It’s pretty normal to now have hard freezes every night.  For the most part, my work is done for this year.  The square foot garden boxes have all been amended with a blend of compost, leaves, and a light horse manure mixture.  This past weekend found me raking and gathering the leaves in our yard.  I think its safe to say that most folks probably don’t like this work-but, I absolutely love it.  I know what I am doing now will pay off big next year with my 12 or more bags of leaves.  What I really love is the smell of those leaves in the black plastic bags.  I cant explain it in words very well, but those of you who know what I’m talking about can relate to that smell.  I also painted all of my boxes before the real heavy snowfall will hit.  I could have done it in the spring, but then I would lose 3 or 4 months of it getting hammered by our winter season.  I kind of like to think of my raised boxes as an investment.  I want them to last as long as possible.  This is my way of doing just that.  These boxes are now about 12 years old and still holding up very well-with the exception of a couple of corners where I didnt follow the rules for building the boxes.

You know what they say about not following the rules-if it doesn’t work, you cant complain.  So, I’m not complaining, I’m just doing all I can to make it last.  When I amend my soil for winterizing, I try to empty both of my compost units into the boxes.  I then will top that off with leaves-not even leaves that have been run through the shredder or lawn mower-just plain old leaves.  Whats next is a mixture that I have always used successfully.  With all of our shrubs, trees, etc. that we have in our yard, we get a lot of things that I can run through my shredder.  I will put all of those items through, and I will then start to shred some of my leaves.  I mix in about half of one of these blue Rubbermaid tubs with horse manure and then toss everything together.  You can imagine what this looks like when I come back and heat my gardens up in the spring.  Its perfect soil.  All those regular leaves?  Gone!  Earthworms to the rescue and now ready to plant in a great growing medium.  You don’t need to wait years for the perfect soil…this system shows you how to do it the first year….[ois skin=”below post”]