Good Gardening Week 11: Your Absolute Must-Have Gardening Tool

Welcome back to Good Gardening! In our Week 10 discussion, we wanted to know how our Good Gardeners tidy up after a busy harvest season or prepare for the next spring. As always we took the conversation to social media to see what the response was like…

Verna Korkie from Alberta takes the cake this year, and her first hand account is all that’s necessary.

Living in an area with many types of flower lovers/eaters – elk, dear, rabbits – we install 4 motion activated water deterrents in the spring which work beautifully and allow us to have lovely flowers throughout the growing season. When fall comes, we remove the water deterrents. Within a day or so, the critters “know” and they come calling. They are rewarded for their patience and they clean up the “the last roses of summer”, so to speak. It is beautiful to watch. Once they have completed their mission in a day, they do not return to the yard. Symbiosis at its best.

It’s something eh?

Maxine Bergh wrote “Encouraged this morning! So little in my garden has produced—sorry/glad to hear others in the same boat. Cucumbers that have come are amazing, though. Fall cleanup here is loose. I don’t pull up much ’till spring because birds like my dried up zinnias.”

Monica Richards the certified permaculturalist from California is a busy bee in fall, fertilizing trees before the first frost warning.

Question 2: Do you tend to clear your garden of annuals at the end of the year?

It depends on the annual. I pull the plants and leaves of squashes, cucumbers and anything else our tortoise can eat. The tomatoes will get composted, and if anything is diseased, out it goes. Some plants such as basil, I’ll just cut and mulch over.

Question 3: What kind of preparations do you make for next year starting in fall?

Once the garden is ready, I seed cover crop, such as clover, hairy vetch, radishes, triticale, etc, cover a bit of soil and mulch and see what happens in the Spring!

The Sharing Gardens spend every fall on the scarlet runner bean harvest, an obviously massive effort, but which provides serious comfort-calories (and fiber) for the winter months. They wrote in their blog about scarlet runner beans, and here are some of their volunteers taking part.

“Despite the gardener’s best intentions, Nature will improvise,” – Michael P. Garofalo.

Topic Week 11: Your Absolute Must-Have Gardening Tool

Question 1: What is it?

Question 2: Do you have more than one?

Tell Us Here in The Comments… or, send your questions, tips, and photos to [email protected] Join our Facebook Good Gardens thread every Friday on the GNN Facebook Page…

Good gardening rules

• Green thumbs can help novice greenhorns.
• Share your gardening photos and resources.
• Garden jargon encouraged!

INVITE Friends to our Gardening Discussion on Social Media–And Share Your Photos and Tips!