I don't know about you guys but December has completely snuck up on me this year and
while there's not a lot going on in the way of planting in my Ohio garden right now there is
still a fair amount of work to be done so today I thought I would share with you what I
am doing in my zone six Ohio garden during the months of November and December
now you've probably already guessed one of the big things that I'm doing during this time of the year
in my garden and that is garden cleanup everyone does it everyone has their own ways to do it but
i have a couple of things that i do specifically to help build and improve the soil for next spring
when i'm tackling garden cleanup i'm actually leaving as much residue in the garden as possible
i try to leave most of my plants in the garden after harvesting just allowing the leftover
leaves and plant material to break down and add to the soil now the exception to that is if it is
plants that have extremely woody stems that take a really long time to break down i'll throw those
either on my compost or in my hügelkultur pile the other exception is any plants that are diseased
so tomatoes are a key one for me my tomatoes often have blight so i cut those plants off
and dispose of them in a completely separate area those don't even go in my compost pile
but otherwise things like broccoli cauliflower leafy greens green beans things that have fleshy
stems and a lot of foliage i'll just chop and drop those just like i would a cover crop and
let them lay on the soil surface for the winter the other thing that i do is i leave the roots
in the soil so again with big woody plants like sunflowers and peppers i will just chop my plants
off at the soil line or a little above and let those roots in the soil and leaving those roots
in the ground to break down through the winter does a lot of good it helps aerate the soil it
helps add rotting organic matter it helps feed the soil microbes so i always try to leave roots in
place if i can the next big thing for me and you may have heard me harp on this before is covering
the soil no matter what i always want to make sure that my soil is covered so my first line
of defense is to get a fall cover crop planted if i can't get that done i will chop my garden
crop and leave that laying on the soil surface and if i can't do that or if it just does not provide
enough matter to cover the entire surface my go-to is mulching everything with a chopped leaf mulch
keeping the soil covered helps in a multitude of ways i'm suppressing those late season weeds that
want to pop up i'm keeping the soil protected from things like heavy rain or wind erosion
and as the leaf mulch breaks down that's another way to help add organic matter to the soil
if you do this i think you will find like i have that when you go to plant in the spring you can
pull back whatever residue is left and the soil underneath is so much nicer than anything that
has been left uncovered this bed behind me is a great example of all three of those tactics i've
actually got a winter rye ground cover planted on this end in the middle you can see this is
residue from this was a lot of borage plants that i chopped up and put on the soil surface
and then at the end i've got my leaf mulch another big part of garden cleanup of course is getting
all of the non-organic materials out of the garden so things like plant supports and garden signs and
fencing and hoses and watering cans basically anything that it would not be good to have it
sit out in the weather all winter now i try to get those things cleaned out as soon as possible and
put away in the barn you'll see in a bit that i am embarrassingly behind on doing that task the other
thing that i try to get done is that anything that is growing on any kind of permanent supports so a
good example were the morning glory vines that i had on my garden fencing i will chop those down
and add them either to my beds or to my compost pile all of my container plantings that had tender
annuals in them get dumped this time of year also typically i just empty that used potting soil into
my beds and incorporate it with the existing soil the only really big reason not to do this is if
you suspect the presence of a soil pathogen but personally i've never had an issue with
this and even though it is almost winter there are still weeds i try to yank any big
obnoxious weeds thistles i'm looking at you and any weeds i know are particularly
tenacious or problematic before i put my beds to rest for the winter
before the really yucky wet weather sets in i try to get all of the seeds collected that i want to
save this year i focused on saving a lot of my runner beans as well as some of my flowers and
herbs and i usually wait till we have a relatively warm sunny day and go out and harvest all of the
seeds about midday or after all of the moisture from the dew has dried up and then i let the
seeds dry on trays in my greenhouse for another couple of weeks or until they are completely dry
before putting them away in storage row covers are a big part of my gardening during november
and december in early december i cover most of my crops with a heavyweight row cover in
order to extend my harvest and then typically at the end of december sometimes even into january
depending on what the weather's doing when i know that my harvest is completely done i will pull
all of those row covers hang them up on my garden fencing to let them dry thoroughly and
then get them packed away in the barn for winter related to this i am still doing a small amount
of harvesting through november and december it's been fairly cold here for the last month
but i've still got brussels sprouts broccoli leafy greens like lettuce and kale and chard
and my root crops that i'm able to get out and harvest i would have some really lovely
cauliflower that would be ready to harvest about right now but much to my disappointment
when i pulled the row covers off the other day i found that voles had made themselves at home
under those nice snug little row covers and chewed my cauliflower heads right off to the stem
so next year i will be setting traps under my row covers at the beginning of this video i
did mention that there wasn't a whole lot going on in the way of planting but there is one crop
that i am planting in november and sometimes even into december depending on the weather and that
is garlic basically as long as my ground is not frozen solid i can plant garlic here so this year
i did two separate plantings in november and i'm getting ready to do one in early december as well
and one of the very last things that i'm tackling because i'm putting this off because i hate doing
it this is my dirty little secret this is what happens when i spend too much time in the garden
not enough time cleaning up after myself this is my disaster of a barn
as you can see there is barely room to move in here basically anything that i've taken out of
the garden so far just gets thrown in here any spot i can find and i'm going to have to spend
pretty much the entirety of december organizing putting things away taking care of this disaster
before my husband before my husband absolutely loses his mind don't be like me put put your
stuff away as you're taking it out of the garden because this is not something that anybody wants
to deal with well i've got to get back to work i should clean the barn what i'm going to do
is put more leaf mulch on my beds but i would love to hear from you where are you gardening
and what are you doing in your garden right now and if you enjoyed today's video please consider
subscribing to my channel growfully with jenna thanks for watching and i'll see you next time
you