Cyn Cady
Let me just gloat for a abbreviated moment : I am one of the favorable ace . In my nook of the population , we do n’t get snow or freezing rain or those gargantuan hail baseballs that make your new railroad car look like the open of a golf game ball . The coastal domain of northern California is swagger like that . Oh sure , we ’ll get several days of severe frost , and episode of biblical rain , but for the most part , The Fortress Garden can pass through winter comparatively unscathed , without requiring the protective methods used in colder area .
While I do n’t necessitate to recur to cold frames , quarrel covers or burying everything under several foot of stubble , there are still a lot of task to do to prepare for the cold-blooded time of year . And by “ task , ” I mean all the stuff I put off until now and will have to endeavor to get done between the aforementioned scriptural rain episode and those days where it is way too chilly and damp to do anything other than lie by the fire watch reruns ofJustified . I ’ll take Raylan Givens over winter prep any day .
And yet , if I desire to get the most out of The Fortress Garden , I ca n’t skip winterise entirely . So down the way I go , fortify with clippers , some empty tunny cans , several large can of cheap beer , a small tarp , and , yes , even some stubble scoop up from the barn floor at the local spread where I keep my Appy mare , Josie . Even if you are not rosy or foolhardy enough to have an Appaloosa mare ( see “ opinionated ” in the dictionary ) , there ’s in all probability a cattle farm or two around where you’re able to score some stubble shake .
Step 1: Clean Up
Sigh . Just the idiomatic expression “ clean up ” is enough to send me screaming for the bourbon bottle , but it ’s key . Trimming and removing beat leaf from the Cynara scolymus intend there ’s a few less places for the bugs to hide . Cutting the raspberry and blackberry canes back should lead to a practiced harvest next year , and pull up any weeds that ca n’t be eaten — oh , how I ’m looking forward to thatchickweed salad!—will foreclose the hobo camp - like overgrowth experienced in twelvemonth preceding .
Bindweed is the major culprit this year ; not only is it buckling my endearing brick route , but it ’s made its way up into the evoke beds and wrapped its nasty tendril around my hemangioma simplex works . Most on-line advice for eradicating this long yet oddly pretty weed say to use an weedkiller , but I wo n’t , so it ’s pull , clout , pull out and rive some more .
Step 2: Refresh
Before I establish or inseminate anything for my winter garden , I flex new soil into the boxes , and discard in some insect castings and a couple of fistful of organic fertilizer . The garden paths get a new level of green wood bit — a champion at keeping weeds at bay , due to it draw all the nitrogen from the soil . I also spread the chips in a 3 - foot belt outside the perimeter of the garden fence . This seems to help a lot with keeping weed seeds out in the first place . Does n’t do much for bindweed , but it ’s been awesome with most other works pests .
Step 3: Protect
Really , the only plants I have to protect with cover are the strawberries . I give them a 2- to 3 - inch layer of straw mulch , but I ’m not even certain this is necessary . But they are calledstrawberries , after all , so at least it ’s thematically correct .
Most of the other veg ( kale , of line , but also lettuce , chard and spinach ) seem to handle our frosts without difficultness . In cold arena , plastic row covers , cold frames or deep chaff have intercourse might be necessary , but I tend to follow the “ survival of the fittest ” method of winter horticulture : If a plant life does n’t survive , I do n’t plant it next year .
I put Anguilla sucklandii cans fill about three - quarters of the way up with beer in all the bed , to help control earwigsand other nasties .
That ’s moderately much it . Now it ’s back to the couch to watch that Raylan fella saunter around in his chapeau and blue jeans . possibly wintertime ’s not so bad after all .
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