Fall Garden - Clean up Time!

Fall is here and it’s time to clean up the garden! This weekend I pulled out the zucchini, a dozen ragged statice plants,some overgrown chard and a spent cucumber plant. Once everything is pulled out it’s a great time to add compost to refill your raised beds and get them ready for spring planting. I bought bags of Gro Mulch compost at Home Depot for $5.00 each. Make sure to read the ingredients. You want a mix of manure and compost and not just “forest products”.  And, after you clean up  you can plant a few bulbs for a burst of color and fragrance come spring!

First, clean up the garden beds and add compost .I love the nice clean look but I couldn’t pull out the dahlias, which need to stay until they really send all the energy back into the tuber (a few more weeks), or the beans that I planted in late July which are just now giving us a few meals!  And, I left the Big Boy tomatoes and the Sweet 100 plant since they’re still giving us a crop!

Next I planted bulbs to enjoy next spring. The fragrance of Freesias is my absolute favorite scent.  The yellow ones smell the strongest but I put in an assortment of orange, yellow and blue since that’s what came in the huge Costco bag of bulbs. (Costco has huge bags of large bulbs for an incredible price every fall!)

Since any dirt not already planted in my garden is too full of tree roots to turn over, I planted all my bulbs in barrels or boxes and eventually they will all be over planted with pansies!

Next up: Garlic! I planted 20 bulbs in two long rows to try it out for the first time:

I followed the instructions above which came with the bulbs I bought at Harmony Farms. Can’t wait till next spring/summer to see how they do!

With all this cleaning and digging I still had to make time for my daily “chat with the chickens”. I love to sit on the bench I put just outside their coop and watch them go crazy for the treats I give them. A few green bean leaves and a watermelon rind and they’re in heaven.  They certainly aren’t afraid of Chloe are they:

Have fun in your fall garden and get ready for spring at the same time!