YOU NEED to grow MORE food next year…(DO THIS RIGHT NOW!)
Okay today we're going to be talking About putting your garden to bed for Winter I have found that is very very Valuable to do a lot of the work in the Fall and get your garden all prepped for Springtime now so that when spring rush Comes you are ready to go We're going to want to go ahead and rake These all up you guys okay believe well There's yeah there's a lot of leaves and Beans and we're not going to want to Leave those here Do that okay there's about four or five Things that are really important to do This time of year besides getting the Harvest in obviously we want to harvest Our garden Harvest our root crops Harvest all our vegetables but there's There's about four or five things that I Want to cover here that are really Really valuable to do right now instead Of the spring and what a lot of people Do is they take care of their Harvest And then they just leave the garden it's Getting cold it's getting wet yeah it's Easy to just let it go and then hey I'll Come out and do it all in the spring That seems like the natural time to get Going right but if you take some steps Now you're going to improve the Productivity of your garden and you're Just going to make spring easier spring Is like there's just so much going on And hitting us sometimes that you know
I'm never going to be able to get rid of All the work so I definitely want to Make it as easy as possible after we've Harvested the fruits of our labors here In the garden there's some cleanup Things we want to do and one of the First ones is to start taking the plants Out right and just cleaning out out this Vegetation and hopefully getting into The compost and recycling it we'll talk About that just for a minute at the end Of the video but we want to get all of Our plants out and what most people do Is they come and they pull the plants Out they pull them up you can see here We're just finishing up beans we haven't Pulled them up we are cutting them at The soil level and cutting the plants Out and you know here's why one it's More work to you know pull the plants Out you're removing some of the soil and You're removing that organic matter that Is already there those roots are are Full of organic matter they're full of Nutrition and why remove that when you Can just leave it in the soil cut it off And let the soil decompose it right in Place on a first year Garden things Might decompose kind of slow over the Winter time but as you build your garden And you build soil and you get Biological activity even your corn Stalks are going to break down by the Time you go to plant next season not
Only only are you minimizing your work And leaving your soil system in contact A little bit that root structure as it Breaks down also leaves places for all The different life the worms the Nematodes all the different bugs and Stuff to move through it creates a Pathway for water and oxygen which is Essential and that's why we till a lot Right is to is to improve that tilt well As we're moving away from Towing your Soil does compact a little bit but by Leaving the root structure in you're Just helping build your soil and you're Minimizing your work I love it when Those two things come together so we're Going to do that across the garden Except for root crops and even right Here I'll show you on a cabbage these Are a few straggling cabbages they Haven't really done much we put them Late in the season but we're not going To let them go to waste point is right At the ground Cut that right off That's all we got to do now we'll still Use some of this cabbage even though It's a straggler and so we just want to Do that with everything Right at the soil level yes the soil is Not great for your tools but It's okay I think it's more important To get that done these can be sharpened Then we just leave it right at soil
Level as we can a little bit sticking up Is okay and that's it and so we do that With just about everything in the garden Cut it down to ground level [Music] Foreign We want to do is clean up any debris we Want to get rid of any of our plant Markers anything that you find left Around and then we're going to go ahead And remove all of this debris because I'm going to be adding compost here now If you had enough you could just mulch With it but I'm going to be adding Compost to these beds and I don't really Want to cover this material up so we're Just going to take this out add it to The compost pile and basically prep all Of our rows and get them all ready to go And ready to amend the soil we have a Few straggler mushrooms you also want to Cut these off you don't want to pull Your mushrooms out of the soil so this Is just kind of a clean up here these Guys are a little early they're not Quite ready but we want to get these Beds cleaned up so we do want to leave This here for these mushrooms to come up Next year [Music] Foreign [Music] Just got to go a little closer over There there you go okay a couple other
Things here when it comes to removing Vegetation here we've got a cover crop That we planted late in the season and What we're going to do with this in a Little bit is to basically just cut it Down same thing at soil level and you Can either remove it or what we'll Probably do here is just cut it down to The soil and leave it in place and let It break down it's pretty nice and Orderly this is real green this will Probably even start breaking down now This season I like to get it down now You could wait but I like as you're Going to hear me say to get everything In contact with the soil because one of The things we're doing by prepping the Garden this fall is helping accelerate The biological process in the spring as Things start to warm up we're getting All our materials out here now so that That spring process really gets things Going because it starts happening Earlier than you think and so we're Getting a jump on just the whole spring Season after we've done that we want to Tidy up our rows and you know these are Pretty good shape right here but they do Get a little bit out of shape sometimes I'll come in and even restring line them These are 30 inch Beds which is what I Work with because there's several tools Like this garden rake right here that's Very very helpful I'm just going to come
Along and even my beds out so that They're nice and tidy and even ready to Go to lay something on top of them Got some plant roots we're going to hit That's okay Foreign You'll see as I'm cleaning this row up And I'm just going down one way and back The other that's all it'll need you see This pipe laying here That was the main line from one of our Sprinklers if you're in an area where it Freezes you're going to want to make Sure and winterize your watering system For us that's just pulling all the Risers off and the sprinkler heads and Putting them away draining the hoses And that's been done here and this hose Will actually just stay out here in the Garden and it's just fine all the ends Are open and all the water's out so I'm Not worried about any breakage And it'll be there for us in the spring We've got our row all taken care of This year I'm feeling pretty good about It like I said every other year or so I Might run string lines and just make Sure things are staying straight and in Place but this rake here is really Helpful because it's it's the right Width this is a really really good rake You can get this from Johnny seeds I Absolutely love it so next thing we're Going to want to do is add compost
Oh that's looking good Hannah that looks Real nice Yup just try to get the edges there a Little bit too as you miss them okay Very nice Let's see and I need a wheelbarrow Next we want to add our compost Basically our soil amendment you could This would also be a good time to add a Complete organic fertilizer if you're Doing that I'm pretty simple it's Usually just compost sometimes what we Call the seaof to complete organic Fertilizer I'd actually maybe do that Before the compost then lay it over it We make all of our compost on site now And sometimes it gets rocks and bigger Stuff in it so you don't necessarily Have to sift it I'm doing this more to Just make sure I don't have any rocks or Bigger things in here Foreign [Music] Break some of the bigger pieces up Usually I use the sifter for a for like Potting soil this is pretty fine it's Finer than I need it to be For the garden soil So I'm just going to get the big chunks Out this is quarter inch hardware cloth I should make a bigger one maybe with Like half inch hardware cloth But you know I'm getting rocks out Sticks you may not have that problem if
You're making a compost with a different Environment but we're doing it on such a Scale here That it definitely Gets a little more stuff in it but see I Don't even mind some of this this is Just pieces of soil that haven't broken Up yet It's not going to hurt anything it's Going to continue to break down that's a Bigger chunk of something but I'll go Ahead and dump that in here Okay And we'll do this again until we get a Full wheelbarrow [Music] If you're making your own compost don't Stress on whether it's 100 finished or Not or even if it's still a little bit Hot it's going to finish breaking down Out there in your garden so you know you Want it mostly done You can see this is pretty done but They're still larger pieces of organic Material and that is okay And you know we just got to the point Where we're making this much compost Here in the last two years and so One of the things I need to do is a much Larger compost sifter This part right now is A little laborious a larger compost Sifter some of you have sent me some Designs on some of the automated Barrel
Ones or you know powered Barrel ones That is a great idea That is on my list of projects [Music] And you want to throw the throw the ball For the dog once in a while [Music] So now it's just time to spread it And the biggest question you're probably Going to have is how thick if you're in Your first couple years of a garden Put as much on as you can Inch or two is fine you really want to Build the soil up as you get to your Three and four and your Garden's really Getting active And depending on the quality of your Compost you can get down I still do About a half inch to an inch I'm not Really worried about it I'm making Plenty a really good compost you could Definitely get down to you know half Inch or so we'll put this on I want to Try to keep my rows Pretty tidy So I'm not going to get super particular With the shovel I'm just going to lay it in Now I'm going to talk about mulching in A minute But this is effectively For what I'm doing here in my mulch Yeah and this compost Reason being for our beds here we're in
A cold pocket And things really warm up slowly and When I was topping this with regular you Know wood shaving mulch It was taking a long time for the soil To warm up so I didn't do that And There are some other guys and I'm Thinking of Paul gauchy specifically I Got to spend some time with him this Summer in his Gardens and he's basically Taking sifted wood chips okay but those Of those wood chips have been made with Green material and Woody material and Broken down so partially composted so It's got a full profile it's not Browns It's greens and brown and he's layering Right like this and that's it and I've Gone to doing that on my bed this whole Garden is like that some of it goes to The chicken coop and gets mixed in and Get some chicken manure in it but he Does it just like this and doesn't add Another layer of just big wood chips on It there's benefits to both I think but I've gone to that way more here and it's Working real well for me I do want to Smooth it out and try to get a good even Cover I like this little leaf rake a Little better for this job The idea is just to try to get Our compost spread out Evenly over the beds I don't mind a few little leaves
Whatever a few little rocks I try to get As many of the rocks out as I can but I Don't mind a few So I'll tell you what it's a lot easier To do this right now Than it is in the spring the weather's Still decent I mean it's cool you maybe Can't tell it it's definitely low 40s Right now but this is good working Weather and we're going to do this Throughout the whole garden as we finish Removing crops And this bed essentially is ready to go For the spring there's really nothing You need to do unless you want to loosen The soil I do that with a broad fork and Come in with a broad Fork if you've seen One of those I've got a video we'll try To put up a link to that for that using The broad fork and that just aerates the Soil without telling it without turning It over but I wouldn't do that until the Spring that's the one thing I would say For the spring because with the rain and The snow you do get some settling in Your soil and so doing that in the Spring is going to help loosen things up A little bit however for this year for The first time I'm not going to do that At all this is a conversation I had with Paul Paul gauchi from back to eat and Gardening and he really challenged me to Just see how my garden did without even Doing that he said you're working too
Hard Josh you don't you don't need to do That it's too much work so so I'm going To try it I'm still going to recommend Especially first second third year Garden you loosen that up you leave the Root plants in and that's going to help Soften that soil I'm going to go ahead And I'm going to go with it right like This in the spring and plant right in it And see how that goes for me and I'm Sure it will do really really well I'll Be curious to see if I think it does as Well as a broad forking but it's Certainly not going to hurt anything and It's less work if that turns out to go Really well and that's one thing I love About Paul is he's all about growing a Real good healthy Lush garden and not Making it harder on ourselves than it Needs to be and so that's what we're Trying to do here by getting this all Prepped in the fall now we're putting Our Amendment down you know or building Our soil and it is down and the other Thing you'd want to do is mulch if You're going to mulch and like you can See here what we have is we have our Rows that we plant in and we're just Putting our compost down I'm not going To mulch on that the mulching can be Beneficial if you're in a warmer area And it definitely helps with weed Suppression and moderates soil Temperature and hold in moisture and
That's great so we're doing that in our Walkways here and you can see One you can see when I step on this it's A very spongy And it's so so it's not compacted so It's keeping the soil down below because The roots are going to grow underneath Here and so it is keeping this area from Getting compacted and it's slowly Breaking down I mean look at that I Didn't have to go very far and I'm Already into where it's breaking down Even though that's still somewhat wood Chips and we'll get to more and more Soil as we go if you haven't if you're Gardening this way you might want to add These in the fall it's a lot easier or What we've been doing is the late summer Here so we've already done all these Walkways they don't need it right now But this helps in the areas where you're Not growing something retain moisture it Helps you build soil it helps reduce Compaction and so I want to make sure All of our rows we generally do them Once a year because this stuff does Break down down below and so we keep Adding to it we want to do that once a Year so if you haven't done it yet in The season now is the time we've just Been doing this little bits at a time And so we don't need to do it right now But I'd rather do it now than early in The spring and what this is going to do
For you especially if you live an Environment with clay soil is you're Going to be able to get out into your Garden way earlier way way earlier Because that clay in the early season The days might start to be warming up The soil might start to be warming up But often that Clay is still wet and you Don't want to walk in it you don't want To compact you don't want to get all Over your shoes and so it makes it very Hard to get around in the soil and we Experience this in Tennessee where we Had done this method and nobody else was Around it was doing it and people were Like how are you in the garden right now How are you even doing anything it's Like well we put this mulch down and so It absorbs the water and it allows us to Be out here working when you might not Otherwise need to be again that's Getting everything prepped and ready for You in the spring another thing that You're doing with putting your Amendments your compost and your cof if You want to is you're getting that into The soil biology now so that as it rains As it snows some of this settles and Filters through the soil and starts to Get Incorporated and then as the soil Warms up and it actually warms up faster Than you might think it will actually Start to get active under the snow the Materials in here and the chemistry
Everything starts to get going and it is Actually getting your soil charged a Little bit earlier and that's just from My studying my reading and talking to You know a lot of different gardeners so Again we're mimicking Nature by getting This all down and you're getting a jump So that when you come out here in the Spring the soil biology is already Getting active it's breaking down the Roots that are in here it's it's Distributing you know some of the Organic matter and the nitrogen and the Different materials in your compost or In your amendment that soil is then Ready to go instead of putting it on in The spring right before you plant The Roots then start to get in this no-till System The Roots start to get ahead of The nutrition and it takes a while for That to balance out whether whereas if You do it this way those roots are going To have access right away by the time You get to planting those are the core Steps that I do to put the garden to bed I'm want to talk about one more thing Before we go here and that is all the Garden waste and getting it ready to Turn into this for next year [Music] [Music] The last thing I want to do is get next Year's compost going right now in my Situation you can see there's already a
Large pile of compost right here because We started with butchering season and Barn clean out earlier in the year to Get our compost pile going now we're Adding all the garden waste to it I Don't particularly need to break this All down right now I will take the Tractor in this case and just start to Mix this in and most of this will Actually break down before it even gets Too cold you know whatever you do the Point here is that as part of the step Is to to do something with this not just To leave it to you know rot make make Good use of this don't throw it away This all can be recycled this is all Green right now so this is actually a Green a nitrogen-rich material even if You didn't have animal waste you could Take this you could chip it up run it Through a trip chipper if you wanted That would accelerate the composting Process or you could just add some Fallen leaves that are Browns or some Wood shavings to this and mix this up And start making your compost but that's What I want to see you get started right Now get that process going and make good Use of this and in fact if you go over To the video right up here above you can See how I do a basic simple composting Pile that's really easy and we'll get You going on this process that's it for Today hope you're getting your Gardens
Winterized and I will see you soon
