It isn't even halfway through September and summer appears to already be giving way to autumn. There are plenty of things you can be doing in your garden to help prepare for autumn and provide local wildlife with plenty of food to help them through the colder months.   Tidy up the garden and prepare for next spring Now is a good time to start thinking about tidying up your garden, and any leftover grass cuttings, plant cuttings or leaves can be put to some good use. If you have a compost bin, your garden waste can go in there along with some household waste such as newspapers and vegetable peelings. If your compost bin is full or you haven’t got one, put your leaves in a hessian leaf sack and leave it in a dark, shady corner of your garden and wait for it to break down into leaf mulch.   Don’t waste water! While it might seem strange to consider buying a water butt in the autumn you can use it to collect rain and instead of turning your hose pipe on you can use rainwater to keep your garden watered throughout the autumn. This will help you conserve water and save money!   Help wildlife through the autumn and winter While some birds will have already left the UK for the winter, some birds will stick around so it’s important to provide them with plenty of food. Keeping your bird bath filled up is important, especially during the winter when natural water sources may freeze up. It can be hard to prevent your bird bath from freezing over, however placing something that will float, such as a ping pong ball or cork, on top of the water can help break up ice as it forms. Sometimes it will be difficult to stop water freezing, so on very cold nights you might want to consider lining your bird bath with a bin liner so you can easily lift the ice out of the bird bath in the morning and fill it up with fresh water. Make sure to keep topping up your bird feeders so wild birds know they have a reliable food source. During the colder months consider using fat based bird food, such as fat balls, which are a good source of energy.   Fruit picking If you’ve been growing your own fruit, now is the time to start picking apples, pears and some berries. You can then enjoy eating them as they are or turning them into a delicious dessert. You can make picking fruit easier and much faster by using an apple picker or berry picker.   To find more products which will help make tidying up your garden easier and more sustainable, visit our Sustainable Living and Grow Your Own pages.