Fall Cleanup

FALL CLEANUP time is starting a bit early this year.  I keep telling people that fall is going to be 3 weeks early to make up for spring being 3 weeks late this  year.  Oh well!

For those of you in Australia following this blog, you can disregard this and instead go back to what I said about spring.  I hope you have a nice warm spring so everything grows quickly for you.

My scarlet runner beans are destined for the compost heap very soon.  I think the "Enormous" variety that I tried was tasty and had huge beans but they seem to quit producing too soon. I sem to remember many years ago I grew a smaller variety and I recall them producing right up until they got the frost.

I have already trimmed my tomatoes back.  Like I mentioned previously, my tomatoes went wild due, I am sure, to the imported soil I filled the raised beds with.  Must have had too much nitrogen in it as the leaves were huge and the suckers that normally only grow at a leaf joint were growing part way along the leaves.  I also have cut off any flowers and the teeny tiny tomatoes that won't get big enough to save for later.  I have thinned out the leaves some so the air can circulate better and also I can see the tomatoes as they ripen.  It has been a bumper crop, but the end is in sight.

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The leaves have started to fall off the maple and oak trees.  I wish I could train them to fall into the yards where they grow instead of onto my lawn!  As many of you may have found out (the hard way), some leaves break down into compost quite quickly.  Maple leaves and leaves off fruit trees usually go quickly but Oak leaves are a different story.  They don't do bad if they are chopped up so picking them up with a lawnmower helps.  Our plastic composter is not large enough to take all the darn leaves we end up with so last fall they all got piled in one corner and were hauled to the dump where they have a huge composting facility. The main culprits are on the property next door so my neighbour came over and we wrapped them in a tarp and hauled them away.  Nice!

As mentioned, my composter is not big enough so I took some fairly heavy wire fencing and made an enclosure in a horseshoe shape with a stake at each end.  Makes a decent enclosure where all the larger garden waste can sit and "simmer" all winter.

I have also used old shipping pallets as the wall of a composter.  They work well but this one takes up less space and seeing as we no longer have 2 acres to mess about in, this one is good for us.

There are a number of things you can do to hasten the composting process.  If you have a chipper shredder you are fortunate.  However, the price of even a small one means it isn't practical for the small garden so you just have to make your clippers work overtime!  Things like corn stalks take a while to break down but you can hasten this by clipping them into short pieces.  The shorter the better but be reasonable!  Another thing that helps is grass clippings.  They break down into a mush and that keeps the more solid waste damp.  Once it starts to "work" then you should turn the pile regularly so it all breaks down evenly.  And if you have lots of grass clippings, you can make a separate pile for them and when they break down into a soggy black mush you can use them in the spring under your corn plantings.  Corn loves grass clippings.  Then later in the spring you can use new clippings as mulch around your raspberry canes.  They like the nitrogen and your canes should grow nice and tall and produce lots of berries.

Don't work too hard!

Kick back and relax!

 GG

  . I have already trimmed my tomatoes back.  Like I mentioned previously, my tomatoes went wild due, I am sure, to the imported soil I filled the raised beds with.  Must have had too much nitrogen in it as the leaves were huge and the suckers that normally only grow at a leaf joint were growing part way along the leaves.  I also have cut off any flowers and the teeny tiny tomatoes that won't get big enough to save for later.  I have thinned out the leaves some so the air can circulate better and also I can see the tomatoes as they ripen.  It has been a bumper crop, but the end is in sight