Preparing for Jack Frost
What we do in our fall garden will greatly affect the success of our gardens next spring so don't put off putting the garden to bed, so to speak!
Till in what is left of the plants after you have harvested the fruit and vegetables from them. If you leave the plants where they are now, you will create a haven for insects, worms, and diseases. After the plants are tilled into the ground, microorganisms will break them down so they will become part of the soil. You can also put the plants in the compost pile.
If you can, plant a cover crop or an alternative. An alternative that is recommended is to mulch the areas you are going to plant in the spring. It will make the soil much easier to work. It will also act as a herbicide and discourage unwanted guests such as garden pests and diseases.
With your winter crops such as broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, celery, lettuce, beets, and carrots plant a cover right in with them such as annual ryegrass. Do not put the rye grass seed into the very same holes you plant the winter crops.
You might sow the rye in a separate row between the crops. Now we are faced with a real dilemma. What will we do with summertime plants that were not hit by the early frost? Should we pull them up to make space for the wintertime vegetables? Even if we have had a mild start to winter weather, we know to expect more severe and damaging freezes in the next few weeks. Should we gamble?
Remember last spring plants took a little longer than usual to get established. Well, a similar period this coming spring can be avoided. Preserve your old summer vegetable plants by repotting them into five-gallon buckets before Jack Frost gets to them. Now remember that many of the harmful bacteria and fungi that we are trying to avoid in our plants are helped along by having the very same soil in the containers also available to them. We have to take as much of the soil off of the plants, being careful not to injure them, and add new soil to the containers.
Prune the straggly top growth and make short main stems from it. This encourages new growth and on that growth we hope to see flowers that turn into fruit next spring.
After the plants are carefully placed in their containers, place the containers in a tunnel covered with clear plastic. To make this tunnel you need a framework. This is most easily done by using construction mesh, the 6-inch square material. Cut off a 10-foot length from the 100-foot roll you buy (you might share with a friend). The rolls come in widths of 5 or 6 feet. A 10-foot length makes a nice arch over a 4-foot bed. This can be neatly covered by a roll of clear plastic 12 feet wide and 4 to 6 mils thick. The extra two feet of the plastic enables you to anchor it down along the sides with bricks. You will need extra material to close up the ends of the tunnel.
On sunny days, keep the tunnel closed and allow moisture to build up inside. Moist air absorbs heat and holds it better than dry air. Watch the plants inside to make sure they don't get too hot, or the closed, warm atmosphere doesn't encourage aphids or molds. On really hot days open up one end, or maybe both, to cool things off and let the breezes in. Remember, don't let the soil dry out!