Preparing the Garden for Winter

Fall is in the air with warm days and crisp evenings and it's time to prepare the garden for winter.  This week we'll be enjoying the last of our garden's bounty.  Then, we'll pull out the plants, transfer them to the compost bin to recycle them, incorporate 2 bags of composted cow manure and the compost from the bin to the soil and bed down the strawberry plants for the winter.  Strawberry plants are a marvel.  If you purchase one plant, it will produce offshoots (when it matures) similar to the way spider plants do.  In early spring, we purchased a hanging strawberry plant for the deck and we soon had a number of offshoots from that one plant.  We snipped them from the base plant and planted them in their own pots, watered them daily until the roots took hold and soon had 4 potted strawberry plants from the purchase of one.   Pete and I enjoyed fresh berries all summer.  There's nothing like a fresh strawberry on a summer day.  We shared a few with an ambitious chipmunk as well.  This week, I will remove the strawberry plants from their pots and bed them in the garden for the winter.  I'll cover the plants with fresh hay as soon as the first frost threatens.  This layer of hay will protect the plants until Spring and the cycle will continue. These plants will have offshoots and soon we'll be enjoying a daily supply of fresh strawberries all from the purchase of one.