It is the time of the year for all of us gardeners to say good bye to our garden and lay it to rest for the winter. Every year I spend at least three days there to finish the job. With little kids I don't get the whole day to work on it, but I am sure if I had uninterrupted time, I could be done in one day - especially in such small space that I have.
First I pulled all my plants out and put it all on my compost pile. I will turn it over before it starts freezing.
Here you can see the garden somewhat in whole picture. I leave some of the leaves on and let them rot on the garden beds. I also spread some chicken manure from the "girls" on top and let it soak in through the winter.
There is a new thing I am trying out on one of my beds. My sister-in-law did some research and found that organic gardeners don't till the garden beds for the winter. They spread leaves on top and some don't even pull their old plants out. They let it all rot through the winter months. Click here for more information on this subject. It seems that there is lots of benefit in keeping the soil untouched if you are an organic gardener.
And look who LOVES this time of the year in the garden! The girls get to roam my garden beds free of trouble. This is all they want to do the entire summer season - when everything looks so green and juicy. At least now they get to dig up some bugs... the last live food of the season.
1 comment:
That must have been a lot of work! I admire you that you could do this while having the kids around. Last year I wanted to make a tiny vegetable garden in my backyard, but didn't manage to do much (I was able to eat some of my own grown broad beans though). Posts like these inspire me to give it another go!
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