Frost Has Arrived

Frost has arrived. This means gardening is over this year for most people. Persephone is halfway to Hades and she’s taken the growing season with her. Beginning Nov. 10 we have less than 10 hours of daylight here in Connecticut. And, with less than 10 hours of sun, plants won’t grow, not with any seriousness anyway.

It is almost time to start working on a new gardening season. But we have some tasks to complete before we start. Garden clean-up first. When we got the first frost warnings, we harvested all of our tender greens like Malabar Spinach (a plant that’s as beautiful as it is tasty).

Malabar Spinach

Never heard of Malabar Spinach? Neither did we, until Jamie at the Haddam Garden gave the madman a few plants she had started. Basella alba is a warm-weather plant, like the madman’s hot peppers. But, unlike the peppers which originated in South America, this plant comes from tropical Asia. Around here it can only be grown as an annual, producing heart-shaped greens that taste much like spinach. The madman starts these plants indoors about the same time as his tomatoes. Once the night temperatures get above 60˚, the madman places them in the garden. Since they are a vine, they do need support, and by the way, they like to stay moist.

Root Crops

With the greens harvested, we dug up the second planting of potatoes and beets, and the rest of the sweet potatoes. Stuff that grew underground did well for us, probably due to all the rain. Carrots are still in the garden – we’ll harvest them until they’re gone, most likely sometime around Thanksgiving. We also have a small row of salad greens that should get us to Thanksgiving and beyond because the madman has been dutifully covering it with a floating row cover at night. But, the rest of the garden is history.

Clean-up For Real

So, we started clean-up in earnest. We went through and pulled up all the dead vegetable plants and raked up all other garden debris. This task is important because we want to minimize the overwintering of garden diseases and pests – thugs we call them. We cleaned up all of our stakes, towers and other garden supports and stashed them away for the winter. Then, we gathered up all of our pest deterrent systems.

If you can remember, in early summer, the madman was fretting over the Three Musketeers. As much as he likes to see them in the winter, he goes bananas when they approach the garden in the summer. This season he used the normal scent repellers, but supplemented them with some mechanical systems to deter pests.

Deer Repellent

We hung a bunch of old CDs at different heights throughout the garden. The madman felt that light reflecting off these moving discs would startle or at least confuse the deer. Not sure how well they worked for the deer, but they did get our attention many a time. The fishing line stretched throughout the garden did work because we often saw hoof prints that stopped at the line.

But, the most exciting new thing we tried this year was our 3 in 1 Chicken Wire Cloche with Extension from Gardener’s Supply Company. We used this system to cover our sweet potato vines in the main garden, and it worked like a charm. It protected the greens from assorted nibblers. I see that it is on the madman’s wish list for Christmas.

Lift The Tender Bulbs

We limit extensive garden clean-up to the vegetable garden. We feel that the rest of the beds belong to the wildlife and the pollinators. Actually it is nice to see birds going through these areas looking for seeds during the winter. But, we have to lift the tender bulbs and tubers for winter storage.

The first bulbs we lifted were in the vegetable garden. The madman planted a row of red gladiolus next to a row of his Indigo Rose tomatoes. He thought that the red flowers might help attract more pollinators to the area. It created a bit more work for us because they got so big and top-heavy that we had to tie them up and they did get tangled up with the tomatoes. Probably not a practice we’ll continue in the future. But, we were amazed at the size of the bulbs and the number of bulblets as we carefully removed each one.

How Do We Store Them All?

 Then we worked our way over to the end of the side beds where the madman has grown Canna Lilies for the past few summers. As we began to dig, we realized that this was a banner year for our Canna tubers. They were huge and plentiful. As we are in the process of preparing them, the madman is fretting over where to store them all.

To add to his storage worries, I have lifted the Dahlia bulbs and found that even these have multiplied more than usual. And, we haven’t even gotten to the Gladiolus in the garden beds.

Before we store these bulbs and tubers for the winter, we knock off the dirt and let them dry for a few days. Then we pack them in boxes filled with shredded paper. Thanks to COVID, we have lots of boxes for storage: we just don’t have lots of space. We need a fairly dry, dark, cool spot, and most of those are now taken up by potatoes, onions and sweet potatoes. I keep telling him this is a good problem to have.

Planting for Next Year

After we get everything nicely tucked away, we have to start on the next gardening season. Actually, the madman has already started. After we celebrated Halloween, he planted his bed of culinary garlic and shallots. He also planted what he calls his pest-deterrent garlic along the edges of garden beds of next year’s root crops. While he set in garlic, I started planting spring flowering bulbs. With all these underground bulbs, the key is to plant them late enough so they begin setting down roots; but, not so early that they send up shoots.

Question From A Friend

On a totally different subject, a few weeks ago, we received an email from friend and fellow gardener Jeanne L. from Bristol. She asked about Asian jumping worms. These things are nasty. But, since freezing temperatures will kill them, not much can be done at this time of the year. Unfortunately, they leave behind hundreds of eggs that will begin hatching when soil temperatures reach 50˚. This is when you need to start attacking them, and we plan to cover the topic in the springtime as the soil starts to warm up. Thanks for the nudge, Jeanne.

But, now it’s time for some hot cocoa.