Getting garden ready for winter

[razz]

Woohooo!!!!

DD2 was home for a Thanksgiving visit and we got the flowerbeds around the house cleaned up, dogwood shrub pruned, euonymus with scale disease dug out, veggie garden weeded and rototilled, 4 varieties of garlic planted and ideas for problem areas examined. Love how some extra hands make life so much easier. There was so much to do that I was feeling overwhelmed but what is left is doable. We even have enouhg wood cut and split for winter.

Afterwards we took off for a 1.5 -2 hour hike at a conservation park that I rarely get to explore and took some neat pictures of reflections in the water. I must see if I can load them to my album and post them.

How is everyone else doing with fall preparations?

[Gardenarian]

Cut back my morning glories practically to the ground (boy that fence looks nasty!) I bought a pair of elbow length leather gloves - I've been wanting them forever - and it makes working in the garden so much easier! No morning glory itch!
Removed some volunteers (echium, fortnight lily) that I was debating keeping. I get so many volunteers that the garden is looking very like a jungle - somethings have just got to go.
Also removed a couple of daisy trees that I never liked since we bought our house but couldn't stomach killing.
I'm feeling very ruthless these days!
Mowed everything down. Waiting for January to transplant a bunch of stuff.

[Mrs-M]

Typically, our garden falls by wayside, come fall.... too many other things to tackle and straighten before the snow hits.

Flowerbed weeding, raking, a final lawn-mowing, window-cleaning (outside and in), and hydrating ornamental plantings, reins supreme come October. I love the look of everything fresh and tidy for the first snowfall, and a nice clean-cut lawn, free of leaves and debris and such, never fails to draw me outside for a walk-around on mornings where the air is crisp and a covering of heavy frost blankets the ground.

[Tweety]

It took me a few days...OK, a week, to prep all of the house plants and bring them in for the winter. Hard frost was promised for last night, so yesterday I picked that last of the pole beans and all of the green tomatoes. Today I made sweet green tomato relish and put it in jars for Christmas gifts.
The sugar maples out front are at their beautiful peak of color, which means that they will be doing the big dump any day.
So...still to do before it snows: rake the maple leaves off the front lawn, tidy up the perennial beds, clean out the veggie garden and prune the raspberry canes.
Put the assorted pots of dead annuals in the garage, put the hoses and garden tools away.
Clean the garage and tuck all the summer toys (motorcycle, kayak, bicycle, etc.) to one side so the car will fit in again.
What am I doing fooling around on the computer?

[puglogic]

We'll be building several compost piles and a sheet mulch garden bed (for next year's potatoes) this weekend. Garlic will go in, every bit of bare garden soil will get mulched, and wood stacked and split. This is a favorite time of year for us.

[Float On]

I'm desperate to get out in the gardens and can't.

[RosieTR]

I have a lot to do, starting with the slumping dead tomato plants. Definitely need to pull all of the dead plants out then add compost and mulch. With the leaves that I also need to rake. After I pick up the dog doo amongst the leaves so it doesn't get added to mulch. Never mind the planting of perennials and laying of weed cloth and mulch that needs done as well, nor the planting of a couple of peach trees I'd planned to do this fall. Yikes, this will take til the ground is frozen even if I start tomorrow!

[Blackdog Lin]

Reviving this thread, as we just got around to our outdoor work.

Rosie - goodness, what a list! How has it been going?

Float On - it must be horrible. Trying to have patience is horrible. I hope you're on the mend enough now to get outside a little.

We've had two weeks of fairly spectacular fall weather, and decided we had to quit procrastinating and take advantage of it. Last week finished emptying all the flowerpots and taking care of the debris (though the pots themselves are still all sitting in a pile waiting to go to the barn). Over the weekend DH bushhog'd the back pasture - then he went out yesterday to do the south pasture and the tractor won't stay running. Sigh. That tractor is forever a hit-and-miss operation. Well, usually he figures it out eventually. He also burned the back fencerow (weeds) on a calm afternoon - and boy! isn't it nice to sit on the patio and look out on a pretty and nicely cleaned up back fence and pasture. Yesterday and today finally got into the garden: have everything pulled but the tomato plants/cages. The tomato (2) rows were a jungle; we needed a machete but didn't have one, and had to make do with clippers. They're all cleaned out, but not actually pulled. Tomorrow, maybe.

We still have the row of broccoli, and a few romaine plants, that we're babying along hoping to get a little fall crop. Time's a running out.....

Who else? Any other late/procrastinating gardeners?

[rodeosweetheart]

Who else? Any other late/procrastinating gardeners?

Getting ready to protect the rosebushes and my avocado trees (little starts from avocado pits--one is about 3 feet tall now),and my gingerplant that grew from a ginger root. Maybe reverse the tomato cages over them and put burlap? Want to pile hay around the rose bushes, which are still trying to bloom.

Love hay, do the Ruth Stout kind of garden.