Putting the Beds to Bed

All Tucked in for a Long Winter's Nap

Okay, so I didn't exactly get everyone tucked in today. I did complete the rose bed as you see here. It took a lot of work just to clean it out from both tomato plants and weeds. Then I planted two bulbs of garlic around the front border of both beds. I have no idea what variety it is, but it was free so I'll take it. It is a softneck variety, and it seems to be mild with decent sized cloves. I can't wait to see the little shoots poke up in spring. After planting the garlic, I covered the bed with leaves to build up the soil over winter.

A garlic clove snuggles into its winter bed.

I was able to build up the compost pile quite a bit as well. It's twice as big as it was before. I still have a lot of raking to go as well as porch containers to put away and garden beds to clean up. I'm only planning on putting leaves on the bed that had the brassicas and sweet potatoes this year. That bed will be home to my root vegies next spring. The old bed I'm just going to dig out completely and buy landscape mix to restart it. The newest bed should have had a cover crop this fall, but it will at least get a good dose of compost in the spring.

Fall Update

Actually having a job has taken a toll on my garden, and moreso my blogs. We were able to get quite a bit of corn and okra this summer. If I had kept up with it, we would have had okra coming out our ears. After the middle of August however, everything was pretty much left to its own.

A few weeks ago, I went out to look at the damage. I was very surprised to harvest a few carrots, peppers, and lots of tomatoes. I also dug up the sweet potatoes and got a good basketful. We've been really enjoying those. The chard is still going strong and there is one carrot, one leek, and a few parsnips ready to harvest at any time. I was also surprised to see that the lemon balm came back. Other pots still doing well are the spearmint, parsley, kale, scallions, and chives.

If I can find time this Sunday, I would really like to clean out the beds, plant the garlic my uncle gave me, and at least rake enough leaves to put on top of the bed that will be home to the root vegies next year. I'm probably too late at this point to plant a cover crop on the other beds.

Then I will be somewhat set to start out properly next year at winter break. We'll see...