Fall garden stuff..

Now is the time to increase your take from next summers garden. All those leaves on you lawn are great stuff for your garden. If you have a mulcher/shreader run them through that and cover the garden with the mulch. If not, put them on top anyway, and either turn them with a shovel, or tiller when you get the chance.

Absolutely some of the best stuff you can feed your garden!

I put all that stuff (leafs/ grass/ chicken straw/crap) back into my compose pile and add additional chicken crap into it over the winter. Then after winter, I put it all back into my garden so that most of the new nutrients don't just fade away during the winter months and feed the new weeds . In spring, I add them all back into my garden and till them until they are all fines. I think that you get more for your work if you do it that way.

I always till all my garden greens back into it right after I pick my harvest from it and let it sit for a couple of months

weeds? you let weeds into your garden?

when you are doing compost, im assuming you know this, DONT PUT WEEDS IN IT!!, make sure its weed free, and cover it, to keep seed out of it.. also, it doesnt hurt to throw some earth worms in with it as well... actually, use a ton of them, their castings are great for soil..

Currently about half my garden is still growing fall broccoli, carrots, beets, and swiss chard. Once its all done, I may plant a cover crop. I heard that clover and rye grass are a good one-two punch for the soil. Then about a month before you plant, till it under and let it rot. I keep lots of stuff cycling through my soil. Funny thing, in the beginning you couldn't find a single earthworm. I've never put any in and now its full of them. Thats a sign you're keeping good soil!

I do have a lot of garlic in the ground now and its covered with a winter blanket of about 3-4 inches of leaf mulch. Plants will poke right through it come springtime. Then I hand rake between the plants and work the mulch into the soil.

leaves and such like that are great, the weeds im talking about would be the ones you pull from beds, chickweeds, dandelions, ect ect ect...you can also ad steer -gro witch is basially cow shit compost sold in bails and add that as well...if you have a ton of worms elk, your doing darn good...black gold is some of the best soil you can get, and its FULL of castings, peat moss can work great as well when you till...im wanting to do the little things now, like garlic, carrots, potatoes, ect... every time i do a tomatoe, i use buckets, and they get so big the split the buckets and the branches start to snap off... even using 3/8 in clothes line for support...i know im doing a good job, as ive NEVER seen a plant as large as mine, but i gotta figure out why the main stem wont support branches...i will likely switch to wire for supports, but that still wont solve it, i will likely have to use more, and place them in lenghts to add full support...i got probably 60 or so beefking tomatoes off of my plant last year... thats alot for 1 plant...

I just used the regular tomatoe plant cages. I grew mine in these huge resin pots from costco. They are about as big around as a tire, and they are dark grey which is good for absorbing heat. I put them on the concrete, next to each side of the garage door, backed up against the house. The bushes were nearly 6 feet tall and I couldn't keep up with all the tomatos this year. I grew early girls, and glaciers. I do cut away the inside stems to keep light and air flowing through. The pots are mainly package dirt though with a lot of organic fertilizer. Everything else is in the regular garden area. Did lots of potatos but it wasn't as good a year as the previous for spuds. everything else grew great though.

mine last season was about 7 feet tall, and 5 feet across, it had basically full sun all day, and was up againts a house with added heat, the funny thing tho, i went straight up organic, i didnt even use fert, just water, and thats it...they came out way more meatier and jucier than any other tomatoe ive done... could have just got a good strain, or good plant, but i was proud...i just used an ace hardware 5 gal bucket... but i always split them, so i gotta go bigger, or go in ground, then the possibilitys are endless lol... do you ever foliar feed your plants?... ive had good luck with some, but some are too sensitive to it and burn sometimes....i dont know were exactly your at, or how much sun you get, but this season, get a plant and ill tell you what i do, watch what happens... i just cant figure out why they snap off... im talking brances the size of a quarter, and snap, 10 tomatoes gone...ill figure it out tho... hell maybe ill grow the worlds largest tomatoe lol