I wanted a record of the garden going into the off-season. With daylight savings time gone, my experience of daylight is also gone, so I took the photos at night.

This is the garlic bed. I was a little concerned about its greens' ability to withstand winter. Research says, "No problem. The greens may die off, but the garlic will grow fine."

Some came from the grocery store, some "elephant" varieties, some fancy seed garlic.

Honestly, the biggest surprise this year was the kale. Epic performance, yummy for us, for our kids, and even for the chickens.

And I hear it's winter-hardy! 

Lots of winter rye in most of the beds. Some Swiss chard in the back one as well. 

Note: The grass between the greenhouse and the garden is covered in cardboard. I'm killing it off. Going to do a project there later, either in the winter or in the spring. It will involve drainage, and eventually, it will end up covered in cedar chips. 

Mulching in the Fall

It was a pretty dry fall, so the falling leaves were easy to gather. We spread them on all the flower beds around the house. It's certainly colorful.

Let's see what it does for the soil for next year's garden.

This is the new compost bin. All of its contents are new. Mostly leaves and shredded garden trimmings, layered with horse manure.

I hope it will be done in time for spring planting.

I try to turn it every week or two. But there's kind of a lot of it.