Preparing Raised Beds for Winter

The Back 40

Although this will most likely be a short post, it is nevertheless an important one when it comes to gardening. When I first started to garden, I was a lazy gardener in that I’d dig a hole and put in a plant and call it good. Well as the saying goes you reap what you sew, and I reaped very little because I didn’t pay attention to the quality of my soil. Years later, lesson learned! 

Pulling information from both a free Floret online workshop and an episode from the Grow Cook Eat, the Irish garden show that I’ve mentioned in past blog posts, I prepped the ‘Back 40’ for winter. The ‘Back 40’ is our small, raised bed that is in our alley. The first thing I did was clip as many of my Zinnia flower heads that were spent for the season with the goal of harvesting seeds (more on that in Friday’s blog post). Once that was complete, I cut back all the stocks and pulled out the remaining plant bits to make space available for a new crop next spring. I’d learned that it is a good practice to rotate your crops so next spring this bed will be home to Dahlias, Bearded Iris (they are perennials, so they are still there) and a loofah squash (or two). 

I’ve not had much luck with Dahlias in pots so I’m going to give it a go again only in the ground this time. One of my many winter readings will be the book “Discovering Dahlias” by Erin Benzakein co-owner of Floret Farm’s. I didn’t have much luck with growing the Loofah squash in a pot this summer either, so I thought I’d give the raised bed in the ‘Back 40’ a go as it gets the most sun of all our urban gardening spaces. I am looking at both endeavors as a trail run or practice for when I finally have a proper garden in Palisade. Much like how I use my sketchbook to problem solve for my artwork, I’m using my urban garden as an opportunity to problem solve, experiment, and explore growing both flowers and vegetables.

So, Zinnias are cut back and pulled up, I also trimmed up my Irises, and pulled out the rogue spaghetti squash vine, and frost-bitten moon flowers and morning glory vines. Once all that was cleared out, I raked the area, added more soil and a bag of manure, and raked it again. The final step was adding a layer of leaves that came from my mom’s yard. I learned about adding the manure from Grow Cook Eat and the addition of recycled soil and leaves from Floret. The later I thought was wonderfully creative as it shows that you don’t have to spend a fortune to take care of your garden beds. 

We’ve not yet had a hard frost so my other raised beds still have vegetables and herbs growing in them but once they go, I will continue this preparation process for the rest of my urban garden. Fingers crossed I will have health, nutrient rich soil for next spring so my gardening experiments and continue!