Put your garden to bed for winter
Good morning, gardening lovers!Here in central Kentucky, home of The Happy Gardener, we're enjoying a week of lovely early September-like weather with the temperature near 80 and a clear sky yesterday. It is supposed to remain that way until later in the week when more seasonal weather returns.
Wherever you are - unless you're in the deep south or the Southern Hemisphere - the gardening season is over. And while we long for it, there are some things you can do to help yourself next year if you have a big, traditional garden or a few plants in a pot.
For those with big gardens, get them cleaned up. There are options ranging from nothing to getting the garden plowed and planting a cover crop. Here are a few, from worst to best:
>Do nothing and leave the spent plants where they fell with the last frost of freeze, the tomato plants tied to the stakes to dangle lifelessly and waft in the wind lik abandoned scarecrows all winter. This choice is easiest on your back but it gives bad buggies and diseases a place to hang out over the winter and be poised to jump your first plants out of the ground in the spring.
>Plow them under where they fell. Better than the first but bugs and diseases still get a place to hang out over the winter.
>The best is to remove the plants from the garden, pot, raised bed - wherever - grind them up and put them in a working compost heap. The heat should will most "baddies" and you will have rich compost to add to your garden next year.
Whatever you do, enjoy your day ... more soon.
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