Hooray For Leaves

Leaves offer some good fun and benefits to everyone. First and foremost, the kids love when mom and dad rake them into huge piles and the kids get to jump in joy, this has always a great time of year for my sister and I. It offered fun and enjoyment but then we had to re-rake them so it taught us the importance between work and fun as well.

Now we get to the gardening section of this post. Leaves provide a great number of nutrients when they begin to break down. They are a great way to begin a compost pile since there is always and abundance of leaves everywhere you look. You can take a few loads and dump them into your compost pile, or take my method which works great for me.

I rake all my leaves from the front and back yard into my freshly tilled garden. When they are all on top of my garden, I try to spread them out evenly over the entire plot. I have a fairly good sized garden so I have room for all my leaves. If you don’t have a big garden, just use enough to cover the entire garden with an inch or two. This is the easiest part. Just leave the leaves all winter on top of your garden. They will begin to compost themselves. Also, over the winter earthworms come to the surface and eat the leaves which then turn into waste and nutrients put back into to soil. It’s a natural way of composting.

When spring comes and you can work the soil, just till the remaining leaves into your garden and keep tilling until your soil is worked enough to plant.

This is a great way to dispose of your fall time menace and put them to good use. There is nothing better than recycling and there is nothing better than free!

Next Years Growning Ideas

Every year when my garden comes to an end, I go through my seed catalog and see what sounds good to grow next year.  This is a sad but also exciting time for me.  I hate to see the garden season go but I love planning for next years.  Here are my ideas for next years garden.

Crop                                 Variety
Beets.................................Kestral
Beans................................Blue Lake 274
Broccoli.............................Packman
Carrots..............................Sweet Baby Jane
Cauliflower........................Snow Crown
Cucumber..........................Marketmore 76
Eggplant............................Classic
Lettuce..............................Buttercrunch
                                         Green Towers
                                         Royal Oakleaf
                                         Danyelle
Peas..................................Sugar Snap
                                         Green Arrow
Peppers.............................Poblano
                                         (many more but I have not decided what yet)
Radish...............................Champion
Spinach.............................Tyee
Zucchini............................Elite
Yellow Squash..................Superpik
Tomatoes..........................Jet Star
                                         Big Beef
                                         Babycakes
                                         Sugar Plum

This is a great start for me and I still need to figure out my pepper selection.  My garden should be great this coming year and I will be sure to post many pictures throughout the season from tilling to planting to growing to harvesting.  Check back soon for pepper selection and leave comments of what has worked for you!