So we have now had a hard frost and the outdoor gardening season is officially over, but do we have to start with all the Christmas decorations already? While shopping this past weekend, I noticed Hobby Lobby, Ollies, Home Depot and Dollar General all have Christmas decorations out right now. We are only half way through October and it’s still a couple weeks till Halloween. Every year it seems that retail stores try to beat each other to the seasons. Since Christmas decorations are out already, I guess we are just suppose to forget about Thanksgiving and my favorite holiday, Black Friday. But even Black Friday starts earlier every year as I have seen ads on television almost every week now that someone is having a black Friday sale. You can’t rush the seasons, summer has just ended, but I can’t just start saying spring is right around the corner and you need to get ready. Spring is six months away, so let’s concentrate on fall, there is still a lot that can be done outside, to prepare for next spring. Now is the time to add lime and fertilizer to your lawn, garden or flowerbeds. Lime sweetens your soil so that fertilizer works better by raising soil pH. Fertilizing in the fall is important for all plants that flower early in the spring as granular fertilizers usually take about three months to break down and soak into the soil down to your plant’s roots. Now that the leaves are falling it is time to prune trees and shrubs, this can be done as soon as the last leaves fall off. Wait until the leaves fall off so that you know the plant has gone dormant for the winter. This way the branches won’t bleed and you won’t need to use pruning sealer unless you want to. Most of the leaves have fallen off my shrubs, but I have some currant bushes that are still perfectly green and generally won’t drop their leaves until the third or fourth hard frost. Trim broken branches off trees before the snow flies so that they don’t cause more problems over the winter. With all the leaves falling right now one thing I had to do this past weekend was to clean out the gutters. There are so many leaves, I’ll probably have to do it again before winter, but at least all the dirt and debris is gone so that just taking the blower to it will do the trick. Clogged gutters can lead to problems with ice buildup on your roof in the winter which can damage your shingles and cause leaks. Make sure the downspouts are clear also. I have chipmunks that love to store things in my downspouts. I will either stick my blower on one end to blow them out or use a weight attached to a string. One bit of gardening you can do this time of year is plant your garlic for next year. Planting in the fall instead of waiting for spring will give you larger bulbs by the time you harvest them next fall. Likewise if your perennials have died back to the ground or gone completely brown, you can dig and divide them now. Dig up your root ball, cut into two or three pieces and replant for next year. The roots will continue to grow out over the winter and next spring you’ll have two or three perennials instead of one. Just make sure they are dormant and that they are large enough to be divided. We still have a lot to do this fall, so don’t rush Christmas, it will be here before we know it.