Vegetable gardening is not my forte--prefer growing zinnias and cosmos from seed and tending to rose bushes and favorite perennials like delphiniums. However, I do plant tomatoes before Memorial Day every year and cross my fingers we get enough sun and heat. This year was one of those years and due to a labeling error at the farm I frequent, I had 4 Roma tomato plants instead of Big Boys. At least I had a couple of Jet Stars. The Romas were tasty, but I missed having more larger ones. Now to the point of this blog...Every year after a couple of frosts I simply yank the straggly plants from the ground and put away my tomato cages. This afternoon I was reading the newsletter from Dave's Garden and learned there's more to putting a vegetable garden down to bed for the winter.
I've always been a fuss budget at preparing soil in my flower beds before planting in late spring, but never gave any thought to doing anything with garden once harvest is over. Here's what you should be doing:
(1) After removing the vegetable plants and weeds, examine the mulch, that is if you used it. If the mulch is mostly rotted away, just mix it into the soil. If it looks good, you can rake it off and use it again. (I would mix it into the soil because I can't stand storing stuff like that over the winter!)
(2) Have you ever done soil testing? I'm afraid I skip this step too, as I've never had difficulty growing good tomatoes. You don't need to soil test to find out what your garden needs now. But you can dig up a few trowelfuls of dirt, save it and send it off soon to your local university soil testing service.
(3) Feed the soil over the winter. The author suggests getting horse manure from your local barnyard. I would simply buy it at Home Depot, Hewitt's or your local nursery. Spread the manure in the garden. The author mentions the timing--allowing six months from horse or cow to harvest. Time and the weather lets the manure mellow out and become safe for you and the plants. Again, to take the easy way out, I would buy it already bagged. The author loads a few big plastic tubs and hauls them away in her minivan. Too much work for me!
Try to cover the whole garden up to a couple of inches. Ideally, dig it in with the top few inches of garden dirt. But you can just leave it on top of the garden and it will work as well. When the soil test results come back, scatter pelleted lime across the surface as called for. In the spring, you can address the other nutrient recommendations.
(4) Top the garden with a lot of shredded leaves, accomplished by running the lawn mower over your fallen leaves in the yard. The shredded leaves will stay put when you wet them down with the hose and you can do this when you have the time. The last layer of leaves can usually be put down by Thanksgiving when most of the leaves have fallen. Be sure the leaves are nice and damp, then cover it all with thick layers of newspapers and hold them down with rocks or a good covering of fresh mulch. The soil will now be fed over the winter and you're ready to take it easy until planting time.
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