It’s getting on toward that time when I’ll be done with the garden for another year. Sigh.
I cleaned up the raised beds over the weekend. I chopped and dropped plants that aren’t going to go the distance before the frost comes. I cleared the garage of the cardboard boxes I’ve been saving all summer and and laid those down in the beds. I’m emptying pots of dirt onto the cardboard as things in the pots die back. I’ll keep adding cardboard to the beds over the winter as I get boxes, and as they break down they’ll hold back some of the weeds that come up in the spring till I can get in there and work the beds. This is one of my lazy gardener methods that has paid off for me over time, and I like anything that saves me hassle and makes my earthworm population happy at the same time.
I’m keeping some of the pots of Midnight Snack cherry tomatoes going, although I pruned them back pretty solidly. I took off the dead-ish stuff and whatever’s going on now can finish up and then those will be tipped out as well. I found these to be almost obnoxiously prolific and quite tasty, and I’ll very likely do them again next year.
I tidied up the herb beds while I was at it. I took cuttings of oregano, lemon balm, and mint for potting up on the porch over the winter. Nothing livens up a lame-o frozen pizza like fresh oregano and fresh basil. I’m looking forwad to mint tea and lemon balm tea this winter as well. The garlic chives took well, and I’m looking forward to cutting those next spring. I do think I’m going to chop and drop the mint and the anise hyssop before the frost, though. It’s getting out of hand and it really needs to be curbed.
I plan to take a lesson from the Garden of Edison, which I visited recently to donate a garden bench made extraneous when I cleaned out my garage a few weeks back preparing for winter. I greatly admire their mission to feed people who need fresh produce. They grow a LOT of stuff and they give it all away. I was impressed on this last visit with their set up for potatoes, which I think I’ll do on the edges of the herb beds next spring. They grow them in tires, which is brilliant, as you can just add more tires as the plants get taller. You may remember my growing potatoes for lazy people post, linked here, where I explain how easily you can grow a ton of potatoes with very little effort and zero digging.
The lettuce bed in my new high trug container bolted before I could get it all harvested, but believe me, there were many, many salads and sandwiches made immeasurably better with fresh lettuce this summer. I cleaned that out yesterday and reseeded it with Salad Bowl and Grand Rapids lettuces, and Royal Purple radishes. Once the Midnight Snack tomato plant that’s in there is done, I’ll be putting dwarf kale in there as well.
The tomato bed by the kitchen door was a major success this year! Arkansas Traveler is one of the most rambunctious tomatoes I’ve ever grown – you turn your back on it and when you look again you have 10 more tomatoes. My beefsteaks are coming around, and I’m looking forward to some final BLTs with Mr. Stripey and Big Rainbow tomatoes. Once those plants have died back, I’ll replace them in that bed with Oxheart carrots, Waltham broccoli, and Nero di Toscana kale. I plan to hoop this bed with plastic and grow through the winter in it. Being close to the house as it is, and facing east in front of a white wall, I figure it will be easier to keep it at growing temps for these cold season crops.
Tonight I potted up my herb cuttings and inventoried my seeds for next year. I am going to hang the grow lights on the porch again this year but I learned quite a bit after losing a number of plants to freeze last year, even on the enclosed porch. I’ll stick to things that do well with cooler weather like greens and radishes and carrots.
These last few months have been consumed with my work on Canadiana Fest, which is coming up on October 7 in downtown Kalamazoo. The brains behind this idea is my longtime friend Channon Mondoux and I said back in May I’d give her a hand starting up a new festival about the delights of our neighbor to the north, Canada. That’s turned into many hours of work on this festival, and as come into the home stretch I’m busier with it than usual. Working in the garden has done much to calm my mind, and we all need to do that from time to time.
I hope you’ve all had a satisfying summer growing season, and I’ll be back with more posts as the fall and winter growing season unfolds.
The Amy Experience 