Much work and waiting have gone into the garden again this year. As days shorten and temperatures lower, it is clear that winter is coming, the growing season is past.

Our wood supply is abundant, but it sits in a woodshed beyond the garden. To get it into our wood room, my husband loads the firewood on the tractor loader, drives across the garden to the wood room door. Hence, the garden must be cleaned before it is turned into the tractor path.

We took up the squash and cucumber vines and collected their fruits. We pulled up the herbs. We pulled out the beet crop and the carrot crop. The broccoli plants had to go, too.

My gladiola bulbs have to come out. They would die with the freezing of the earth, so we got them in.

We cut the tops from the carrots and beets.  Carrots must have bit of the orange cut off with the greens, otherwise, in storage they tend to grow new leaves.  The beets are trimmed with about 1 inch of the stems still on the beet.  If beets were cut more closely they would lose some of their deep redness during cooking.

The cut-off tops went to the chickens.

We washed the vegetables, air-dried them and packed them into wire baskets before storing them. Carrots are stored in plastic bags and kept in the cool cellar.  Beets are stored in a crock as are the squash.

The garden is clean enough to let the tractor do its job tomorrow when piling wood will be on the docket. When the hard freeze comes there will be time to finish.

 

photo credit: Bretta Grabau
photo credit: Bretta Grabau