- Clean out old plants and compost including Asparagus beds as the fronds fade. Harvest Jerusalem artichokes, broccoli, radishes, peas, parsnips, lettuce, leeks, potatoes, kale, collards, celery, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts.
- Prepare beds for early plantings of peas this allows for an earlier planting in the spring before the soil dries out enough to be worked.
- Plant Fava beans (cover crops can double as a source of beans for the table), garlic, onions, rhubarb and artichokes.
- Prune the fruiting top sections of evergreen raspberries once they finish producing fruit and leave the lower section of branch for next years early crop. Other raspberries can be topped off at 5 feet and staked.
- Store your bounty by freezing canning or hanging in a cool garage.
- Plant pansies outdoors now and enjoy the flowers until late spring. Mound soil or leaves around the base of hybrid teas and other grafted roses to protect the graft union from frost.
- Prune rampant suckers from the base of lilacs which will take away from next years bloom.
- Prepare and plant wildflower bed and broadcast seeds. This can be done in the spring as well but you can get a head start now and focus on other tasks come spring.
- Prepare open beds in the flower and vegetable garden with organic matter and organic fertilizers. Chopped leaves, peat moss or compost can be added now to improve the soil’s humus levels. This improves the structure, drainage and nutrient holding capacity of your soil. For established beds work in organic matter and fertilizers around the plants and cultivate them into the to few inches of soil.
- Mow lawn to 1.5 to 2 inches for the winter This keeps the lawn healthy and prevents the lawn from matting down.
- Keep leaves and compost or make a dedicated leaf mold pile for future mulch unless they are from allelopathic trees (producing chemicals that inhibit other species growth) like the genera Juglans (e.g. Black Walnut or Aesculus (e.g. Horse Chestnut).
- Drain and clean man made pools and ponds. Remove tropical plants and store hardy lilies.
- Very last call for planting trees and shrubs including woody fruiting plants.