Gardening Preparation For Next Year

Well, for most of us who have labored over our vegetable gardens, it's that time of year to prepare for next year. What, now you might ask? You bet, right now.

After you've cleaned up your garden taking all the old stalks, roots etc out, you should think about giving your garden a little extra boost over the winter months. Sure, you're going to add some of that great compost to your garden next spring before planting, but what about now. No, I don't mean adding any fertilizers either.

Here's what I did. I used two different methods to add leaves to my raised beds to help build up my clay bound soil. First of all, I mowed my leaf-strewn lawn in a circular fashion using the power of my mower to blow the leaves toward one central pile. Once, I started to blow mulched leaves beyond the circle I needed, I stopped and gathered the mulched leaves into my wheelbarrow.

By this time, the leaves, for the most part, had been partially shredded by my mulching lawn mower. I then wheeled over to my raised garden beds and added several large bunches of shredded leaves to each bed. I used my gardening spade to turn them into the soil so that over the winter they would decompose as much as possible.

I also used slightly decomposed leaves that I had left on the ground until just before the first few freezing cold nights. I raked these soggy leaves into several piles, and then put one pile at a time in a plastic trash barrel. I got out my trusty Craftsman 15.6 volt cordless drill, attached my paint mixer, and proceeded to mix the barrel full of leaves at high speed until I had a nice mushy leaf mixture. Try to avoid too soupy a mix - it's too hard to scoop out by hand.

After my mixing fun, I simply took my garbage can over to my garden beds and mixed several scoops into my soil. Now, I'm ready to let nature run its course over the winter knowing that I've certainly helped build my soil for a better gardening season next year. You can too!