This is just another look at how I prep my soil for the next year. As mentioned in the previous post, I only use 3 things: leaves, manure, and my homemade compost. After removing the plants and roots, I make sure to really clean out the entire box-especially all the corners as this is where little critters love to hid for the winter. Then I remove several inches of Mel’s mix to make room for the amending ingredients. This picture is the first thing I add and it’s a pretty heavy layer. I then add a thick layer of horse manure followed by compost. All the leftover soil I have is then piled up in the box so that it’s actually higher than the box in the middle. After warming the soil and fluffing it up in the spring, I’ll have a fair bit of extra soil because of this. I’ll store this soil in a protected and covered bucket. This then becomes my soil amendment after my first harvest in early spring-which is too early for me to produce compost in Utah. I’ll still have several weeks to go before I can make a good batch of compost during this early part of the season.  It works out perfectly. Just some ideas for you.[ois skin=”below post”]