a mild winter day in the garden

The weeds that grow in the garden beds that I leave bare in the winter time (naughty me) seem like nature’s way of protecting the valuable topsoil that would otherwise get washed away in the torrential downpours of our coastal winters. So I know I should say thank you to mother nature for looking out for my beds when I can’t make the time to get to look after them properly. Eventually, I’ll get to them and at this time of year, when I weed, I like to add leaf mould as a mulch to the top of my beds. I’ve had such a good experience using this as a winter protective mulch. It makes the soil beautiful, crumbly with a ton of earthworms…they seem to love it!

Last year, I posted about gathering leaves and making leaf mould. This photo shows the bottom of a wire cage that I filled with leaves in the fall of 2009. This spot where I piled the leaves was a nasty compacted bit of ground and I’ve discovered that after a little over a year of composting leaves on it, it’s starting to become lovely dirt, full of earthworms. This makes me think I oughta plan ahead and make these piles where I want new garden beds in the future…..

The leaves take about a year to break down to a perfect consistency for winter protection. A little trick I’ve discovered that I now like to do with all my leaf piles: I add some late spring and early summer grass clippings…just a little…it encourages the leaves to break down a bit faster and probably adds a wee bit of nitrogen to the final mix, which also seems like a good thing for my beds to get in the winter. It’s important to make sure that the grass is young and includes no grass or weeds that have flowered and gone to seed since that would create a weed nightmare in the springtime growing bed.

If you’re interested in reading more about leaf mould, a google search will give you lots of options. Here’s some good info I found.

It’s such a satisfying feeling to weed and mulch a garden bed….looks so nice! This bed is scheduled for a legume planting in 2011 and I expect I’ll probably be seeding it with bush beans and a few branching sunflowers in the centre where I won’t quite be able to reach for comfortable bean picking. It will look pretty. Because the leaves are broken down nicely and will continue to do so, in May I’ll pull the irrigation lines to the top of the bed again and mix the leaf mould topping into the soil just a bit and then seed right through it. It’ll continue doing it’s soil conditioning job. And the beans will love it.

Speaking of beans, they’re one of my favourite things to put into the freezer for winter garden veggie eating. If you like beans and have a little piece of earth, grow some extra in the summer garden for the winter freezer…if you’re like me, you’ll love it!

Here’s some I took from our freezer for last night’s dinner.

We had them with carrots, freshly pulled from the garden. I’ve found that the best way to keep carrots for the winter in this neck of the woods is in the ground so I make a planting mid to late summer to keep in the ground all winter long.

These have been covered with snow twice so far this year but are still very good. I’ve tried this with potatoes but they get mushy too easily, so they must be harvested before the freeze and it’s into the cold-storage for them. I wonder if it has something to do with the above ground greenery? The potato plant dies quickly with colder temps but the carrot greens stay fresh and alive after a freeze.

YumYum! A good day of outdoor work and a delicious, almost all home-grown supper to follow. Life is good.