How do I put my vegetable garden to bed for the winter?

[appleblossom]

This is my first vegetable garden. I live in Massachusetts. I successfully grew tomatoes, squash, and cukes. Now, what to I do to take care of my garden for happy veggies next yr.?

[Charlie MV]

I plan on tilling, raking and sewing winter rye but I don't know what to tell you up there in the frozen tundra.

[petalfuzz]

I'm planning on:

removing spent plants
spreading out some compost and tilling it in a few inches
covering with raked leaves (although they might blow away--still thinking this part through)

I'm also going to be dividing my daylilies for the first time. Whoo hoo, exciting!

Oh, and I'm going to take advantage of some recent rains and the dead grass to create a new gardening bed. I'll just remove the sod and spread compost, till in a few inches and cover with leaves like the others.

[SG6]

On the assumption that you cannot be too different I have just cleared mine out forwinter rest.

I added a fertiliser - pelleted chicken manure, scattered some compost over the ground then dug the whole lot over.

I added quite a bit of chicken pellets, because I did not want to increase the overall height of the bed by anything substantial. The compost was stuff that I had grown vegetable in in pots and simply will hopefully add something but mainly make the structure a bit lighter/open.

After that it gets left for the winter.

Suggest that you add some fertiliser, composted manure, then dig it in and leave the ground for the winter. To prevent unwanted growth you could cover the ground to prevent weed growth.

[delmarvagardener]

This is all very good information as I am getting ready to plant my first vegetable garden next year. I went over the area with my tiller to losen up the ground. I am kind of wonder what all should be done to this area before winter. The area has always just been lawn and I don't know what all I should add to get ready for spring. Would all of the previous post represents the same work I should do on my own garden area?

[SG6]

I would guess that you need to turn over the soil to a fair depth as the soil will have become compacted over time. The recommendation is to double dig it and to incorporate manure at the time.

This leads me to wonder if you intend to edge the area with anything or if you intend to develop it as a raised bed. Edgeing it would separate it from the remainder of the grass. Depends on where the new veg area is positioned.

Winter is basically a time to prepare the bed for the next year and at the chance of being told several alternatives I count it as digging, incorporating manure/fertiliser and then leaving it to rest, while planning the next round of planting. Just done mine about 10 hours ago. Now to plan.

[delmarvagardener]

Funny you should mention edging the garden. Ever since I decided to tiller up my yard for my new garden I have been debating that very thing. I am definitely not planning on making it a raised bed. I was considering using some old 4X4X8 posts I have as a border to the entire garden. I was thinking that if I drillled holes through the posts I could just hold them in place with some spikes for easy removal. I would like to be able to get them out of the way when needed so they don't get in the way of my tiller. I imagine I will need to do something for edging or the grass will creep in on my next spring and summer.

[smokensqueal]

My step dad doesn't have any edging. He just tilled up a large patch of yard. But when he plants in the spring he always leaves an area of dirt that he can take his small hand tiller and till around the whole garden when the grass decides to start creeping in.

[delmarvagardener]

That sounds like the simplest solution to me. I think I will go with than instead of doing all of the work putting down the posts and having to move them out of the way to use the tiller. Thanks

[bigduke06]

[quote="petalfuzz"]I'm planning on:

removing spent plants
spreading out some compost and tilling it in a few inches
covering with raked leaves (although they might blow away--still thinking this part through)

I'm also going to be dividing my daylilies for the first time. Whoo hoo, exciting!

Oh, and I'm going to take advantage of some recent rains and the dead grass to create a new gardening bed. I'll just remove the sod and spread compost, till in a few inches and cover with leaves like the others.[/quote]

What I do is rake all my leaves into my garden and cover it with a tarp (one of those brown plastic ones you get from home depot) and weight it down with bricks.
In the spring I'll empty out one of my compost bins (for use in the garden) and then I'll rake all of the winter leaves into the compost bin and run my rototiller over the garden and the compost bin.