This week we will start with Top Tips for Getting Your Home Ready for the Fall Selling Season. Here are some of the top ways to get your home ready for the fall selling season in any market:

• Color-coordinate the clothes in your closet for the appearance of more space.
• Stage vacant or sparse rooms.
• De-personalize your home–remove photographs and personal collections, and aim to keep trinkets to a minimum.
• Refresh and replace grout as needed in your bathrooms and kitchen.
• Check off the "grand negative impact" items from your list first: a leaking bathtub, a scraped up section of drywall, chipping paint, broken tiles, etc.
• Make spaces neat, open, bright and airy. Start with a neutral base and venture into bolder accents only if your buyer research warrants them.
• Less is always more in a property's sale preparation. Resist the urge to over-decorate.
• Eliminate odd odors, and do not use scents as the buyer may dislike the ones you choose.
• Deep-clean all surfaces, wash windows and keep them spotless.
• Remove all cat litter boxes and dog toys a buyer can trip over.
• If you have a garden, keep it colorful with plants that can be replaced if they should die.

Keep mowing. Grass still needs regular care to stay healthy. Grass that is too high may attract lawn-damaging field mice. Shorter grass is more resistant to diseases and traps fewer falling leaves. Cutting the grass low also allows more sun to reach the crown of the grass. However, cutting off too much at one time can be damaging, so never trim more than a third of the grass blades off in a single cutting. Put mower blades on the lowest settings for the last two cuts of the season.

Aerate your lawn. Compressed soil can hurt the health of the grass. Aerating punches holes in the soil and lets oxygen, water, and nutrients into a lawn. Use a walk-behind aerator or get an attachment to pull behind a riding mower.

Mulch your leaves. Many mowers can mulch leaves with an attachment. Since mulching with a mower can mix grass clippings with leaf particles, these nitrogen-rich grass particles and carbon-rich leaf particles will compost more quickly. They can then return nutrients to the soil.

Trim and shore up trees and bushes. Use trimmers, chainsaws, or pole pruners to cut back trees, shrubs, and plants. Make sure branches are safely trimmed back from overhead lines and not in danger of falling on a home or structure in winter weather. You may need to tie or brace limbs of upright evergreens or plants to prevent them from breaking in high winds or snow. Call a professional arborist for big trees or hard-to-reach spots.

Repair bald spots. Fall is a great time to patch bald or thin spots in a lawn. The easiest way to do this is with an all-in-one lawn repair mixture (found at most garden shops and home centers). Use a garden rake or dethatcher to scratch loose the soil on the spot.

Do you have a vegetable garden, here are some tips for Preparing Your Garden for Winter. With the season drawing to a close, you need to do some work to prepare your garden for winter. By doing a little bit of work in the fall, you can protect your garden from some of the effects of the cold weather approaching and prepare your garden beds for a productive spring. Here are some tips for getting your garden ready for next year:

Clean Your Garden Beds - Start by moving all of the old mulch aside. Pull up any remaining weeds and remove any dead plant material or rotten vegetables. Some pests and plant diseases can live through the winter in any vegetation that is left behind, so it's important to clean the beds and dispose of the weeds and other plant material properly.

Add Some Mulch - Once you've cleared out all of the weeds and unwanted vegetation, you can add a thin layer of the old mulch to the garden beds. You want to be careful not to overdo it with winter mulching. When the soil freezes, it can kill many of the pests and diseases that can impact your garden. If you overdo it with the mulch, it can prevent the soil from freezing, and this will increase the chance that pests or diseases could survive the winter. Instead of adding new mulch right away, wait for the ground to freeze for the first time. With the ground frozen, you can now add some new mulch. When you apply this new layer of mulch later in the year, make sure to pay close attention to mulching around any perennial plants.

Collect Leaves - If you aren’t saving your leaves, it's time to start. They're perfect for adding carbon to a compost heap. If you don’t have a compost heap, you can turn them into leaf mulch to feed your gardens. One way to mulch your leaves is to just run them over with a cordless lawn mower and then collect the shredded leaves in bags. If you want to make it easier, you could get a leaf blower that has a mulching function or you could buy an electric leaf mulcher.

Expand Your Gardens  - If you're planning to garden more of your land next year, fall is the perfect time to build new garden beds or to expand the ones you have. If you care about aesthetic details, you may want to look into lightweight electric grass trimmers to help keep edges clean between pavement and lawn and lawn and garden bed. By getting the work done now, they'll be ready for you to plant with the rest of your beds next spring. Also, fall is often a good time to find discounts on things like soil and compost.

Test Your Soil - Autumn is a great time to test your soil. You'll obviously want to test the soil pH, but there are several other tests that may be valuable. Beyond pH, you could run tests for magnesium, sodium levels, potassium, calcium, phosphorus and sulfur. After running some tests, you'll know which types of amendments and fertilizers you may need to apply to your garden beds.