Vegetable gardens - winter

[Desi]

What do you do to your vegetable gardens to get them ready for winter? Do you pull out all the plants? If you leave them in, why? We usually start composting late fall and go throughout the winter.

 

[Urban Homestead]

I've heard of people leaving the plants in so that the soil doesn't wash away the rain and leech out key nutrients. I think it just encourages pests to overwinter myself. I cleaned our garden up a month ago. I just chuck the plants into the compost pile.

 

[Desi]

That's the same reason that we clean ours up too, to avoid pests. I also think it is easier right after the season instead of waiting until the new season to rip the old plants out.

 

[RichZ]

We do the same. We take out the old plants, compost them, and cover the garden with a think layer of straw.

 

[BarkerB]

Same here Rich. We cover our garden after we rip out the plants. I think the straw helps a lot with soil erosion. We get a lot of snow every winter and I think the straw helps the soil once the snow starts melting.