13 Fall Tasks For Homesteaders

Get your homestead in ship shape ready for winter with these 13 essential fall tasks for your homestead and garden!

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Fall Tasks For Homesteaders!

The chores for fall on the homestead help you to get everything prepared before winter arrives and can help your garden grow great next year. You can tune in to the latest Homesteading & Gardening in the Suburbs podcast below to listen whilst you work or read on to learn more about what tasks to do on the homestead in fall.

1. Make Leaf Mold

All of those fallen leaves strewn across the yard will help make a fantastic soil amendment for your garden. You can make leaf mold bins with wooden stakes and chicken wire or buy roomy wire compost bins or large airy plastic bins perfect for collecting leaves and letting them break down in one location.

Making leaf mold couldn’t be simpler!

Step 1: rake the leaves.
Step 2: put leaves into dedicated composter.
Step 3: Leave until next fall.

Leaf mold is great when combined with seed starter soil to give your plants the best start in the beginning. Leaf mold can also be added as a mulch to fruit trees, shrubs and worked into vegetable beds, leaf mold adds humus and helps to retain moisture.

2. Clear Vegetable Growing Beds

Your vegetable garden growing areas need a good tidy up before snow arrives. Harvest anything left which is still good and store or use in the kitchen. Fall is when you need to pull up the summer fruiting plants like tomatoes, squashes, sunflowers corn and peppers which will die back after your first frost. Cut beans and peas at the soil level so the roots will break down and release nitrogen into the soil.

Clearing the vegetable garden beds helps to reduce pests which are trying to snuggle down for winter which rise up in spring to eat everything which is sprouting up.

3. Amend Soil

This time of year is ideal for amending the soil for your vegetable beds and flower beds too. Spread compost on your garden beds or a little well rotted manure to help get the growing season off to a flying start next spring. Learn more about what soil amendments to use to help you get the best from your garden in this post.

4. Plant Garlic and Onion Sets

Fall is perfect for planting garlic once your garden beds are clear and you’ve added some compost to the planting area. Garlic is really easy and once you taste the other varieties of garlic available in the kitchen you won’t go back to bland grocery store garlic again!

You can also plant onion sets which are little onions which will grow on to form the large onions you are more familiar with. Onion sets are very common to grow in England and are a great option for new gardeners to try. Onion sets and garlic are super easy to grow as you pop them in the soil and cover with mulch.

5. Start Composting

I freaking love composting and with the garden beds needing clearing in fall, this is a great time to start a compost bin and turn your garden trash into garden treasure. A compost bin is inexpensive to start and homemade compost will help your garden to flourish year after year.

Chop the debris from your garden beds up to increase the surface area and help the materials break down faster. Avoid putting in your compost heap any plants which were affected by bacterial wilt or mildew and avoid any weed seeds.

6. Coop Maintenance

If you have chickens, quail, ducks or even rabbits now is the time to do a deep clean of the coops and hutches, put all the soiled bedding into the compost bin and spend some time making any repairs to the hardware cloth, wood etc to help keep your coop and hutch structurally sound. Make sure to winterize your coop to keep your flock warm this winter.

7. Plant Fruit

Lay down some fruity futures by planting bare root fruit trees, nuts and berries. Cane fruit like blackberries and raspberries can be planted in fall as can strawberries and currant bushes. Consider planting a small fruit tree guild in your garden to grow using permaculture.

Fall is a good time to sow fruit tree seeds in the garden too. You can sow apples, pears, cherry, peaches, apricot, plum, pawpaw, medlar and quince to name a few. You won’t get a harvest for a couple of years but you can try growing from seed and learning how to train your fruit trees with pruning.

8. Pruning

Apples, quince, grapes and pears all need to be pruned in the fall once their leaves have fallen. Don’t prune stone fruit trees like cherry, plum, apricot and peach as this can cause a fungus known as silverleaf to attack your trees, leave the pruning of these trees until summer.

Prune to remove damaged, diseased and crossing twigs or limbs and prune to shape the plant.

9. Make More Plants

You can also take hardwood cuttings of currants, blueberries, elderberry, rose and so many other plants to propagate your plants and also cuttings of many perennial herbs like bay, lavender, sage, mint and rosemary. Pot these cutting up and keep them moist undercover and you should have some new growth in spring.

10. Fix Fencing & Outdoor Buildings

Make necessary repairs to fencing to ensure livestock is kept safe during winter. Check that your perimeter fencing is secure on your property and any runs or fencing used for goats, rabbits, chickens and ducks are in good repair and secure.

Sheds and other out buildings which you might not be using should be checked for leaks, drafts, rot and other problems which may lead to pests or vermin settling in or water and snow getting in and ruining anything you have stored in there.

11. Cover Up

Cover winter salad crops, celery, carrots and other crops you plan to overwinter with fleece or floating row covers and poly tunnels. You can build a simple hoop house or low tunnel over raised beds or just on the ground in an afternoon to keep your veggies protected from the frost. I like to use a cold frame to grow carrots and corn salad.

12. Tool Maintenance

Clean, sharpen and oil pruning shears, shovels, hoes and other tools you use regularly in the spring. Oiling your tools will help to protect from rust and keeping things sharp will make tasks easier next season. Make sure your lawnmower gets serviced and the blades sharpened before you put it away for winter too!

Fall is also a good time to clean and sanitize your seed starting trays and pots to get everything prepared for seed starting season.

13. Harvest Seeds

Harvest seed from flowers, fruit and vegetables from the garden. The fall is a great time to do a little inventory on your seed stash so you are organized ready for those seed catalogs to come through the mail! Why not start a seed bank this fall too?

Wrap Up!

Fall is a busy time of year wrapping up and winterzing before snow arrives but remember to take time to relax and enjoy yourself too! Whether it is enjoying a pint of pumpkin beer or a mug of tea, take some time to take care of yourself this season as well.

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