Yesterday was November 2nd. The high was 41°. It snowed again (lightly) today. So yesterday, despite muddy conditions, was a good day to put the garlic to bed.

I felt guilty because the garlic should have been in the ground mid-October, but then read my own blog from 2015, which reminded me that I planted at about this time and still had garlic in 2016. Whew!

Michael and I hauled in several loads of compost this summer but didn’t have time to dig it in. Along with the new dirt came new weed seeds, which sprouted and grew and were well on their way to flowering when Michael turned them over while I was in Iowa. If you study the above photo, you will see that we are experimenting with different methods of tillage. I re-dug the area in which I planted the garlic, removing as much greenery as I could. Michael re-dug a different patch and chopped up the greenery as much as possible. There is a strip in between where the dirt is just turned over and nothing is chopped up. We’ll see how the different methods of foreign weed control works in the springtime.

It may not be a fair experiment, as the garlic gets mulched and the other areas don’t. We also mulched the carrots, which will save in the ground until it freezes.

We have yet to clear out the dead tomatoes and other garden maintenance. We hope to get there before snow truly covers it all. Then again, we have been doing a lot of triage this year: whatever needs attention the most gets done first, and the rest just lumps along. Good thing we like volunteer tomatoes!