End-of-Season Gardening Tips

The garden has been put to bed for the winter.

End-of-season gardening, a sad time for gardeners. The plants have been pulled. Perhaps some carrots and beets are still in the ground able to stay safe until the big freeze occurs. Be sure to pull them when the weatherman calls for freezing temperatures so the vegetables do not freeze, then rot in the ground. Allow them to dry after pulling in order to store them for the winter stews and soups.

Because we leave for Florida in the fall, my DH cleans out everything. He roto-tilled the garden in order to break up the soil and planted winter rye. The rye comes up, then in the spring, he turns it under to give more nutrients to the soil.

In the photo you can see the strawberry bed which will winter over. These are June bearing strawberries. The snow cover will keep them warm in the winter. I know that sounds impossible, but snow is a good insulator for the plants.

For more end-of-season garden tips, read another article previously posted here.

Now is the time to finish up your garden journal. Make notes while you have next year's plan swirling in your head. Before you know it, you'll be planting seed and digging in your garden next spring.

Vegetable Garden September Update

Clearing out the garden...end of season

Middle of September and the vegetable gardening season is near its end. Here is an update on what we have removed from our garden. You can see from the photo, there are large empty spaces now.

We have pulled out:

27 pole bean plants, the first planting

8 foot row of jade green beans

8 foot row of yellow wax pencil pod beans

8 foot row of purple beans

My DH reports we harvested approximately 50 pounds of beans from these rows. We are currently harvesting the next planting of pole beans.

We saved five large pumpkins for our grandkids. The punkins, not the kids, each weighed about 25 lbs.

Pumpkins and butternut squash harvested and area now planted in new strawberry bed (see previous post on 9/15/11)

One lonesome zucchini left

Pulled muskmelon and watermelon plants

Last planting of corn

Removed four plantings of sweet corn. There were four eight foot rows in each planting. We planted Northern Extra Sweet..each planting got sweeter! We ended up with short ears of corn due to the dry weather. Still tasted good.

Dug all potatoes--Red Pontiac, Yukon, German Butterball, and Fingerlings (which grew the best and our first year to try them)

13 Avalon butternut squash

Next posting I'll tell what is left in our September garden!!

Transplanting Strawberry Plants--New Strawberry Bed

This year's strawberry bed

Thinking spring already. My DH is planning for a new strawberry bed next year. He has already transplanted the runners of strawberry plants into the new bed on the west side of the garden. This section of the garden stays wet in the spring and it is a struggle to till, so it is a good place to keep strawberries. The east bed produced very well this June, but time for a change. This area is tillable and will allow my hubby to plant an early spring crop in the soil.

My DH suggests starting a new bed every three to four years. There are 225 plants of the June bearing All Stars variety in this new location. We like the June bearing fruit better than the ever bearing varieties. June is a high production crop and tastier, or so we think.

Healthy plants which are connected to the mother plant and ready for transplanting. We call them runners.

This photo shows the small plants that are called runners from the large mother plants. My DH digs them up carefully to re-plant in the new bed.

Garden Tip: When transplanting, do not bury the heart of the plant and be sure the roots are healthy.

The new strawberry bed

We have a straw path down the center of the bed so it is easy to reach all the plants for picking the fruit. The old bed spread runners into the moist straw allowing a great place for the runners to thrive.

Stay tuned for the results next June. Lip smacking, juicy strawberries. Mmmmm.....

It's the end of the season for vegetable gardening and about time to button up the garden until spring. We still have some green tomatoes which we will pick, then wrap in newspapers to ripen. Broccoli and cabbage and lettuce will be good because they can stand the frost.

I wrote an article on End of Season Vegetable Gardening Tips for Life 123. I have no idea why it is formatted with capital letters starting each word...Not my formatting. Click here to read it. I hope it helps you put your garden to bed for the year.

Fresh Sweet Corn Time is Over for Us

My DH picked all the ears of sweet corn from our patch and pulled up the stalks. The garden looks so different without those stately plantings of tall corn with waving tassels. We froze the last 60 ears. We were pleased with our harvest of tasty corn this year.

If you want to try something different this year when freezing your corn, click here for a recipe.

The powdery mildew is on our squash leaves and cukes. Cukes are about done.

Sad time to see the garden in the end of the season, but already my DH is making plans for next year's garden. New varieties, size adjustments, rotation of crops. I love the gardener's never ending hope for a better garden next year.

END OF SEASON GARDEN

Alas, the time has come to acknowledge that summer can't last forever. We must prepare our gardens for next spring. I know that you gardeners are already planning for next spring, aren't you? And you know that next year's garden will be even better if you change some of the things you did this year. My DH has decided he is going to run his rows the opposite direction next year and where he is going to plant the crops in the spring.

It is time to quit fertilizing so that all the plant's strength will go into the making of the vegetable. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, sweet corn and summer squash, should be harvested before the nights drop below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. (FYI we already had a good frost on Oct. 1) We have no tomatoes this year due to the late blight. We dug the potatoes a little early too when we saw the blight on the vines.

Dig carrots and let them dry to reduce mildew or rot from forming before putting them in storage for the winter. Pull up the plants and place them in a pile to burn them. Burning gets rid of bugs and disease.

Better soil--Better production

Roto-till the clay-based soil now allowing the winter weather to further break up the soil before spring. This finer soil helps seed germination in the spring. It is also time to add amendments to the soil and work them in with the roto-tiller. We are fortunate to live in a city that collects yard waste and then piles it and turns it to make compost for the city residents. We had several loads brought in this fall and my DH spread it on the garden. Our soil is clay, but by roto-tilling in the compost, it helps to make it a clay loam soil which will produce better plants. If you have nice rich soil you may not need to break it up in the fall.

This is a good time to take soil samples to your extension office. Contact them for the best way to take samples from your garden and for the charge for the testing. The report will include a list of nutrients to add next spring before planting. The test will also determine the pH factor of the soil and recommend steps for making it more alkaline or acidic.

Taking time now to clean up your garden will make a great difference for next spring by ridding your garden of pests and disease and amending the soil so you will have better production next year.