By Ron Kujawski

* Look around for some bales of spoiled hay. Usually, these are bales that have been exposed to rain. Add the hay to your compost pile or build a compost bin with the bales. They'll rot down with the other residue.

* Harvest the seed heads of caraway, coriander, dill, lovage before they shatter and drop their load of seeds. Store the seeds in airtight jars to conserve their flavors.

* Weed and clean! No, that's not a promotion for a garden herbicide, but it is sound advice for the gardener who wants to reduce weed and pest problems in next year's garden. Pay extra attention to irises as you clean. The eggs of iris borers winter-over on old leaves and debris. By removing and burying or composting the debris, you can get rid of most of the eggs.

* Mow your lawn as needed rather than by the calendar.  With the cool and moist weather of fall, grass grows quickly and mowing may have to be done several times per week. Keep the mowing height at about 2 1/2 inches.

* Make a plan before planting spring flowering bulbs in your landscape.  Otherwise, you'll have a tendency to buy out the store and then be left holding the bag as you try to decide where to plant all these bulbs.

* Mix a handful of bone meal and a cup of wood ash into the soil before planting a peony. Uh, yes that's in the soil where the peony is to be planted. It's for the plant nutrients, just in case some of you thought that was some pagan ritual!

* If you've finally tired of watching others enjoy the delicious rewards of a strawberry patch and want to have one of your own, start now! A highly productive strawberry bed is built upon high-quality soil. The task of building soil should take place the year before plants are set in the bed.

Choose a site in full sun, and one with soil that drains well.  If the site is in sod, turn it over, burying the sod deeply in order to prevent a weed problem from the grass. Then work in about 2 or 3 bushels of manure or compost per 100 square feet.  Some limestone may be needed if your soils tend to be sour or acidic. Have the soil tested if you are unsure. Next, rake in about 1 pound of 5-10-10 fertilizer per 100 square feet. Follow this with a seeding of a winter cover crop such as winter rye at a rate of 1/4 pound of seed per 100 square feet. 

Early next spring, plow or turn over the rye, wait 10 days for it to rot, and then set out your strawberry plants. 

Ron Kujawski began gardening at an early age on his family's onion farm in upstate New York. Although now retired, he spent most of his career teaching at the UMass Extension Service. He serves on Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Horticulture Advisory Committee. His book, Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook, is available here.