Fall’s bounty is winter’s food for animals

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Fall is nature’s time to provide the food that will sustain wild animals through the winter. The summer growing season has produced a virtual cornucopia of delectible wild foods like poke, persimmon, and sumac that will provide a bounty of food for deer, wild turkeys, birds, and other wildlife.

pokeberry
persimmon
mockingbird on sumac

Want to know how you can help feed wildlife this winter? Let your garden go wild.

  1. Leave undisturbed wild areas in your garden – piles of leaves or brushwood can make the perfect nest in which animals can hide, rest, and hibernate.
  2. By leaving the task of tidying your garden borders and shrubs until early spring, shelter can be provided for insects throughout winter.
  3. The seeds of summer’s flowers can provide extra food for birds, mice, and opossums.
  4. If you have a compost heap, this will become a welcome habitat for toads, salamanders, and skinks to overwinter.

6 thoughts on “Fall’s bounty is winter’s food for animals”

  1. For those of us in the northern half of the continent, those windblown drifts of leaves are soon to be a protective layer of insulation beneath the snow – initially trapping dead airspace and eventually becoming compost for next year’s growth – a comfy bit of Home-Sweet-Home for many plants and animals, insects and the microbiota… Here’s to having enough, Home-Sweet-Home and making it through safely to next year.

    • I always get a mountain of leaves each fall, which I let stay on the ground until spring. Like you say, the leaves provide a layer of insulation for plants and little critters against the ravages of winter. Thank you for following my blog and all your insight, and I wish you lots of Home Sweet Home as well.

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