Keep it Simple: Disassembling the fall garden
Putting the garden to bed in the fall is quite a bit different than “assembling” the spring garden. In the spring there is of course the planting of seeds and started plants in orderly rows but there is quite a bit of prep work involved before the assembling and the laying down of seeds may commence.
The previous fall the garden was rototilled, the almost final act in “disassembling” the garden. In the spring, once the snow has finally melted away, the rows are marked and buckets of finished compost are spread along each row. Next, my “secret” homemade organic fertilizer is broadcast over the entire surface of the garden and it, along with the compost, is then tilled into the soil.
Just prior to the actual planting of seeds a small amount of store-bought organic fertilizer is sprinkled over the row and raked into the top layer of soil. Then the actual planting commences and, as we like to say in the gardening game, “the garden kicks off” and weeding, thinning and finally harvesting begins.
Now we are into fall and it is time to begin disassembling the garden. It is a bittersweet time of year; especially after a killing frost has wiped out the cold sensitive plants and most of the other vegetables as well have been harvested. The garden looks quite tired after a season of wild growth and I suspect it welcomes my labor in the act of disassembling it in preparation for the winter to come.
Disassembling the garden actually begins well in advance of fall though. As vegetables are harvested the spent plants are pulled up and set into one of my four compost bins. As sweet corn picking comes to an end the stalks are cut down, composted, and a cover crop of buckwheat is planted in its stead to add nitrogen to the soil for future gardens. Once a killing frost has occurred the tomatoes and winter squash vines meet the same fate as the corn stalks and other harvested or spent vegetables.
Once the garden has been cleared of most of the plant debris and fall crops such as carrots, beets and rutabagas are harvested it is time to fire up the rototiller and incorporate the remaining plant residue into the soil to hasten their decay and turn them into something the new garden may feast on the following year.
Once the garden has been tilled there remains one final part of disassembling the garden; well, actually it isn’t disassembling as such going on here but is instead a bit of a promise to the potential of a future garden for next year. I find the bag of multiplier onion sets I’ve saved on the shelf of the basement steps and prepare a ten-foot row in the freshly tilled soil.
Multiplier onions are a perennial plant I grow off to the side of the main garden. After flowering in mid-summer the plants produce tiny clusters of onion bulbs, or sets, at the end of each stalk,, which can be divided and planted in the fall. In the spring the bulbs send up green shoots which will later be harvested in mid-spring and used as green onions or scallions for salads and such. This will be the first crop I harvest from the garden in the spring.
Once the onion sets are planted I can stand back and think about the garden that was and the garden that will be next year. There is always a next year in the life of a gardener. To all those gardeners out there I wish yours was successful and productive and you have nothing but good thoughts of gardens to come in the future.
— Michael Jones is a columnist and contributor for the Gaylord Herald Times. He can be reached at mfomike2@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Keep it Simple: Disassembling the fall garden
