It's time to put in the winter vegetable garden or, if you already have begun, to continue the job.

First, pull up and throw out or compost the remains of your summer garden. A thorough cleaning now really pays off in fewer bugs and diseases later.

Dig up the soil deeply with a spade, turning it over, aerating it, and breaking up the clods as you go.

Then use a garden fork to mix in organic amendments such as Gardner & Bloome Harvest Supreme. Add a good vegetable fertilizer according to package directions; work this into the top 6 inches of soil.

If you're an organic gardener, use instead blood meal, cottonseed meal, bone meal or bagged organic vegetable food (we recommend Dr. Earth Organic 5 Vegetable Food).

Then use a garden rake to level the ground. Use a hoe to make furrows between rows in heavy soils.

Plant tall crops to the north and short crops to the south. Full sun is best for all winter vegetables.

1. Plant all types of permanent landscape plants other than bare-root and tropicals.
2. Plant trees, shrubs and vines.
3. Choose and plant for permanent fall and winter color.
4. Continue to shop for spring-blooming bulbs.
5. Plant lilies as soon as you get them home.
6. Buy daffodils, grape hyacinths, ranunculus, anemones and Dutch irises; keep them in a cool, dry place until planting time.
7. Purchase hyacinth, tulip, and crocus bulbs and prechill them in the refrigerator.
8. Plant cool-season flowers for winter and spring bloom.
9. Plant cineraria for late winter and early spring bloom.
10. Plant wildflowers.
11. Plant cool-season lawns; this is the best time of year for this job.
12. Overseed Bermuda grass with annual winter ryegrass if desired.
13. Plant cool-season vegetables, year-round vegetables, including carrots and some perennial vegetables.
14. Thin out sweet peas and pinch them back to force branching.
15. Divide, trim, and mulch plants that tend to grow in a clump and that need to be divided, including Kahili ginger, clivia, iris, daylily, moraea, bird of paradise, gazanias, and perennials like Shasta daisies.
16. Cut back zonal and ivy geraniums; finish pruning Martha Washingtons.
17. Divide hardy water lilies.
18. Divide belladonna lilies.
19. Dig up, divide and replant perennials, or mulch them.
20. Cut off runners from strawberries, gather them in bunches, and prechill them for November planting.
21. Feed fuchsias.
22. Continue to treat blue hydrangeas with aluminum sulfate.
23. Stop fertilizing chrysanthemums and enjoy the blooms.
24. Fertilize poinsettias with a complete fertilizer high in bloom ingredients.
25. Feed roses early in October; don't fertilize in November.
26. Water deciduous fruit trees more sparingly in fall.
27. Water roses with up to 1 1/2 inches of water twice a week, unless it rains.
28. Finish pulling out faded annual flowers and cleaning pots and beds for fall.
29. Make a ball-shaped basket of malacoides primroses.
30. Thoroughly clean up the vegetable garden; pull up the last of the summer crops and compost the remains (if you have had fungus or disease problems, skip the composting and get rid of them instead).

Why You Should Prune

• Pruning dead, injured and diseased limbs from your plants helps keep them strong and healthy. Dead limbs can break in storms and damage other parts of the plant (or your house, if we are talking about trees).
• Pruning helps in producing larger, healthier flowers and fruit. Keeping a plant from overproducing also helps keep the plant healthy. Overproduction can weaken plants.
• Pruning to shape trees and bushes makes for a nicer looking garden.
• Pruning for space keeps your plants from running wild and taking over the lawn or garden.
• Pruning can help restore vigor to older trees and shrubs, as well as improving appearance.

Tools

• Use hand shears for branches ¼ inch in diameter and smaller.
• Loppers are for larger jobs. The longer handles give you longer reach and better leverage. You can use these for branches up to about 2" on softwoods, less on hard woods (depending on the size and strength of the loppers — and you).
• Use pruning saws for larger branches.
• You might need a chain saw, or a professional tree cutter, for very large branches.