Back to the garden

The last of the flowers cut from the garden. From my instagram feed.

This weekend was another story entirely and I took advantage of the beautiful fall days to get a few things taken care of. The first thing I did was a very thorough cleaning of the raised garden. I’ve found that it’s very important to get every bit of plant material and every stray tomato out of there to ensure the soil’s health. I plant that garden pretty intensely, which I get away with by adding lots of compost and babying it a bit, but that means it’s all that much more prone to diseases, so the more I can remove in fall, the better.

Last year it worked out very well to heel the plants I didn’t have a chance to plant in the garden into the raised bed and I intend to do the same this year. I just covered them with a ton of chopped leaves (no shortage of those at our house) which helps protect the young plants during winter and then get turned into the soil in spring.

I also cleaned out the containers that were spent, including the large container by the front door with the  papyrus ‘King Tut’ in the center. It always amazes me how many roots that plant puts out in a summer, which is exactly why I contain it in a three-gallon nursery pot that I sink into the container. I have no doubt it would take over the container if I didn’t.

Check out all those roots!