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| Last of the kale! |
I'm here to say that if you love it, gardening really can be a year 'round activity. And fall is a great time to start preparing for the spring garden!
While you are aerating your lawn and adding seed and organic fertilizer along with mulching your flower beds, you can also be preparing your compost pile for its winter work. Use all your dried leaves and green clippings, organic potting soils and plants, fungus and spore-free vegetable gardening materials mixed together to keep temperatures up and bacteria working through the winter. You will need to remember to water your pile on warm days. A good way to remember is watering on the days that are good for your trees, too!
In addition to keeping the compost pile going, you can directly dig in your winter vegetable scraps into your raised and garden beds. Just be sure to keep the soil moist and cover it to insulate against the cold, drying winds of our Colorado winters so the bacteria will continue to do it's work. Be aware that seeds may sprout for you in the spring! Maybe a few extra cucumber and squash plants will be okay for your early spring garden or you can dig the sprouts back into the soil.
As far as environmental temperatures go, on the front range, our best kept winter secret are our many days above freezing. The sun comes out. The land warms. Our compost piles speed through their soil creating process. On cold days, the pile will slow. By spring, you can have your pot of gold ready for pots, garden beds, and flower beds.
Here are some online resources that discuss winter composting:
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/cold-weather-compost?page=0,0
http://www.earth911.com/home-garden/guide-to-composting-in-the-winter/
http://www.compostguy.com/winter-composting/
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/goodbye-grass-hello-garden?page=0,5
Happy winter gardening!
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