"It's pretty ugly right now," I apologized to a friend. An impromptu garden tour in early autumn isn't my favorite pastime, especially after a busy summer when things get away from me. My garden is not always a treat for the eyes.

No doubt about it, the time comes to tidy things up. 

Cleaning up the garden in fall does more than make things more attractive and orderly.  It also helps reduce populations of insects and disease organisms. That makes next year's work much easier and future gardens more successful.

Insects don't just fly away or disappear into thin air when fall arrives. Many of them sequester themselves under the soil as pupae or hibernating adults.  Others overwinter on plant refuse and vegetation such as weeds, or under convenient objects such as boards that are left lying around the garden. Slugs in particular like dark, damp places to lay their eggs. 

Eliminating bugs and their bungalows prevents new generations from colonizing your garden next spring when the weather warms up, or at the very least it reduces their numbers. 

Begin garden sanitation on a dry, sunny day by removing dead or declining annuals from their beds.  Remove exhausted flower stalks from perennials and shrubs (called "deadheading").  Pull up the remaining weeds that escaped your attention earlier in the season. 

Unless plant litter is clearly diseased or heavily infested with insects, recycle by adding it to your compost pile.  Burn diseased refuse or discard it to prevent the problems from spreading next year.

After the litter is cleared out, cultivate the soil to a depth of two or three inches by turning it with a garden spade or digging fork and breaking it up into clods.  It exposes soil-dwelling pests to birds, who love to eat them, and to freezing weather which also kills them.  A few weeks later, repeat the cultivation to expose even more pests.  

After the birds have had their feast, prepare garden beds for next year's crops.  Add one or two inches of manure, compost, or other organic matter to the surface and dig it in.  Then before winter rains set in, spread several inches of straw mulch to prevent soil erosion and compaction.

Better yet, plant a fast growing green manure cover crop in early fall. Till it in next spring about two weeks before planting.  Winter rye mixed with hairy vetch or crimson clover, or a blend of oats and field peas will both protect the soil and add nutrients.

Fall soil prep can give you a couple weeks' head start the following spring. You won't have to wait for the soil to dry out before getting beds ready for planting, since it will already have been done. 

If you have a fall and/or winter garden growing, check plants DAILY for insects or diseases.  Fall cole crops such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage are beacons that call out to every aphid in the neighborhood. Floating row covers, if they're well-buried along the edges, help keep them out. 

Gophers seem to rejoice in brisk, fall weather just like we humans do, so be on the lookout for renewed activity.  Fan-shaped mounds of soil and dead plants - with the roots chewed up or missing - are signs that gophers have moved in.  If you don't have enough to share with them and can't tolerate gophers in your garden, traps are the only sure way to get rid of them. 

Home fruit orchards also benefit a great deal from a little bit of attention in the fall.  Rake up and dispose of leaves and fruit that drop from trees.  Plant refuse left lying around promotes survival of insects and fungi that invade orchards.  Removing it reduces future populations by interrupting insect life cycles, and you'll have less trouble from most of the common pests.

Don't put off raking leaves from your lawn. They harbor diseases and can suffocate turfgrass by preventing oxygen from getting to the roots.

If you have a greenhouse, clean it up by removing weeds, refuse, and litter.  Wash pots and scrub work benches with a 10% Clorox solution - one part bleach to nine parts water - to kill troublesome hothouse pests like fungi and bacteria.  Also destroy any insects you find, except, of course, for beneficial ones such as spiders.

Late in fall, after the ground has cooled down or frozen, mulch around perennials to protect their roots from the alternate freezing and thawing that takes place during wintertime.

As one final investment in your garden this autumn, take notes about this year's garden while you still remember what worked and what didn't.  Record where things were planted so you can rotate beds next year, make a list of failures or problems to research when you have time this winter, and catalog the splendid flowers and mouth-watering fruits and veggies you want to grow again next year.