The fall gardening season is a time to evaluate the year and look forward to what the next year brings. When the flowers quit blooming and the produce slows down, it’s time to take care of the garden clean -up. Taking time now to do some of those harder garden tasks will save time and energy when Spring comes around.
My vegetable gardens are coming to a close. The dying plants have been taken out and hauled away. With warmer than usual temperatures, however, I still have a really good tomato crop coming on. I’m not complaining either as I will take fresh produce as long as possible.
As for my cottage style flower gardens, they are getting a major overhaul this Fall. I’ve been busy digging, pulling and clearing out unwanted plants. There is quite an abundace of open dirt right now, but come Spring the garden will be full a beautiful. This is the first time in several years that I have taken a healthy amount of time to work over my cottage garden in the Fall months.
What to do for Winterizing the Vegetable Garden
In my vegetable gardens we like to pull out and dig out almost everything before the first frost. I say almost because we leave carrots in the ground as they tend to get sweeter after a few frosts. Last year I left them until mid-November as the season was relatively mild and there were enough leaves covering the ground where the carrots were planted. If you want to see the gardens in the height of Summer then read my Summer Garden Post.
All other plants get taken out. The corn gets cut down to the ground, leaving a small amount of stalk as that is okay to get tilled in the next year. Our cucumbers have been long gone as they die off earlier than most other plants. The onions have been picked, cured and are now in our food storage room. Sweet potatoes and potatoes are dug up and added to our food storage room as well. The green beans I just pulled as I did a second planting and got a nice harvest off of those plants. Oh, one more big one that takes some back labor is digging out my sunflower roots. They are a massive and deep root, which takes some hard work. If they don’t come out in the Fall, then they get in the way for tilling in the Spring.
Since everything is basically out of the ground, we will leave the gardens as is. I do, however, plan to put in garlic in a small area this Fall still. This will be my first year doing garlic, but I’m excited for what it will produce in the Spring! There is also the option of putting a cover crop in to cover the bare soil. I’m not opposed to that option, it just probably is not the year for that.
Taking care of the Fall Cottage FLower Garden
This year has been a year of really reworking my cottage garden. I thought, why not take care of redoing my flower gardens now when I can see where the plants are. The plants get cut back and also this year many are getting moved around. The ornamental grass I had (that took over) has gotten dug up and thrown out. It was pretty for the time I had it, but sometimes certain plants just need to go. The grass was taking over and covering up many of my other flowers, making it hard to even see them. Some of the other perennial flowers that I was not that fond of anymore got taken out and given to friends or dumped.
The flowers that I have moved around are taking to their new homes well. A good dose of water daily and with still having warmer temperatures, they are thriving.
The tulip bulbs have also gone in the ground this Fall season. This year I planted about 80 bulbs and got help from my 5 and 3 year old girls. I do not plant 100’s of bulbs, but just enough to give the boarders of my gardens some beautiful early Spring color. Again, watering daily has been a must for these bulbs.
Each season brings about a time for change and this Fall has really been that for my flower gardens. It’s not quite done yet, but I’ve made some good progress. As gardeners we can sometimes feel like we just want to hang up our hat and hoe, but don’t do it just quite yet. Take care of putting the gardens to rest, cleaning up the vegetable gardens and reworking the flowers. Your future Spring gardener will thank you!
Happy Fall gardening!
Love,
Davee
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