Many gardeners like the idea of putting their garden to bed for the winter. When they do that, it often includes tilling which aerates the soil, loosens it, and allows it to be more workable. The problem is it is the wrong time of year to do it and can lead to more problems in the long run.
VIDEO: The One Thing You Should NEVER Do to Your Fall Garden
Many gardeners like the idea of putting their garden to bed for the winter. When they do that, it often includes tilling which aerates the soil, loosens it, and allows it to be more workable. The problem is it is the wrong time of year to do it and can lead to more problems in the long run.
I already tilled mine.
Hello, what about doing core gardening in the fall? You have videos where you are disturbing the soil to bury organic matter after the planting season
I'm in central Alabama, climate zone 7B. The last two nights, we had freezing weather, and tonight there is frost potential, but the freeze warnings have been removed. I covered my most frost sensitive plants, Lemons Squash, Roma Tomatoes, and Dad's Sunset Tomatoes with sheets. I left my eggplant, which I don't care about, peppers, and potatoes uncoverd, and hoped for the best. The eggplant has a lightly frost damage with curling leaves, but will recover. My pepper plants came through the frost uncathed, and the Lemon Squash, came through it, covered with ripening fruit. The potatoe plants, shruged it off, as if it was nothing, and my tomato plants came through it with minimim frost damage to a few branch tips. They will recover, and keep producing. The rest of my garden is a mix of cool weather and cold weather crops, Asian greens, mustard, kale, beets, carrots, radishes, kohlrabi, snow peas, turnips, etc. I'm not done planting yet. Tomorrow or Saturday, I will be harvesting potstoes, and planting Late Nagasaki Cabbage for a January harvest, and next month, I will be planting garlic. I am going to try to keep my garden growing through the winter using hoops and greenhouse plastic. Between seasons, I top off my raised beds with compost.
Luke, I know some people who layer cardboard on their beds for the winter and remove in spring. I was considering doing the same very shortly. Is that a good idea or not? Would appreciate your input.
I flip my soil coz I add leaves in the middle. In spring the leaves broke down and the soil is perfect
Hey MIgardener, I'm a fellow gardener and just came across your channel. I like what you're saying on here. One thing I would add to your explanation is to use your fallen leaves. Just lay them on top of your garden beds. Its best if you mulch them first. All you need is an inch or two in depth. Don't mix them in. This will protect very beneficial bacteria and fungi as well as replenish biomass. It also is beneficial for your back and knees as it prevents weed growth in the garden. One thing you never want to do is bury a plant you want to keep. So plants that grow back every year from bulbs or tubers do great when burried and in my experience do so much better if they get burried in the fall under leaves. I've been doing this now for about 7 years and I do very little weeding and my garden plants get massive every year. Hostas, Helleborus, Iris, etc, until I started doing this, they never got so big.
PS: Congratulations on your newborn! very exciting times ahead for you and family! It only gets better, yep there's going to be lots of trials but the benefits outweigh them by far.
Thank you for this. We are winterizing the garden since we just had our first frost. Going to just layer leaves and rabbit fertilizer until spring.
GOOD – Hope you did not take the gov. poisoned shot, otherwise all this work for nothing
Yes, until you intend to grow dandelions for their roots, you still should be cutting the yellow flower heads off before they go to seed, like most rooted veg such as garlic. When the soil it wet enough, pull those roots out. They can be eaten or make a lovely drink with burdock. Closest thing to root beer, here in the UK.
Don't till though. If you already have done the cardboard layer, sticks and dirt to build your first bed, cut the crops you are finished with out at the base and just cover with newspaper. I can pick up free newspapers here in the UK. If you have the budget for it you can buy rolls of crafting paper or even primer wallpaper that some people use before hanging the actual wall paper of choice. Packing paper is often waxed so not advised.
If the bed is to rest i would lay out unprocessed veg like banana and potato peels direct to the bed. I have my winter/ spring compost that i would add next. If i had manure, i would also add this. Cover with a tarp or mulch and done.
If like me who is going to grow garlic and other stuff in Zone 9 London, UK, you can put food scraps in a food processor before planting. I also have a A4 crate sized, 3 tier wormery, which currently eats our veg food scraps. £2.75 per crate about 30cm x 45 cm. I picked 20 red worms from the garden. When i get to about 500 worms i relocate the bigger worms to the general composter. I put the worm castings in a bucket to dry out. I can then use it in direct distribution or make worm tea. We had lower numbers this year due to the droughts and the heat. Processing again this weekend and moving it into the workshop as out of the rain and less bugs.
I like to cover the bed again with free cardboard or mulch. I haven't had to do this much as our first frost date it Jan 1st now.
I used to like 4 miles into London and as a kid we all got excited about 4 ft of snow. 2011 we had 2 inches of snow and we all got excited unless you had to drive in the black ice through narrow roads. I remember safely 360 my car, luckily on a slightly bigger road, (you can't 360 on my road in normal conditions and often have to give way), and i reached the tiny roundabout as two cars approached. I was going down a hill so they let me through and so thankful that they were not arseholes.
Really sad that i can't show my kid real snow. By the time that they realised what it was, we now just get the odd "dusting" of snow.
I WISH my purslane would re-seed! I use it as a vegetable!
Good to see you back! Wp ut in a fall/winter garden (in Zone 8A) as a kitchen garden on our farm. I do large rows of just a few cultivars so, my rows are 100' long and I make them with regular, agucultural tillage equipment. Do you think I damaged my soil? I could have just planted in the raised rows from summer? Whatcha think? Request. An updated video on fruit tree pruning and some information on controlling blight, etc… on fruit trees. I've been fighting Powdery mildew of apple and pear all summer on trees I planted in April. Have any suggestions?
I've struggled with creeping jenny for half a decade now and I have refused to try the only REAL solution there is….until now. Got some round up and will soak my beds in a couple of weeks. I'd rather risk cancer than to completely quit gardening all together. It is absolutely maddening.
Purslane is edible food. Emergency food that is delicious and sought by hungry people in the event of catastrophe. Only a weed to a single-minded gardener. Thought you should know.
Is it still okay to add new soil to your beds in the fall?
Purslane is nutritious.
No till gardening is much better for the soil….then you don’t destroy the microbes in the garden.
I just dump leaves over my beds when the neighbors start bagging. You could lay cardboard down too. Jmo
Oh my! I always til my fall leaves into my garden. Guess I will skip adding all those nutrients that break down over the winter.
I'm doing the opposite of tilling. I plan to go around swiping all my neighbors' leaf piles like I did last year, and then when we get the trees trimmed, I'm keeping the woodchips. I have a number of plants that I'm planning to overwinter, like the scarlet runners and the chayotes, and the mulch should keep their root systems protected from the cold.
I get half a dozen questions from neighbors and townsfolk everyday. I tell them to come here. Your channel has the answers to any of their question.
This is the years year I been following. And it still catches me off guard seeing Luke bundled p in winter clothes. While we here in central Texas were sweating our asses off
Eat your purslane, it’s so good for you, it’s high in omega 3 also. So nutritious
So what do you do?
I don't till at all. I barely have weeds in my garden especially where the edibles and flowers are growing. When I see one or two, I hand-pull. Weeds mostly (try to) grow between the concretes here in my garden.
Paternity leave, lol. Just say you were taking time off to be with your wife and baby.
congrats on your new baby, I pray he grows up big and strong walking wiht his Creator…. thank you for this episode, I was gonna take care of my beds in a few weeks, now I will leave them alone
Do you till reactive clay containing silt stone?
Purslane is edible and nutritious. As is dandelion. Turn your problems into solutions…