🍂 Fall Garden Cleanup Checklist for Canadian Gardeners

Get your garden ready for winter!

Get ready for winter, the easy way!
Use this step-by-step checklist to wrap up the growing season, protect your perennials and prep your soil for a thriving garden next year.

I know, after a season of sowing, planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, canning, drying, saving seeds and freezing food, that's last thing we want is more work.
I just take a break, enjoy my garden and then I go back to putting my garden to bed. Then I concentrate on other stuff like giving the house a good clean.

🍂 Fall Garden Cleanup Checklist for Canadian Gardeners

🌾 Vegetables & Annuals

• Harvest any remaining crops before frost.
• Pull spent annuals and compost healthy plant material.
• Remove diseased plants (do not compost).
• Clear out tomato cages and trellises.

Perennials & Shrubs

• Cut back perennials that have died back (except those with winter interest).
• Leave ornamental grasses and seed heads for birds, if desired.
• Water trees and shrubs deeply before the ground freezes.
• Wrap young or sensitive shrubs (e.g., roses) if needed.

🌿 Beds, Soil & Mulch

• Top up mulch (2-4 inches) to insulate soil.
• Test and amend your soil if needed.
• Add compost to empty beds.
• Cover bare soil with leaf mulch or cover crops (optional).
• I cover my raised beds with carboard and landscaping cloth for the winter.
  Comes Spring my beds are weed free and ready to go.

Tools & Containers

• Clean and store garden tools.
• hoses.
• Clean out rain barrels and turn them upside down.

Wildlife & Eco Tips

• Leave some leaf litter for overwintering insects.
• Avoid cutting everything down — some mess helps pollinators.
• Set up bird feeders (optional).

📝 Optional: Lazy Gardener's Tips

• Skip cutting back some perennials — nature can handle it!
• I don't cut back ornamental grasses - in the spring I wish I had.
• Let leaves mulch in place on garden beds.
• Leave root systems (sunflower roots are hard to pull out anyway) to decay naturally and improve soil.

Optional:

• Tidy and sweep the shed and greenhouse. I only have a shed and a plant room in the house.
• The plant room I tidy it up after Christmas.
• The shed I clean it in the Fall - when spring comes around, I sometimes forget that I cleaned the garden shed in the fall and I go “ Wow! How nice! The good fairy was here and cleaned up my shed!” Maybe next time she will sharpen my tools as well.

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