Preparing for Winter - Reviewing Your Garden Journal

I wrote in June about keeping a Garden Journal, which might include a map of your garden, what was planted and where, how often it was watered, even details about amounts of sunlight it received and the temperatures it experienced. Written down should also be information on the yields you've experienced from your vegetables, what you liked and what you weren't so crazy about. These bits of information can help you prepare your garden for winter.

Preparing your garden for the winter should include planning for next year. It doesn't have to be exact, but a general idea can help you decide where to put the bulk of your compost. Plants should be grown in different areas of the garden every year, most especially tomatoes, as they absorb different nutrients from the soil. But most will benefit from a fresh place in the garden. Plants that need more fertilizer and water should be grouped together for most effective use of both; an example would be peppers and tomatoes; squash and beans.

After pulling up annuals and weeding, the next step is a good layer of compost to condition the soil for next spring's planting. Our tumbling composters have been busily making nutrient rich organic compost all spring and summer, so we have plenty of compost to spread around. We'll put down a two inch deep layer of compost to enrich the soil and act as a mulch, conserving moisture and reducing the odd winter weed. We use our Fold-A-Cart to get the compost where it's needed. It's pretty easy to park our Fold-A-Cart under the compost machine, dump the compost in and wheel it to wherever in the garden we need it. This cart is especially nice because it is so easy to clean up afterwards, and it has two ten-inch pneumatic rubber tires that give it a great center of gravity and prevent tipping like our old wheelbarrow used to want to do. When we're done spreading the compost layer, we'll give everything a good soaking to provide the moisture that our garden worms need in order to do their jobs. Another spray with the hose and the Fold-A-Cart is ready to be folded down to 20% of its usable size and hung in the garage.

Even though I still have lots of vegetables in my garden (the warm weather still hangs on!): tomatoes, beets, beans, chard and spinach, I'll be updating my garden journal this weekend on what worked in the garden and where I need to move things next year. When we finally do get cold weather, all the refuse from the garden will go back into the tumbling composters to help make more compost for the spring planting.
Happy Composting!

Springtime Rant in the Garden

This time of year is so exciting with all the new growth going on in my garden! I enjoy checking it every day - ok, sometimes two or three times a day - to watch for the first leaves of the beet plants, see how the peas are almost tall enough to start reaching for the bean poles set out for them to climb, and the flowers as they appear on the tomato plants. Glorious birth!
I can really tell a difference this year in the growth and health of my garden vegetables with the addition of home grown organic compost. It ‘s my hope to have a bumper crop this year, and I plan on filling my freezer with produce. I've also started to think about whom else might benefit from the abundance I've planned for. The article in yesterday's Denver Post about school children in Denver who are learning about where food comes from made me think about how many families could benefit if every school had a vegetable garden. So many kids would be empowered with the knowledge of how to feed themselves and their families, as well as the nutritional benefits that they would reap with their harvests. Surely someone at each school could find the time to sponsor a garden; if not a teacher, then a parent, volunteer from the neighborhood or an employee of nearby nursery. I’d like to donate my time to teaching students how to compost and it’s various uses in a garden. Some schools might even find themselves being able to donate their garden produce to food banks and co-ops. With good weather, and the good soil that I’ve laid down this year, that’s what I plan to do!
Maybe we need a grass roots movement to contact school districts and request that space be made available at each school for a classroom garden, rather than the lawns that most schools have surrounding their facilities. Oh, how my mind does travel along a meandering pathway at times, leading me to consider ideas and dreams that crop up along the way!
And speaking of composting, I’d better get the latest batch of kitchen scraps into the composter, and put on my to-do list to shred some cardboard to mix in as well. After all, can one have too much compost?
Happy Composting!