This summer's cool, wet weather made it a difficult growing season for the vegetable garden. That means that clean-up will be especially important this fall to reduce next year's diseases and insect problems. To keep yourself motivated, remember that sanitation is one of the most important steps you can take to insure that next year's garden will be healthy. Plant disease agents such as bacteria, fungi and viruses all remain alive, though dormant, during the winter months. By recognizing the places where these organisms hide, gardeners can often destroy them and prevent disease outbreaks the following spring.
Many fungi spend the winter on or in old leaves, fruit and other garden refuse.
These fungi often form spores or other reproductive structures that remain alive even after the host plant has died. The fungus that causes scab on apple trees and flowering crabapples forms a thick-walled overwintering structure, called a perithecium, in fallen leaves. And cucumber and squash vines, cabbages, and the dried remains of tomato and bean plants are also likely to harbor fungi if left in the garden over the winter. Insects, too, survive quite nicely in plant debris over the winter months. Female moths of the common stalk borer lay their eggs in late summer on grass, weeds and plant refuse.