Putting My Gardens To Bed For The Winter

A wheelbarrow full of donkey manure.  I felt my vegetable garden sigh with each shovelful.  Done for the season at last.  I only left a little kale corner, since it’s still growing.  I cover them in leaves though.  I’m sure they’ll come back in spring as they did this year.

After the manure, I spread some leave and hay then covered it all in cardboard.  All those Tingley boots that Jon bought for the Miller’s, our Amish neighbors, came in nice big boxes.  Perfect for my garden.

 

The bricks hold down the cardboard (I think every farm has old bricks laying around) and I wove the giant sunflower face into the rebar trellis for the birds.

The sunflower for the birds on the trellis

While I was throwing manure and scavenging bricks, Suzy sent me a text asking if I’d like some Succotash beans…the Narragansett Indian variety for next year. She even sent me a picture of the soft black beans with a pale brown circle on the bottom of each where the root springs from.  She warned me that they’re pole beans and will grow tall.

I thought how perfect they’d be growing up my trellis instead of morning glories.

Dahlias in the root cellar

I also finished digging up my Dahlias today. Now they’re all in paper bags, marked with the type of dahlia and in the root cellar.

I do like that I get to use our root cellar, even if it’s just for storing flowers and my fig tree in the winter.  It’s a fine room in our basement.  Some of the whitewashed plaster is peeling, but the shelves that used to hold canned vegetables and fruits are in lovely original condition.  There’s even bars on the two windows that used to be the only light source.  Now there’s a bare bulb with a pull string right next to the door. And the floor has been paved with slate.

I think I got everything done in all the gardens that need to be done for the winter.

The Hibiscus bush is mulched, the birdbath in the barn and the bird feeder filled.

There is a carpet of crab apples next to the dahlia garden that I’ve been gathering to feed to the donkeys and sheep that I didn’t get to finish picking up.  But I can do that a little at a time till the snow comes.  And whatever is left will just help to keep the Hydrangea bush pink next fall.

 

One thought on “Putting My Gardens To Bed For The Winter

  1. you should just rake the crab apples up and put them in a box in your barn someplace to give the donkeys during the early winter months. They won’t go bad in the barn. I store apples in boxes on my porch. I put paper bags under them and then cover them with paper bags and when I want to use them I go out on the porch and take a few and cover them again. Apples get put in cold storage all the time to sell in the stores till next year.

    1. That’s just what I’m doing Susan. I have a pail full in the barn already. I’m going to put paper under them and over them like you suggest. Thanks!

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