Tucking the Garden in for Winter...

     I shared the lasagna gardening technique with everyone awhile back. Today I am going to show how I tuck my garden in for winter. I live in TN so usually I have cold temps, a little snow from time to time, and well a lot of rain/sleet/ice. Usually freezing or hovering near temps, but sometime it dips into the teens or single digits. So, what works for me may not work where you are. However, this technique saved my strawberries and grapevine one dry cold winter a few years back. If you are in a cold area you may wantto add mors protection such as plastic covering over the top. 

     I like to rake up my Fall leaves and use them to cover my garden area. Some people prefer to use mulch but I like leaves. One- I already have them in my yard. Two- this is similar to how nature works. Three-I like the look. It is like my garden is all snug as a bug in a rug. 

We will start with the front gardenbed. 

Mr. Rubber plant(which I need to research if he needs more protection) now has leaves covering all but the top of his head. 

Then we have out little patch of green. I covered behind my trusty red fencing that I had the tomatoes on earlier this year. As you can see this is one area we planted for Fall, and even with a few nights in the teens and me forgetting to cover during frost is still growing. Slowly as this has more shade than the back, but growing none the less. I let little E help with this so all I can say is that there is a combination of peas, lettuce, kale, raddish, and spinach. Possibly beets or cabbage too. There are some spots I can tell what is growing and others I am not sure about yet. I am actually surprised there are still things growing. I left this area alone just to see how long it can last. I covered the back garden so I will be able to tell the difference and find out which is better to do in the future. 

Then I covered everything else in leaves. Between the green area and the purple garden lives the strawberries. Sometimes I loose a few of the plants but usually most if not all of them make it through the winter. 

Little E's purple Fall garden bed is growing as well. I piled the leaves up around it to help keep it from freezing as much. Interestingly enough it did freeze a few times already, but the plants popped back up. In this picture you can see a strawberry plant peeking out on the left and the lemon thyme in the front. I covered half the thyme and left the other half out to see what would happen. 

I hope you enjoyed our first tucked in tour. Soon I will show you the side and back garden. Happy gardening everyone!