Hey,

Just wondering, for those of you that HAVE a winter, what you do to get it ready for fall/winter.

Anything special you recommend?

I may be moving & NOT doing anything, here, this fall...just curious what you do to "winterize" YOUR gardens!
Thanks!

I pull/dig the last of the root crops and clean up all the plant debris, either by pulling and composting or by covering the bed with straw, spoiled hay or other mulch. I dismantle the trellises and frames for the mini-greenhouses that extended the season. I take a garden rake and "groom" the raised beds and the paths in between. When everything looks clean and tidy, I wait until a hard freeze and mulch the overwintering plants with spoiled hay to prevent heaving and early-thaw growth.

Then I go inside, pour a glass of wine and wait for spring.

Wayne

I do pretty much what Wayne does. And I've already been dreaming thru my quilt books, fabric and patterns, trying to decide on the winter project.

I think it may be a "Cathedral Window" quilt, modified to be done partially by machine. Also have a crazy quilt started, it's just scraps of hap-hazard shapes. I've done one before and I call it the "Mile Quilt", because I figure it took a mile's worth of thread to sew it!

Oops, I guess I went "off topic"!

We do what Wayne does. And sometimes we put compost, especially if it's not all finished, on top & dig it in a bit with a rake.

Because we can have weird winters--hard freezes followed by spring-like temps--I check the mulch on the over-wintering plants periodically. If the plants are starting to grow or the mulch has blown off, I add more mulch. Or maybe that's just an excuse to visit the garden!

Then I use the extra time (and longer hours of dark) to catch up on reading about how other people's gardens fared over the previous summer & fall! And my husband & I hind-sight our previous season & plan for next spring/summer.

growgreen251

Spread compost, shred leaves and apply those as mulch as they become available, clean, repair, sharpen, and properly store the equipment so they will be ready for pruning season in late January, early February and spring growing season. Some people remove all plant "debris" from their garden, some people compost that "debris" while other toss it out along with valuable nutrients from their soil. I put that plant debris right back where it came from, where it grew, so the nutrients those plants removed from the soil are put back into htat soil.

I think some of what you do may depend on your zone. Here we are slightly south of growgreen and we have very unpredictable winters, but it will be warm enough for a lot of decomposing to happen. After most stuff dies off I start layering leaves and manure and straw or what ever I can get on the beds. Last year I even used shredded paper from the office. Sometimes I move my raised beds around a bit and I may also do that in the fall/winter depending on the soil conditions. I just usually have to play it by ear as to what I can do by what weather we get. There is never a real hard freeze (as in Northern type freeze,) though the top few inches can freeze some years but only a tiny bit of freeze other years.

Our weather on the OHio is something like Yours Ecsoehng.

I've decided that the bigger garden is getting weeded, mowed down and then I"m tilling it all under and will start new layers on top.
I've been weeding the thing today. Trying to get that Millet out before it goes to seed!

I plan to start another Lasagna bed and amend the others with all the organic matter I have.
(I have lots and lots, it just depends on how energetic I am about placing it in the garden rather than mowing/blowing it into the bushes!

A freind gave me this idea after a bed is done for season and you tilled in amemendment. You should either put cover crop in or if you cover the bed with sheets of perferated weed cloth anchored with lawn staples to prevent weed seeds from being blown or deposited in the beds.

That's sounds like a good idea. I mulch all my beds but sometimes the wind likes to rearrange things so maybe a row cover would help keep things in place. Hmmm.

Thanks for all the tips!
I am having a hard time deciding whether to stay here, or move, so I am fighting with myself!

I either have to move, where my rent will be cheaper, but the 2 (so far) available places don't look too promising, as far as location and/or having a garden, and I don't know if I can keep my pets at those places,
OR I can stay here & pay higher rent!

PLUS, I have had what I think is a fungal disease here, 2 years in a row, so I would LOVE to move to "new ground", preferably out in the country, but nothing is coming up, AND my kids can't drive on their own yet.

Geez, I need serious counseling, here!

Kids, pets, town or country, new ground or fungal disease that ruined my tomato crop the last 2 years (that part REALLY sucks, after coddling all those seed-grown babies!)

Oh yeah, and the perforated weed cloth?

Is that the black stuff, kinda like screening material?

I had/have alot of volunteer maples, Rose of Sharons, BALCK WALNUT (YUCK!) in the area.

If I stay here, I might consider the cover, to limit the volunteer seedlings, but I still have the dreaded wilt problem on my plants to look forward to in the summer!

I am rambling here...thanks for the replies!
Vicki

hey,
I like that landscaping fabric idea of Grid's. So far this is what I've got going on in my garden for next year... Put cardboard down, working on the manure, and then I am gonna cover w/ shredded leaves/mulched trees...If I cover this with the landscape fabric this will allow water to get thru (to break down that cardboard) and still be an added blocker to that awful saw grass that I have, right?
If I dont get anything to grow in there next year--I dont know what I'll do--maybe give up. My MIL and FIL insist I need to add miracle grow! I just want something to produce so I can show them they are so wrong...

Keep in mind that Ma Nature does not leave here soil bare and exposed to the ravages of the wind, rain, and sun winter or summer. Given any chance she will cover her soil with something and many times that will be what we call weeds. Putting landscape fabric over a tilled bed does not really do much, far better would be a cover crop of some kind that will also add organic matter to the soil when it is harvested.

But I would already have a bunch of organic stuff underneath it..the cardboard, manure, and a foot or more of mulched leaves and trees. I'm pretty sure that my soil is so bad that even this year I wouldnt be able to get a cover crop to grow. That is why I added all this other stuff...I just thought that the fabric would keep everything in place and help keep those weeds at bay...so I'd have this great bed of soil for spring planting...

Yankee,

What kind of soil do you have? I hope it's not the awful, hard, red clay that I had in NC! That stuff was really hard to work with, but I did get decent tomatoes, peppers, squash, and melons!

I was still hard to dig in though.

Kimmsr, re cleaning up: I worry about overwintering the spider mites and diseases, although I didn't have too much of that this year. I put the tomato plants in the woods to help trap the leaves and keep them from blowing away, so they can decay where they are, and the nutrients at least stay on my place. What do you do with your tomato vines if they get mites or a disease? I chopped up the tomatillo vines and left them in the garden because they still looked healthy. I did plant a cover crop and it looks lush and green already.

Yankee, I put a strip of that landscape fabric along the edge of the garden nearest the lawn, and covered it with straw blocks. It's easy to pull off the bermuda grass runners before they get hold. And it gives some space for the squash to sprawl without getting onto the lawn. That's more of a summer problem though.

Beansprout, I'm learning to like the clay. Once it gets enough organic matter to loosen it up, it's pretty rich and holds water. But I still have spots you can't get a spading fork into and have to dig with a pickaxe.

Wayne, I didn't forget about your book. I decided to read it first, but I will get it in the mail the first of next week. I found the garden planning section useful for timing when to start seeds. I learned that I haven't been getting an early enough start on my fall garden. (Whoever invented that U-bar thing ought to come try it here. I'm still getting rocks too big for me to lift, less than a fork-depth down. I've ruined two spading forks, just this year.)