Before the freeze

Come visit my table at Celebrate Newton, a holiday craft fair, on Sunday December 2 from 10 to 4.


Despite interruption by early snow, I’ve spent the past week hurrying to prepare the garden for winter. A list of chores always looms as the light for working outdoors shortens and the ground gets ready to freeze.

Snow already! Time to rush through the last garden tasks

    Number one on the list is gathering in as many fallen leaves as possible and spreading them around the garden. This fall I’ve reverted to shredding leaves to mulch the new perennial beds at the back of the house. I’ve been shredding less since learning that whole leaves shelter insects and other animals through the winter. 

Letting whole leaves lie for shelter

Last spring I found I had to peel back layers of whole leaves I’d piled on these new beds to uncover the emerging young perennials below. That would have been OK, but once those leaves were gone, there was no mulch left on the bare soil between plants. The thin layer of bark mulch I'd applied when I planted the new perennials had long since decomposed. Until the plants grow to full size, I think they'll need some shredded leaf mulch.

     Everywhere else in the yard, I’m piling up whole leaves. My neighbor Pat kindly donated her bags of raked leaves. I go out periodically and collect leaves from nearby sidewalks and gutters, piling them on a tarp to drag into the backyard. 

Precious cargo

At this point, the drifts of fluffy leaves look way too deep, but I know they’ll settle to a reasonable layer of a few inches as the winter comes on.

    I’d hoped to use potting mix from the large pots that hold my container plantings to layer on top of the grass where I’m planning to enlarge a bed. Cold weather came too soon, though. Starting that new planting area with layers of cardboard, wood chips and compost will have to wait until late winter, when some tree pruning should provide me with a big pile of wood chips. 
  
    Frost reminded me to move hoses and watering cans into the garage or basement. 

Time to put away the hoses

The last job of all will be to wash the large ceramic and plastic pots and move them indoors. Freezing and thawing outdoors through the winter shortens the lives of pots and hoses. I eventually store all the pots in the basement but never get around to washing them until the garden is completely dormant.

I'll wash ceramic pots and store them in the basement--eventually

    A few end-of-fall tasks prepare for indoor gardening. I sifted finished compost from one of my piles, transferred it to a bucket, and ferried it into a large plastic garbage bin in the basement. There it’s available to mix with coir—coconut fiber--for making homemade potting mix. I’ll use that to proselytize for moving beyond peat-based potting mix, giving out little sample bags when I visit garden clubs.

    Saturday I picked out amaryllis bulbs at the garden center. With compost and coir in the basement, I’m ready to pot those bulbs in peat-free potting mix. We’ll enjoy their giant flowers in the warm kitchen while winter rages outside.

Amaryllis flowers light up the dark months-photo pizzodisevo