An article from Backwoods Home Magazine on the end of season harvest (right before the first hard freeze), and what to do with the blackened remains of the plants killed by the first freeze. Surprisingly for many, the author generally recommends destroying the old plants (e.g., burning them), to kill pests (or their eggs or spores) rather than tilling them into the soil or composting them. Leaves are a different matter, and she recommends saving your garbage bags and simply till the fallen leaves into the garden bed (multiple times, if necessary). This is also a good time to fence in your garden, enlarge the garden, and do other maintenance work that you couldn't do earlier for fear of damaging the plants. Anyway, she covers a lot of other topics and ideas for preparing your garden for the winter and getting ready for next spring, so check it out.
The same author has another article on the topic of "Garden Seeds — A Great Winter Pastime." She likes to review the seed catalogs and plan her garden in the winter, order her seeds early, and get the plant starts going before the planting season.
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