These are 4 mistakes to avoid while tackling vegetable garden cleanup in the fall!
𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐎𝐦𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐄𝐠𝐥𝐮 𝐂𝐨𝐨𝐩 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞:
https://www.omlet.us/shop/chicken_keeping/?aid=KTYTQCQR
What To Do in the Garden in November & December: https://youtu.be/10dfRAlGZaA
Check out the Bionutrient Food Association: https://bionutrient.org/
00:00 Intro
00:38 Fall Vegetable Garden Cleanup Mistake #1: Cleaning up too much or too soon
05:25 Fall Vegetable Garden Cleanup Mistake #2: Not letting the chickens help me with cleanup
08:15 Fall Vegetable Garden Cleanup Mistake #3: Not using leaves correctly in the garden
11:30 Fall Vegetable Garden Cleanup Mistake #4: Not prepping beds in the fall
#gardencleaning #zone6gardening
49 Comments
I clean out my chicken coop into my fall leaves. I turn the compost weekly cover with a tarp to retain heat and keep it moist to help break down. I have two piles going and put fresh stuff in one then move it over to older pile as it decomposes.
Always use chickens and working on a chicken Chunnel system for next spring. But if you block off your compost and let the chickens in there they will churn it up.
So much great information. Especially with the leaves… You weren't kidding about chickens desecrating the garden! My little raptors are what I call em.
I need more leaves. How would I prep raised beds for spring?
50's here too. up on roof painting shutters and cleaning gutters. The garden moved into the sunroom already thank God. put in the Siberian garlic and black/red tulip bulbs. waiting another week before planting kale. The compost barrel is full. Can't wait for Spring. Morning Glories. My house was covered with them. Blue!!!! They get moldy in Fall, so i have cut them back to a 5×10' area. I pluck all the other seedlings that never stop coming up. pretty though.
Another awesome video!! I have a lot of leaves also and have been using them in combination with my greens to make compost for years but I noticed the oaks are very slow to break down even after a year of sitting. So this year I built a separate bin just for leaf mold and piled most of my oaks into it. I'm not planning on having usable leaf mold next year but u have to start some place right?
my spidy senses say the boy has an ATV! all my kids had them. still have a couple in the garage.
Most of the debris this year went into a trench that was the start to a hugel bed. There is a nice carpet of leaves on the garden now, but as soon as I get the chance they will get pulled up into mounds for the winter. The mulch mat of grass clippings will get added to the piles. I’m starting to wish that I’d left the squash and pumpkin vines to decompose. Wonder if I could talk squirrels into doing all of the scratching and digging that chickens do, since the only poultry I have is in the freezer and waiting for marinade.
Leaves: bags of lime. problem solved. tree leaves are acidic. Lime is alkali, they react easily and turn to soil in 6 months. yeah, frozen foot thick wet leaves ain't no fun….
i love the walk way idea. nice. you guys are blessed! be well everyone!
also, i bought a small disc harrow for like $150 to tow on my Cub Cadet. tares right through sod to make new beds. cheap, time saving, easy to use accessory. FYI. oh, and two cement blocks…….
Thanks again Lady!
Always enjoy your cheerful disposition during your presentations.
I'm still making the best of a 1/8acre.
You are so lucky to have the elbow room!
Keep up the good work!
Always informative.
Was at the Grandparent's in Eaton today because of the weather prepping for winter ourselves!
Excellent Video! I leave in between Dayton & Cincinnati so your videos are always so helpful. I love having these unexpectedly warmer weekends in order to keep cracking away at getting my garden ready for spring next year.
It was a beautiful day here in N.E. Ohio.
Fall prep for your gardens is crucial. Jumping worms put a definite slow down to it. I did mulch my perennial cover crops of thyme and oregano with double shredded leaves ( to protect them from our below zero temps), although I will remove the leaves, or what is left by the end of May in my zone 5A garden.
Normally I cover all my beds with shredded leaves in the fall, but this year I am way more cautious.
I do not want to shift your focus of fall garden prep. I am sure there are many more gardeners like myself, with jumping worms that want that advice on how to winterize their gardens.
A couple good thing about jumping worms is that, the adults die in winter and the cocoons will not hatch out until soil temps reach into the 50's F. So you can still amend your soils, but you need to remove any heavy mulch before the soil warms up. If you leave a heavy mulch of compost or shredded leaves the jumping worms will devastate it.
Jumping worms are spreading like a wildfire, people who garden need to know this and take appropriate precautions.
Great advice! Pretty bad to use too many leaves myself.
Good comments about mucky leaf pile to fix that this year i added a lot of twigs to keep air in the pile I also mooched a lot of coffee grounds from the local convenience store to get the nitrogen levels up Also bought some mushroom manure at a local garden center as theirs has a higher percentage of raw stuff versus the bagged product at the big box stores so far the pile is a lot warmer so i hope it works
Can you explain the tattoos on your wrists?
Chickens are the wildest domestic animal on most farms and generations ago were from TREX family tree .
You hubby helps in the garden he's a keeper.
I mix the garden waste and adding that with leaves and grass clipping and I have a 3 to 4.spread on my tomato and pepper in ground beds (.yeah much like yours but I did improve the drainage as you teaching .I also Ohio clay base soil)
I leaving roots ingrown several years now. No tilting for 3 years but planning to tilt my melon area just to much weeds.
Thank and going with your worm casting and micorizomes for seed starting.
Thanks
Very helpful info. I love your content, relevant to me here in Boston. Thank you!
That cracked me up when he had the dirtbike helmet on, those chicks don’t play haha
I don’t think I could stand looking at that deadness lol. I’m going to compost it and add leaf mulch all winter. Luckily we won’t get a freeze here until Jan/Feb. I’m going to plant what I can and maybe even plant a few winter flowers.
Great tips and I'll have to check out the Bionutrient Food Association- thanks
This technically does not count as prep, but I planted fava beans this fall. My hope is that I will get a jump on the season. I am In Zone 6 Canada and I normally plant my Favas in March / April.
Well, really glad I didn’t have my husband dump all the leaves on my raised beds this fall. We probably wouldn’t have broken them up enough. I just used some straw mulch I had, instead.
I am trying to figure out my flower placement for spring in relationship with my veg plants to help with pest control/fertilization/companion planting ideas. Also live in Ohio and getting beds set for the winter, cleaning out my flower beds of their leaves and adding that clean out to the mulch bins. And then needing to take ready mulch to the veg beds. So nice in the current weather
Jenna (or anyone else that can chime in), I’m wondering – if I separate part of my chicken flock into the Eglu to work on the garden, how long can I keep them there without having to reintegrate when I put them back in the main coop?
Thank you for your wonderful and informative videos! I have learned so much!
So glad you mentioned Dan Kittredge and the Bionutrient Food Association! I’ve been supporting the BFA (non-profit) for years, ever since I found Dan’s ‘Principles of Biological Systems’ videos on YouTube. This guy is on the level!
To bad this video came out so late…… I toped my big beds with 12 inches of whole maple leaves !!!
Why not make a pretty covering of the strawberries with layered organized clippings from the still reddish purpur big blooms and stems of Live-long, Sedum Telephium: Start at the end, put the next layer on top of the first one some inches down the first stem, continue all the way and you will have a pretty flower bed until spring! As well as a warm cover for your strawberries.
My leaf pile blew away😂
I'm guilty of two of these mistakes. It makes sense to leaving the plant roots in the ground, which I had never done. Too late this year though. The other is not prepping the beds in the Fall. Gonna get out there with the hoe this week and build those mounds before the ground freezes. My guess is that matter will break down faster in my clay soil if it is mounded through the Winter.
As I have basically only perennials, some of the "mistakes" don't quite apply. I never clear out the roots, for excample… I try to leave everything on the beds or I clear one part and then put the stuff in an area, where I need more mulch.
I use unshredded leaves. But I'm in a warmer climate zone (7b) and I think the soil live needs time to build up to be able to "eat" the leaves. The first year I mulched with leaves there where heaps left in spring. After a few years of mulching with leaves there is almost nothing left in spring. But it is a good idea to add something "green" to the leave mulch – I add all kinds of weeds, comfrey, grass clippings and this fall, for the first time, horse manure. I also added fresh woodchips on my pathways. That way they can start to decompose, store a lot of water and grow myzelium. No water puddles in the walkways.
Do you put your corn stalks through a mulching machine
Hi Jenna. Great ideas here! Like you, I’m now leaving plant residues and any living plants stay in my garden and am putting on a thick mulch until it’s time for spring planting. It was only a few years ago that my fall clean up would leave each bed as a clean slate for spring, and I mean barren as in no plant residue and no mulch, just bare soil! Eek! I’m also now learning more about using cover crops as well. My only struggle now is holding back my husband from cleaning up the flower beds too early. (I remember watching Dan Kittredge on the Living Web Farm YouTube channel, which has so many great presentations.)
Amazing information Mrs. Jenna. Love that chicken tractor. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us. Stay safe my friend!
I never thought about leaving plant residue and roots in the garden, but it does make sense. Thanks for sharing this.
I am in west central Ohio. Love your videos because they are so pertinent to me❤
Good Sunday morning Jenna. What can I say? These videos just keep getting better and better. But that's of course to be expected from a talented gardener such as yourself. Thanks for sharing a look at your Fall Vegetable Garden Cleanup and Winterization.
As always great info! Leaves do make quite the impenetrable blanket when layered. If I had a recommendation, feed your chickens at the chopped leaf pile. Allow them to stir it and manure it. Keep rebuilding the pile and let them tear it down. I’m sure you can immediately understand the benefits.
That tractor wouldn’t cover our garden.
Excellent as always! I smiled at you dumping all those leaves on your garden in the past. I don't remember where I learned that was a mistake, but it is one that I am aware of. Seeing your garden with all that water on it reminded me of my little garden back at the last place I lived in Ohio. I'm happy to say that I have well drained soil here and my garden is on a slope so I don't have that issue. Even so, I do prep a spot for the early plantings anyway. It just makes it that much easier.
I've been using the chop and drop method on my garden for awhile now and it has worked for me. One thing I am doing now that I am not sure is the best idea is I have my compost pile actually IN the corner of the garden. Everything goes in there. We shall see if that causes problems.
Any thoughts on that?
We have very similar gardening styles. I try to leave a lot of plant debris in the garden as well, but asparagus and squash debris gets burned. I don’t need any more squash vine borers! Thanks for the tip on the nutrient density info, that’s very interesting and I will check it out.
For this warm spell, I have spent the last two and a half days chopping up leaves with a leaf blower/sucker and mixing the chopped leaves with coffee grounds from starbucks. My body is thankful that the rain came because I was working my butt off all day chopping the leaves. But, I learned that leaf lesson last year as well. No more unchopped leaves for me unless they are in bags and going to sit for a whole year.
I really like how you qualify when you speaking about your specific conditions and saying things like "this works for me." So many youtubers speak in terms of everyone sharing their climate and it can be confusing.
Here in WNY we had heavy 36 inches of snow, last weekend Nov 2022. One of my tunnels collapsed, the frame all bent, just unbelievable. Kale is underneath and I hope it will survive the rest of the winter. Spinach and lettuce are covered with clear plastic bags on my front porch hoping to get a harvest before the weather turns on us.
Numbers 3 and 4 I'm just figuring out after all these years !!!!! Always got free leaf mulch from a local township which was great because it was already half broke down and I could till it in in the fall but it is no longer available. This is my first year of prepping my beds for spring crops. I tilled some shredded leaves and compost in last week and have rye going in the rest of the garden. I wish I would have hilled my rows but it should be ok. I'm in 6b and also have trouble getting my spring crop out in time. Have you ever tried over wintering seeds like beets or onions? I tried it with beets once and had some success. Thanks again for another great video, You'll make a gardener out of me yet !!!
I confess I am guilty of ignoring my garden once college football season starts. I do clean up, compost and monitor my cover crops. My daughter is raising monstrous collard greens and turnips and kale in our raised beds. The leaf tips were good to know as I too made the same mistake thinking I could just mound them up to the sky.
The main thing I have to add to my soil this time of year is a boost in nitrogen…good video, and I love the use of the chicken terminators – they WILL clean up an area! Thank you, Mrs. J…keep up the good work. As you have shown, work in the garden never ends! And yet is ever rewarding…🙂