Our garden is long done except for some bunching onions and sage. We had a bumper crop of brandywine tomatoes. i’ve never seen that many brandwines before! They supposedly don’t bear much fruit per plant. I was going to take the remainder of the green ones off to wrap in newspapers but a hard freeze made them all into popsicles! AAARRRGH!! They never had a chance. At least I got some in the freezer and a number of quarts of canned before the freeze.
I’ll be putting my beds to sleep for the winter. Any suggestions of how to do that? Should I layer on straw? We layered grass clippings, mulched leaves and mulch on the tomato bed. I want to add to the rest of the raised beds as well, to get some nutrients working down into the soil.
About 1 month before planting I will “plough” this green manure under, and add some real manure compost before planting. Also will cover with dark plastic this year to help warm soil and help prevent soil-borne problems.
Hubby plans on planting winter wheat and harvesting it so that we can grind our own whole wheat flour.
Lot's of people plant rye and hairy vetch after corn and follow that with Beans/Legumes. I don't use hairy vetch anywhere that I plan to have a harvest of grain-I read somewhere that there would be difficulty with the harvest.
However, common vetch is supposed to be a good crop to grow before Tomatoes. Buckwheat helps to reduce beetles and is a good crop to plant in the middle of the season after lettuce/salad crop and early tomatoes.