Come October I began my preparations for next year’s garden. Gardening is a year round hobby, with only a lull during the November through February months. Below are a list of chores I performed at the end of the growing season. By starting now I can avoid some of the pitfalls I faced during my first year of gardening.
Harvest all the remaining crops. The only plants still blooming were some tiny watermelons I knew hadn’t a chance to mature and my lima bean plant. The lima beans just recently started to flower, so I’m going to work around them. (Plenty of flowers, but no pods yet. They should keep growing until the first frost) I yanked all plants, roots and all, and threw them onto the compost pile. The strawberries I transplanted into barrels. Maybe next year they will bear fruit.
Rake the soil flat. I like to grow things in neat little rows. Flattening it with a metal rake between seasons allows me to remove any large rocks pushed towards the surface and break up the soil where hidden roots may remain.
Lime the soil. While my garden was already sprouting, I tested the PH of my soil after the fact using special PH Test Strips. 
Spread compost over the entire garden. All year I’ve been collecting leaves, grass clippings, and other garden waste in a big pile. Now it’s obtained a deep black soil color. I spread this compost over my recently limed soil. As the leaves fall, I will run them over with the lawn mower and put them on top of the compost.
Turn the soil over before the first snowfall. Using a spade I will turn the soil about a foot deep to mix things up further. This should give my garden plenty of organic matter come spring. By removing rocks now, my garden should be almost ready to go. I’ll turn the soil one more time come spring to aerate the soil.
Plan next year’s garden. Never too early to think about what you want to grow for next year. Already I am planning on strawberries, baby watermelons, a new variety of tomato, new variety of corn, and some berries. Gone are the carrots. I just don’t enjoy eating them that much. The wife would like to see Chinese cabbage and chives. Remember, you don’t want to grow the same crop on the same spot 2 years in a row. Because of the partial shade my garden receives, I’ll be particularly looking at items with short growing seasons. Maybe I’ll even try to grow a turnip. Lot’s of planning to go!
Plurk This Post 
Buzz This Post 
Delicious 
Digg This Post 
Ping This Post 
Reddit 
Stumble This Post
My hanging tomato plant experiment didn’t do so well this year, but as they say, there’s always next year! It could have been the variety of tomato I bought. It kept getting blossom end rot even though I used a spray on them. We are planning a couple raised beds for our back yard next year. Have you thought of growing kohlrabi? We love to eat it raw or even chunk it up in with potatoes. They are of the cabbage family with a more mild flavor. I dread when the garden catalogs come…my husband will want one of everything!
Have you looked into planting potatoes in a large garbage bin with straw?
Thanks for all the great tips and good advice!
Carol, I’m not even sure what kohlrabi is, I had to google it. Looks like a combination of cabbage and turnips. Kohlrabi belongs to the family Brassica. All plants in this family hate acidic soil. My broccoli seeds didn’t even sprout last year. If my liming of the soil works as planned, I will certainly consider growig brassica’s, as they grow wonderfully in partial shade.
Regarding blossom end rot, rapid changes in temperature, too much water, or a lack of calcium are the prime culprit. My father used to save eggshells all year, then bury them in the soil beofre planting tomatoes. I just use a calcium spray once I see the fruit begin developing. This year I was afraid my entire crop would be ruined by B.E.R.. Instead, only the first 3-4 Roma tomatoes that ripened suffered. The majority of the Roma’s and Beffstake tomatoes were just fine.
No potato plans in a barrel yet. I transplanted the strawberries to a big planter, and I’m considering the idea of growing watermelons on a second story porch and letting the vines hang down. They’d get far more sun that way.
I noticed our public city-gardeneres prepared the flowerbeds for the winter yesterday, they do a great job. They are using bark to cover the soil which they remove again after the winter. Do you use bark as well? I struggled to find an english word for it, its bark in Norwegian too.
Øyvind. The word you are looking for is “mulch”. Mulch can be anything that provides a groundcover. Compost, grass clippings, stone, bark, wood chips, peanut shells, almost everything can serve as mulch. Obviously, something that decomposes over the winter and provides organic fertilizer is best. I’d love to use bark, but I haven’t purchased a wood chipper yet. My wood chipper fund is only up to $187, so I use a combination of fresh grass clippings, shredded leaves, and compost. Besides fertilizing, mulch retains water while preventing weeds from growing.
You stopped by my blog…you made some great points about Entrecard, and I’m sure that a lot of people agree with you. I also wasn’t aware that w/ Adsense, you could block certain ads. There are one or two that offend me…I’ll have to go look into it.
Glancing through the gardening info. I’ll have to come back later and look more. Seems like a great site!
Jennie
Jennifer, I used to post quite a bit about EC. If you use my blog’s search feature you can find many posts on that ad netowork. Their misgivings were what inspired me to start my own network, CMF Ads.
I know nothing about gardening, the one time I tried tomatoes it was a real disaster. So I think its cool when someone can really get a nice garden going. And of course, you need to put some Turnips in!
I am a beginner in gardening field, so it will be the first time when I prepare my own garden for winter holidays. After reading all these helpful tips I hope I will begin to feel myself more confident. Definatelly I will take into consideration all recommendations inluded in this post. Most likely this will help.