How to Kill Your Soil in the Fall?

This is already my last article of September: how time flies! My favorite month is already over… But that also means that as of next week, I’ll be starting my special Halloween chronicles!

This will be my third year with these themed chronicles, so I guess you could say it’s become a tradition. What will I write about this year? I’ll leave it to you! In the meantime, let’s move on to today’s topic, which is a little scary in its own way: How to kill your soil in autumn?

Soil is alive?

In the earth, there’s a plethora of microbes, invertebrates, insects, roots, algae and so on. All this creates a very lively world beneath our feet. We don’t realize it because we can only see the surface, but life in the soil is like an iceberg: only the tip is visible.

All this life has a very important balance: without it, plants lack water and food. Even animals that don’t live in the ground can suffer from poor soil! The whole food chain needs all its links.

The Soil Food Chain

The well-known decomposers destroy dead organic matter. Some work above ground to break down leaves and other debris, while others work underground to decompose old, dead roots.

For want of a better name, the alchemists are often microbes or fungi that change the shape of molecules to make them accessible to plants. Strange as it may sound, some nutrients essential to plants cannot be absorbed without being “predigested”!

Soil aerators also play a crucial role: they prevent the soil from becoming compacted, leaving room for roots, air and water to circulate. Some are small, like earthworms, but many small mammals help aerate the soil by digging tunnels. These include mice and shrews.

Population controllers, or simply predators, usually complete the circle. Some predators are tiny and feed on micro-organisms. Others are more obvious, feeding on insects or worms. They are essential, as they maintain the balance: too many decomposers, they run out of food and attack healthy roots; too much aeration and the soil sinks. In short, too much is like too little, so populations need to be regulated. As nothing is wasted, these predators’ droppings (and even their bodies when they die) return to the soil to feed other links in the chain.

Autumn: A Crucial Time for Soil

Autumn in the North is a time of change. It’s cold, the leaves are falling, it’s raining… In short, it’s a time of great upheaval for everyone, even the smallest organism living a metre deep in the ground.

Fortunately, with millions of years of evolution and adaptation to this harsh and changing climate, the soil’s inhabitants are well prepared and have strategies for surviving the winter. Some hibernate, or take the opportunity to undergo metamorphosis, others gather near decomposing matter, which emits a certain warmth, and still others are in no way halted in their activities!

But That’s Without Counting the Gardener With His Shovel, Rake and Shears!

You see, adapting to winter, changing lifestyles with the seasons, all happens gradually, day by day, according to a fixed protocol. An insect X will find a comfortable spot, perhaps sheltered from the wind, under the dead leaves of your hostas, a damp spot with loose soil… It will dig a hole and bury itself a few centimetres under the ground and slowly fall asleep for the winter.

Then, the leaves of its shelter are cut and removed, the ground is harshly scraped, the “weeds” are removed without sparing the earth: a brutal and unexpected awakening!

This insect may not have the strength to find a new home; it may already be too cold for it, it may have already begun to transform and will no longer be mobile, it may be found by a predator that usually only eats the few latecomers…

In short, one of the soil’s key players has just been disturbed from hibernation, and will probably die one way or another. The same is true for many organisms that go dormant during the cold season.

But that’s not all! By destroying the small aeration tunnels, water penetrates less into the soil. Good luck with the spring floods! And by stirring up the roots (dead or alive), you also destroy the cohesion of your soil. That means your soil will crumble in the wind, and run off with the runoff.

Catastrophe! How Can I Protect My Soil in the Fall?

It’s very, very, VERY simple… When autumn arrives, you put away your gardening tools, and go make yourself a cup of tea.

Let go of your soil in the fall. Leave it alone! It’s the worst time of year to play in it! Life knows how to live and manage itself. You don’t have to clean it up.

No need to cut your perennials: the leaves protect the soil and its inhabitants. And in spring? They’ll already have decomposed into small pieces.

There’s no need to rake up dead leaves: they protect the soil and its inhabitants. And in spring? They’ll already be broken down into small pieces (no, I didn’t repeat that sentence by mistake!).

No need to remove “weeds”: they don’t proliferate in winter anyway.

No need to plow: if you do, you’re no longer my friend.

The only maintenance you can do is mow your lawn, and add compost/manure to the surface. That’s all there is to it! The rest is up to nature.

Nature knows best, doesn’t it?