at this time as well. Use a shovel to turn the new material under and mix it in to the garden bed. If your gardens are larger, you can use a tiller. For most vegetable gardens you can even till under the old plants. Exceptions are woody plants like corn stalks, sunflowers, and the like. These should be pulled and discarded. Another exception is any plants that experience any signs of disease during the year. If your squash leaves showed the characteristic white patches of powdery mildew for example, they should be manually removed and discarded far from your garden beds.

Finally, don’t forget to take stock of this year’s garden. What do you want to repeat next year and what mistakes did you make that you want to avoid next year? Make notes and refer to them in the spring as you get ready to start all over again.

As the summer draws to a close, it’s time to start thinking about next year’s garden. While the successes and failures of this year’s garden still fresh in your mind, now is the right time to decide what you’ll be growing next year. Which varieties of tomatoes gave you the best yield or the best flavor? Did your cucumbers meet your expectations or should you try a different variety next year? If you don’t take stock of this year’s garden now, chances are that it’ll be impossible to remember all the details when you’re ready to start planting in the spring.

Write it Down

It’s a good idea to pick up a basic Daily Planner booklet to keep track of important garden information. These little booklets are usually laid out in calendar format with spaces provided for notes, meetings and other time-related information. These are absolutely ideal for gardening notes. You should record the date of the first and last frost, when you started seeds indoors, when you planted outdoors, first harvest dates for different varieties of produce, and so on. Even one year of notes will give you a great guide for when to plant next year.

Harvest Records

Similarly, you should jot down harvest notes about everything you planted. Note those vegetables that you want to plant again the following year, and those that aren’t worth the trouble. If you’ve had problems with powdery mildew for example, it might be a good idea to skip trying to grow squash for the next year or two. Over a period of several years, harvest records will help you choose the most prolific and successful varieties for your garden. Different varieties will work better for different gardens because of variables in climate, soil composition, your fertilizer choices, local insect pests, and so forth. Each gardener needs to find his or her own formula for success and good record keeping is essential.

Using Recipe Ingredient Lists to Plan Your Garden

Another great idea to help you plan next year’s garden is to take a look at your favorite recipes. Go through your most used recipes and make a list of all the herbs and vegetables that you need. Can you grow all of them next year? If you garden, then you already know that fresh home-grown herbs and produce add much more flavor than store-bought produce. Herb gardens can even be laid out by recipe – a salsa garden is a great example.

Try Something New

Every year, I like to try a new vegetable in my garden. I plant something I have never planted before, and sometimes something I’ve never even eaten before. This way, I’ve discovered such prolific and delicious additions as bok-choi, chocolate mint, Thai chili peppers, and many others. All of these are great additions to the garden and to the kitchen. You can start with a small area for the experimental crop if you’re really not sure how it’s going to work out. The many new vegetables and herbs I’ve discovered in this way are the main reason why I try to expand my garden space every year.

One way to maximize the yield of your garden is to gather seeds from the crops you grew this year to use in your garden next year. This is not only fun, but can save you a little money and a lot of time in searching for the varieties that you want next spring. Unfortunately, not every seed that comes from your garden is going to be appropriate for growing.

Some of the plants in your garden are there just to produce seeds. Sunflowers, for example, aside from looking nice, are meant to be seed factories. Whether you eat the seeds yourself or use them in your birdfeeders, it is a simple thing to set some aside to grow in the spring. Before you do, however, check the variety that you chose. If it is a hybrid, then chances are the seeds are worthless for next year, so don’t bother saving them.

The term hybrid means that a plant variety is derived from a cross between two different parent varieties. Hybrids often combine the best traits of the two parent breeds, and sometimes produce results much better than either of the original varieties. Unfortunately, most hybrids don’t breed true. That is, they don’t retain these beneficial traits in subsequent generations. Hybrid sunflowers, for example, might combine such features as disease resistance with larger seed heads. A few hybrid sunflower varieties are the American Giant Hybrid, Cyclops Hybrid, and the Sunzilla.

Sunflowers are not the only common vegetables that are hybrids. Virtually all the vegetables grown in our gardens have both hybrid and open pollinated (non-hybrid) varieties available. If you want to save seeds at the end of the growing season, make sure to use open-pollinated varieties. Unfortunately, many open-pollinated varieties lack the benefits of hybrids. This may make them less prolific, less hardy, or more susceptible to diseases or insect pests. Weigh these considerations carefully when making your choice.

If you plan to eat the seeds, of course, it doesn’t matter if the plant is a hybrid variety. Hybrid varieties of pumpkin seeds, beans, peas, and grain seeds for example are just as good to eat and sometimes better than non-hybrid versions. Some hybrids, like certain cucumbers or watermelons, are even designed for their lack of seeds.

Once, you’ve assured yourself that the seeds you want to save for the spring are not hybrids. There are a few simple steps you should take to help maximize your germination rate in the spring. First, separate the seeds from the rest of the vegetable or plant. Rinse them off to make sure there is no mold or fungus. Spread them out on a clean surface in a warm place to let them dry out. Putting them on a sunny window sill works great. Seeds should be stored in a cool dry place for the winter. Do not let them get moist or mold may form on the seeds and ruin them. Some seeds also require cold-stratification in order to germinate. This means they need to be exposed to cold temperatures while dormant to let them know the winter is over. Perennials like many gardens herbs are most likely to require cold-stratification treatment. Storing your seeds in sealed containers in the refrigerator will usually provide enough cold to prepare them to germinate. Refrigerator temperatures won’t hurt other seeds, so there’s no harm in storing them all there until you’re ready to plant them in the spring.