By: Rob Ryan
With the cold weather approaching, we take down the garden and let the soil ‘rest’ for the winter. This is called putting the garden to bed. Our goal is replenishing the soil with nutrients for next year’s growth, and putting down an insulating barrier on top to prevent the good bacteria and fungi from freezing in the winter.
This is the garden before. Frost nipped, with a few hardy leafy greens still going.
The first step is to pick anything of value from your garden. Tomatoes will ripen off the vine, so pick the green ones and store them in a paper bag. Leafy greens can be stored in bags in the freezer for winter meals, and viable seeds should be saved for next year’s garden. Tomato cages and other temporary structures are removed and set aside.
Now chop everything down! This year I’m experimenting with a no-till method, which preserves the fungi and bacteria in the soil while keeping the roots intact to stop compaction.
Any vines or unwanted leafy greens should be left on the ground as mulch to protect the soil and slowly decompose. Leave roots intact.
The next (optional) step is to throw some compost and mix it in with the stalks, leaves, etc from the chop. This creates a layer of organic to decompose and add further nutrients to the soil next year. Here we used compost from our on-site compost bin, which is a mixture of weeds, llama manure, and crushed apples. If you don’t have a compost pile, manure is usually available from farmers for free or cheap (make sure to do your research; some manure, especially fresh, can be too ‘hot’ and burn your plants, although this means to just add a small amount). Chemical nutrients, bacterial cultures, mushroom spawn, etc. can all be added at this point.
The next (optional) step is to add some mulch or browns to insulate the bacteria in the soil and compost. We used garden city top-dress to prevent weeds and raise the height of the soil in our beds. Because we usually put plant starts in the ground instead of seed, mulch is a good option. But if you prefer to start from seeds make sure to use topsoil instead!
Leaves! Leaves are cheap and abundant. No excuse for not using these! Leaves insulate the soil and create heat as they decompose (if you have a thick enough layer, so pile them on!). If leaves are somehow inconvenient to obtain, a layer of straw also works well.
Gardening is a surprisingly forgiving process and any one of these things can improve your garden for next year. If any of these steps is inconvenient, just don’t do it! Try to avoid leaving bare soil exposed for the winter, as this freezes and kills all the good stuff and you’ll have a bunch of crumbly soil come spring. Just walking out to the street and grabbing an armful of leaves to cover your garden makes a huge difference!
One thing that helps with sustainable gardening is creating a ‘story’ that mimics something that would take place in nature. So in the case of putting this garden to bed; winter was coming, a bunch of animals came and picked the fruit and trampled everything (chopping) and pooped everywhere (compost). Then a big decaying tree fell down on it (mulch), then leaves from the surrounding trees came down and covered it all up! Trying to mimic nature (in broad strokes) creates and environment where soil bacteria thrives, and waste products are converted into living soil for the yummy plants next year!
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