Packing up for the year

I'm slowly working on cleaning up my fall garden.

With freezing night temperatures becoming an almost nightly occurrence, it is about time I tear out my withered plants, bring in my hose, emptied the rain barrel, and stash away the garden tools. I am very guilty of leaving tools and supplies out in the elements all summer long. My pruners and shovels are completely rusted and some of the pots I left on the deck have left watermarks.

I have been putting off the task of removing my tomato cages from their withered occupants for a couple weeks now, but I finally got around to doing this over the weekend. This task is always a pain. It takes a while to remove all the plastic plant ties and un-weave the plants from their metal frames. I added eight more cages this year, so I had double duty this fall!

Tomato plants in my homemade cages (after several frosts).

I hear that it is best to put dead tomato plants in the garbage rather than adding them to the compost pile, but I’m not willing to pay to have them hauled away. I’ve been composting my tomato plants for years and have never had a major disease problem. The plants are fairly tough and woody by the end of the summer, so they go into my “slow” compost pile (with leaves, twigs, and other woody herbaceous material) rather than into my “fast” compost pile (mostly kitchen waste, herbaceous weeds, and grass clippings).