Garden To Do List
Winter will be here before we know it, and we have a lot to do to prepare for spring before winter arrives. Following with the rhythmic flow of nature, leaning into the lessons of the seasons, we’ve learned a bit about how to plan ahead in accordance with what the land wants, versus trying to make it bend to our will.
This autumn, we have a lot of projects on the books to prepare for a bountiful spring! If you’ve been around for a while, you’ve probably noticed I’ve been a bit quiet this year. I’ve been busy moving to my partner’s 8 acre homestead where I am not only going to expand my herbalism business, but we are going to collaborate on building a native plant business, as well as growing his existing vision of stewarding the land for wildlife and future generations. We are in the process of utilizing permaculture principals to establish food forests as well as reclaiming the land from invasive species.
As you can imagine, this isn’t a simple task! There is a lot of work to do before we can even begin. To prepare for all the work we are facing next spring, we have a handful of projects to complete this autumn.
Build several rain gardens. The side of the house where we will have our main food forest and kitchen garden tends to hold a lot of water after a good rain. Living in central Ohio, we either have a lot of good rains, or no rain. But-what is a rain garden? In simple terms, a rain garden is a garden full of (in our case) native trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants as well as swales and berms to help direct storm water run off from structures surrounding the property. We currently have a small depression in the garden that collects run off from the sump pump, but we will need to dig a few swales from the house and garage. We are also going to expand the ‘pond’ by about two times. On either side of the two swales, we will have berms which will be filled with plants that enjoy wet feet. I will be making a post soon on the process-going into more detail about the benefits of a rain garden, and discussing why we have chosen the plants that we have chosen.
Build more raised beds as well as more hügelkultur bed. Stay tuned for information on hügelkultur.
Move and expand the compost bins. Right now the compost bin is about 4X4X4 feet. We plan on moving it behind our chicken house, and trebling it into three separate compartments. One for raw material, one for ‘cooking’, and one for usable compost.
Clean out the chicken house and build an enclosed fence. Right now, our chicken house is full of gardening supplies, canning supplies, and various other…stuff. We need to clean it out entirely and then put up fencing to allow the future chickens to spend time outdoors. Finished!
Prep the the space between the driveway and fence line for a micro-prairie pollinator garden. Our intention is to have the entire length of the front of the property become a pollinator haven.
Prep the market garden and future perennial herb garden bed using no-till gardening methods. This will be first planted with a cover crop (likely buckwheat and red clover) and then use the terminated plants as mulch for the big spring garden.
Mark invasive callery pear trees in the wild area for removal, and map out where to plant native trees and shrubs to take their places.
Beyond these bigger projects, we are also going to work on setting up microgreens, mushrooms, and vermiculture systems in the basement-though, these aren’t on a time constraint.
Build an outdoor cob oven for baking bread and pizzas!
While autumnal seasons are designed to slow your energy, it is also a period for final preparations before winter. We can honor the energy of the season by moving intentionally with purpose instead of with chaotic fervor.
