Most home gardeners probably associate gardening with the spring and summer seasons, when gorgeous flowers, fruits and vegetables fill their gardens with bountiful colors.

However, just because your garden may be largely dormant in the fall and winter doesn’t mean you should neglect it.

In fact, there are a few things you should make sure to do to your garden in late fall and early winter, as they can help prepare your garden for spring. Not to mention, there is one mistake many home gardeners tend to make during the winter that can potentially harm their spring gardens—that is, according to Dr. Margaret McCoy, PhD, Senior Agronomist and Agronomic Marketing Manager at True Organic.

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And interestingly, the reason so many people make this mistake during the winter is because facing this issue “can be a little sad,” Dr. McCoy tells Parade.

As the first frost approaches and plants grow dormant, the last thing most home gardeners want to do is this particular task—but fear not, because Dr. McCoy has you covered with her best tips for avoiding this mistake and getting your garden prepped for next spring. Keep reading for her insights!

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The Winter Gardening Mistake That Can Harm Your Spring Harvest

According to Dr. McCoy, the winter gardening mistake that can interfere with your spring harvest is leaving spent plant material in your garden.

“Leaving residue from the previous season can leave plant material in the soil,” explains Dr. McCoy.

Having spent plant material sit around your garden all winter “can tie up nutrients for the following planting season” as well as “harbor pests and diseases that will affect next year’s planting,” says Dr. McCoy. “This could be plant-parasitic nematodes hosted on roots or spores overwintering in small nooks of the plant material.”

Related: I Thought I’d Ruined My Tomato Garden—Turns Out This Common Problem Has an Easy Fix

Why Do So Many Gardeners Make This Mistake in the Winter?

“Once the [growing] season is over, people are generally busy harvesting their final bounty,” Dr. McCoy explains.

“In the fall, as the weather gets colder, people are less likely to want to dig around in their garden to clean it up,” she says. “It seems easier to defer this activity to spring, when you are excited about the growth, rather than at the end, when you are watching the decay part of the cycle.”

Dr. McCoy acknowledges that “ripping out all your hard work in the fall is less exciting than watching the new growth in the spring,” but it’s still best to put those feelings aside and clean up your garden during the fall or winter.

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How to Avoid This Winter Gardening Mistake

“I too get caught in this cycle of not wanting to clean up my garden space at the end of the season,” says Dr. McCoy. “My practice to combat this is to pull plants AND harvest them. This means I get both actions done at the same time, and I can do it in stages as the plants finish out their respective seasons.”

Additionally, Dr. McCoy says doing this task in pieces instead of all at once “feels less overwhelming…especially if you have a large garden or several boxes.”

Related: Fertilizing These 9 Plants in Summer Can Do More Harm Than Good—These 5 Still Need It

3 Other Winter Gardening Mistakes

Dr. McCoy shares three other common winter gardening mistakes to avoid.

1. Not planning for the spring planting

Often, home gardeners don’t decide what plants they want to plant in the spring until, well, the spring. At that point, it’s almost too late to get started, because you haven’t prepped your garden. Because of this, it’s vital to start envisioning your spring garden during the winter.

“Without a plan for the spring, you may get behind quickly since you need to have seeds, fertilizer and other materials for growing these crops,” says Dr. McCoy. “Knowing you want to grow a tomato but not having a cage means you might damage the plant when you do get it, and it is a large plant.”

Overall, Dr. McCoy says “having a plan helps keep your garden on track and makes sure you rotate crops in different areas of your garden to reduce pest pressure.”

2. Forgetting to thin or bed down strawberries

Strawberries are perennials, meaning their plants come back and grow fruit every year—and protecting them during the winter can make this process much easier for your strawberry plants. One way to do so is “bed down” your strawberry plants, which simply involves covering them with straw mulch.

“Growing up, we always bedded down our strawberries with clean oat straw to ensure that they were kept warm [during the winter],” Dr. McCoy says. Doing so can also “reduce the weed pressure the following season.”

Additionally, she recommends thinning out your strawberry plants as winter begins. Thinning refers to removing old crowns and runners, which gives the younger strawberry plants more room to thrive, per Epic Gardening.

“Thinning them out is also a great way to make sure that the plant’s runners do not overtake a bed,” Dr. McCoy explains.

Related: How to Make Macerated Strawberries

3. Adding fertilizer without a plan

“Fertilizer is a great way to ensure your crop is always well fed and growing with optimal nutrition,” says Dr. McCoy. “But adding it in the fall may not always be the best idea.”

For instance, if you are planning to use a slow-release fertilizer, you should “it will need time and moisture to break down and be available to mineralize for plant uptake in the spring,” per Dr. McCoy.

Additionally, some parts of your garden may do better without any fertilizer. “If you know that you are planning to grow a legume (peas and beans) in an area of your garden, then it may not be appropriate to add fertilizer there, since they produce their own nitrogen from their nitrogen-fixing bacteria,” Dr. McCoy explains.

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Sources:

• Dr. Margaret McCoy, PhD, Senior Agronomist and Agronomic Marketing Manager at True Organic.
• How and When to Thin a Strawberry Bed. Epic Gardening.