Winter Garden Care
by Anza Muenchow
[First published in the September/October 2012 Tilth Newsletter]
As you finish your fall harvesting and your garden beds become emptier, consider the ways to feed your soil for the coming years. There are several legumes that can be planted as green manures in September or October. In our region we recommend Austrian field peas, vetch or fava beans. Besides adding nitrogen to the soil, they crowd out weeds. In the spring the plant tops can be removed, and the roots tilled into the soil providing a richer base for crops. For some beds, I prefer to pile on dried leaves and cover with burlap bags collected from local coffee roasters. This nicely increases earthworm activity. The best part of the fall rains is how the moisture activates and increases the beneficial microbes and soil critters. All that life in the soil increases its fertility and makes organic gardening a simple pleasure.
This time of year, I look for my favorite shrubs and perennial herbs, and attempt to propagate them. Some of my favorites to propagate by clone are rosemary, thyme, sage, daphne, artemisia and bay. I take a healthy-looking twig with a semi-hardened stem and strip off about two-thirds of the leaves, keeping the leaves at the very top of the twig, and three to four inches of stem. Dip the bare stem into a rooting hormone (powder or liquid, purchased this year). Press the stem securely into a clean tray filled with at least two inches of sterile seed starting mix. The cuttings need to be in an environment where you can control the moisture and they need good light. Sometimes I like to use a water-tight deli tray with a clear plastic dome-shaped cover that is taller than the cuttings. Giving the tray cool light under a florescent tube and keeping it around 70 degrees (basic room temperature), I can expect about a 50 percent rate of success on most types of plants. I check the tray of cuttings about every other day. I make sure they are moist and blow some CO2 on them. I remove any moldy leaves and check for root growth in six weeks. I may leave the cuttings in the trays till I feel a lot of resistance when I tug on them. Then I transplant the new little cloned plants into a good potting mix and keep a close watch on their moisture and growth.
Our late summer gardens change abruptly in September. Early plantings of lettuces, broccoli, chard, bok choy, spinach and arugula have either been harvested or are now shooting up their seed stalks, also known as bolting. I will keep a few bolting plants so I can collect their seeds for next season. I want the future seeds to be from plants that were robust and well established before they bolted. Tie the plant stalks to stakes to mark them by variety and prevent them from being blown over in the wind. You may need to cover them to protect them from birds. It would be best to keep them dry as much as possible. Once the seeds have matured you can snip the plant stalk and, if they are not completely dry, lay them out somewhere dark with good air circulation. The seeds will be ready to harvest when they are dry and hard. Once you’ve removed most of the moisture, you can keep your seeds in a paper bag or envelope in a cool, dry place labeled with the plant variety and the date you collected the seeds. Saving seeds makes me more self-reliant and it feels good.