To clean up or not to clean up the garden come fall- that is for you to decide.
It is raining this morning and the soft hush of this weather makes me want to curl up on my bed with several of the too-many cats. As the weather continues through the week it will get warmer. I plan to take advantage of the warmth to clean up some of my garden.
There is a definite trend against cleanup these days and, for the most part, I agree. I leave a lot of flower heads and foliage for the overwintering creatures. I do however make sure to clean up my tomatoes. I do not wish to encourage blight in next year’s crop. I put all tomato plants into a black plastic bag to sit in the sun and bake away that blight. Any fallen fruit goes to the chickens. If you are not intending to eat any of the fallen tomatoes, put them in the green bin or into the black plastic bag. Never take chances with blight.
I do cut back my peonies. I like the foliage in the fall and wait until later in October to cut them. I don’t want them to have mold or mildew and I find that by cutting them back I get less mildew. If you have peonies, you will find that they need a lot of space around them for airflow. Phlox is another plant that needs good airflow or else it has a lot of mildew.
Beautiful peony colours
My asters are starting to bloom. I have many varieties and they, along with my sedum, attract a lot of pollinators. While a number of our veggies look dead or damaged at this time of year, there are many that are continuing to produce. I leave my asters to go to seed as they will feed and house overwintering insects and provide food for birds. I want to attract pollinators which my asters do well. Many of my indeterminate tomatoes still have flowers as well as a few of the pepper plants. My peppers are in containers off the ground, so the first wave of frost did not really bother them.
A drift of fall asters with a peek-a-boo of dahlia
This week I am going to remove tomato plants that are finished, continue to take up arms against the encroaching army of goutweed and wait for my radish seed to set. I am expanding one area of my garden which is experiencing the plague of goutweed. I am pulling out the goutweed and putting down cardboard which I will leave through the winter. I will put soil over the cardboard and by the spring I should have a new area for new vegetables. I thought it would be a nice spot for some potatoes. I like to grow potatoes in new areas as potatoes really move the soil about and they add nutrients. While I have had good luck with potatoes in containers, I find the yield to be so much better when they are directly in the ground.
I am still collecting seeds and checking on late crops. I am carefully packaging up my extra seeds for the Seedy Saturday our society is part of on March 11, 2023.
Enjoy your week. Judith
(Email: sghorticultural@gmail.com)
Veggie Bites are available at https://sghorticultural.wixsite.com/website or https://gardeningcalendar.ca/articles/veggie-bites/
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