Now’s the time to begin digging up the garden. Some plants have finished for the season. Remove old foliage and stems. Leave most seed-bearing stalks for wintering birds.

Through summer, asparagus shoots have grown their feathery leaves and are now tall. When frost has turned them brown, cut them to the ground and remove them from the garden.

Flowering annuals are ending their life spans. Some die gracefully, others blacken or turn to mush after frosts. Pull ‘em up and dispose of them. During the summer weeks, they may have clothed a steep bank or surrounded a mailbox or flagpole.

Soon, summer plants from tender bulbs, corms, rhizomes or tubers will need to be dug, cured and held over for the winter. If this is a new house (or new to you) seek out frost-free indoor storage space for them. Shallow boxes or bushel baskets could serve. Don’t mix kinds of root systems: stow dahlias in one basket, gladioli in another.

Label these strange-looking objects so next spring you’ll know what you have and where to plant them.

Later (after the ground is hard with frost) roses will be settled in for the winter. Right now, rake up old foliage and get rid of it. Peonies are in this group.

After most autumn foliage has faded and fallen, rake tree leaves into piles in an out-of-the-way place, preferably in the shade. Cover with tarps or old blankets to begin composting.

Be careful! If your piles are too close to trees, some surface roots may grow up and into the decaying leaves, which is not a good idea. Keep your compost from doing this.

After a season or two, the piles should have rotted down into leaf mold, which may be mixed with soil to enrich it or to reduce erosion.

Another way to use leaves, grass clippings and other healthy plant pieces is to spread them over the vegetable garden. Here, you may need to cover that mulch with flattened cardboard cartons or layers of newspaper to keep wind and water from causing it to fly or flow away. Weight with a few bricks or stones.

Again, quickly sow a cover crop, letting it grow through the winter and tilling it in next spring. This will hold soil in place and add some nutrients for future crops.

If some plants have grown weak or sick, consider letting that piece of land lie fallow for a year. Sometimes this is done with the land divided in thirds. Once, that was the way of farming and it allowed the land to renew its nutrients.

That can work in a flower garden, too, but could be modified for appearance.

Friends kept chickens and a chicken house in their yard. On the other side of the fence, they grew a summer’s worth of beautiful vegetables.

At the end of summer, they moved chicken house and yard over the harvested vegetable patch. The following spring, the old chicken yard became the food garden. They followed this system with their annual vegetables for years with great success. That was one way to let the land “rest.”

This year, how did your garden grow?