As fall gets closer, how do you prepare your soil for the next growing season? Any tips for adding nutrients or mulching to get the garden ready for winter
@Wyatt
This is what I do here in the Pacific Northwest. I use cold manure on my plots along with straw that I used as mulch all summer.
I let a few rain showers wash through, add some lime, and cover with a silage tarp to keep the rain from washing away nutrients while everything breaks down under the tarp over winter.
It varies by what I’m planting. I’m putting peas now where I’ll plant corn next season, and cilantro where the cucumbers were. When they’re done, I’m adding Black Kow and topping it with leaf mulch.
One of my beds had zinnias that I let go to seed for the birds, and now they have peas growing. Again, after they finish, I’ll add Black Kow and cover it with leaf mulch.
The strawberries are in pots. They stay after they die back.
I’m not doing anything special for the wildflowers around the garden except letting them sit through winter for the birds and some winter beauty.
I’m taking out my tomatoes this week and clearing out the marigolds and stray cosmos. For that bed, I’m only adding worm casings as an experiment and topping it off with leaf mulch.
In my main garden, I use a rotary cutter to clear and chop up everything left, till it in, and then plant a cover crop, usually winter rye. For smaller areas and raised beds, I run over fall leaves with the mower, bag them, and then dump them in the beds. If it rains first, you can get more into the beds.
In November, I’ll pull out the last flowers and any leftover plants (I let zinnias go to seed for the birds), clear out any last weeds, and cover my raised beds with pine straw. Wheat straw brought too many seeds, so I prefer pine straw since it’s cheap and easy to find around here. The cats enjoy sunbathing in the piney beds.
Then in spring, I’ll pull most of the pine needles off, repurpose some, and mix the rest with compost before planting.
I want to know the answer to this too
I plan to fill my garden with crimson clover, then bury them once they start to flower.
Well, it really depends.
I pull all my green tomatoes before the first frost. I store them until they ripen in a cool place or use some for fried green tomatoes.
I leave a lot of leaf litter in some gardens while clearing it out in others (I take out any squash leaf litter because of those annoying squash bugs).
I prepare some bulbs like garlic or tree onions for spring planting.
This year, I’ll probably bury some almost finished compost so it can finish breaking down in the soil before I plant.