Monday, October 10, 2011

10 Steps to a Winterized Garden

It's October, and you know what that means: copious amounts of fun sized Twix bars!  If you'd like to pre-eat your Halloween candy stash without sharing any with your pesky darling family members it's best to come up with a super time-consuming task for all of them...

Winterizing the garden!

1. Make everyone go outside and start stomping on the existing plants.  No need to uproot or weed or take rocks out.  Don't even change the little ones out of their church clothes, trust me.  Just toss 'em all out there.

2. While your husband does all the real work, act like it's crucial that you take pictures of the dried sunflowers. Encourage your kids to help you so that your hubby has to do the work all by himself.

3. Throw the flowers and seeds out to the chickens when your kids aren't looking because holy cow, those things are a mess and you do NOT want them in your house.  Plus: free chicken food.

4. Now it's time to soak the ground.  Give the hose to your unsuspecting children then run inside and start your much anticipated candyfest.  You've never had it so good!

5.  Layer time!  We did it this way because a) it's called Lasagna Gardening (thank you for the link, Cari!) and that name is just too fun to ignore b) it's free (no purchasing of chemical fertilizers, thankyouverymuch) and c) we're lazy.  This method requires no weeding and no tilling.  Su-WEET.

So after soaking the ground, layer newspaper or cardboard directly over your weedy mess.  Then soak the paper/cardboard with that same hose.  And by "soak" I of course mean "make someone else soak.  'Cause duh, you're inside having your special mommy treat.

6. On top of the soaking wet cardboard goes your compost.  Well, that's what we did because that's what we had.  I don't even know what peat moss is and I certainly don't have stashes of seaweed.  Intermittently holler out the door that your hubby is awesome for doing all this whilst he and the small people get covered in mud and water and decomposing organic matter.
We had three bins of the stuff total.  It was FRAGRANT, lemme tell ya.  Then your little humans get to soak that layer with water too.  Lots and lots of soaking things with water.  Fun and messy.  Winning!

7.  Chicken poop time.
Oh yeah, you heard right.  Here's when you (not YOU, personally.  Of course) totally clear out the chicken coop and layer the manure-filled bedding on top of the soaking wet compost.  Soak that layer with water as well.

8. Did you remember to send your big kids over to the front yard to start raking up maple and birch leaves?  'Cause you're gonna need 'em.  Dried leaves on top of soiled chicken bedding on top of compost on top of cardboard, every layer wet, wet, wet in between.

9. Take lots of pictures.  It will make you seem super too busy to actually touch a rake or a hoe (I said hoe.  Hehehehehe...).



VOILA!

10. Now just leave it over the winter and let nature take its course.  The fall rain and winter snow will continue to hydrate your fertilizer cake and the worms and organisms and critters all around you will naturally gravitate to all that yummy rotted food and bird poop.  It's a great system for lazy responsible people like you and I, and in the spring you can plant right into it without even tilling or digging or anything.  

I can't wait!
We live on a dirt road.  My kids ain't got no shame.


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29 comments :

  1. You're so clever Dweej - getting something done AND making it fun for the kids!

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  2. Fun! Well, it was fun to read anyway...
    And HEY- whatever you did in the last 24 seems to have worked...not frozen yet...crossing my fingers!

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  3. I am trying to winter my geraniums, but that's as close as I get...

    I did put signs out in English and Spanish asking the grounds crew here to not pull my perennials. They left all but one, a carnation plant that was right next to a sign. Go figure.

    Was talking to my kids about composting, and they thought it would be fun to have worms at work in the classroom. Hm...does that count as wintering? Fruit flies eating their lunch scraps?

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  4. How cool is that!! I guess I never knew about winterizing your garden cause we don't usually have winter. In Texas, not here. God, no. We are getting winter here. But now I will not think of Lasagna in the same way! haha, ew.

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  5. I don't think you HAVE to winterize a garden, even here, but if you want better soil the next year, it's the only way to go!

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  6. That is the neatest thing I've ever seen. And the kiddies aren't runny away from all that smelly stuff. God is good!

    We just do the leaf thing in our garden; it's lazy winterizing at our house! Then again in Virginia we don't really get to much of a winter most winters :)

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  7. It looks fantastic! You're a weekend ahead of us. I started putting my gardens to bed this weekend, then decided a sick day on the couch would be better. Last year, we *did* till, but that's because the soil was so poor it needed some extra help. Next year, we should be good to go. If you want to see what the garden looked like last year, after lifting up the tarp, here's the post: http://www.clan-donaldson.com/2011/03/something-new-every-day-friday-march_18.html

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  8. Ok fess up. I want to know how much candy you ate before writing that post :D Great idea though. And you're so good at delegating!

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  9. Brilliant! I'm really starting to suspect that you are a total genius, my friend!

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  10. Love the lasagna gardening. No chickens but I will replace with horse manure. List that has this much mess is double like in my books :)

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  11. Thanks for the tip! I will get right on that! I mean they will!

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  12. Wow, Dweej, that is a whole lotta work! And I love how you managed it all from the behind the lens.

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  13. My clicking finger was REALLY tired after all that, I tell ya what ;)

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  14. This is fantastic! Unfortunately I don't have enough compost to do much with. Its only a few months old. Next year though, weeds will be stomped!

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  15. Hahaha!! Oh my gosh, this was funny. I have to sneak my sweets too. I hide them in the butter door of the fridge ;)
    Great pics.

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  16. I was alternately incredibly impressed with your lasagne-style gardening and how you managed to get your husband and kids out there doing all of it, and the fact that you have cows and chickens too (!) but PARTICULARLY impressed with how you were pretending to have to take closeup shots of the kids etc. and then retreating back to the home front to scarf the chocolate bars. Well-done, mama! (-:

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  17. I love your blog, so I've awarded you with The Versatile Blogger Award! Check it out at cavinderfamily.blogspot.com

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  18. I'm intrigued by lasanga gardening. Might have to throw a couple little raised beds using that method this fall. Hooray for getting the garden all set for spring!

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  19. This reminds me of some posts I wrote when I planted my garden. I took pictures and that was about the extent of my help with the garden.

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  20. May I just say I am jealous of the weather at your home? here we are already in winter jackets.

    www.mamaandthecity.com

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  21. I have my garden in pots but want a larger space like you have....some day! I love the family teamwork!

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  22. Dweej, you are so awesome! You managed to supervise and document the environmentally responsible winterizing of your garden while teaching a valuable science lesson to your kids and preparing snacks at the same time. A true leader and amazing homeschooling mom all in one!!

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  23. Similar strategies work for babysitting as well. My sister and I were pretty brazen. We had one of our younger siblings convinced that the ice cream we were eating directly out of the carton with a spoon was medicine that was dangerous for him to eat.

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  24. I don't have much of a garden to winterize, but was still incredibly entertained by your steps! What a clever way to distract your family from eating your Twix bars. ^.^

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  25. I love this post..think you could come help with mine lol....believe it or not the grand "puppies" help me take the garden out...they love to grab the plants and pull them out of the ground with me and they shake them...it's hilarious!

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  26. Dwija, this seems like a lot of work, but we have such lousy soil that I might just do this (meaning, I might just send my hubby and child outside to do it).

    Suddenly craving Hallowe'en candy....

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  27. This was really cool...I've never heard of lasagna gardening...love it!

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