Do you 'refresh' your garden every year?

As the growing season comes to an end for me, I am starting to think about next year.

Some folks that I know have a routine to prepare their garden beds for the next year. Some folks may add amendments while others may not do much of anything!

What do you do to your growing spaces to get ready for the next year?

At the end of the growing season, I will pull my trellises and tomato cages in order to put them in a protected place so they don't get wear from the winter season.

I generally leave exposed stalks of plants up overwinter unless they are in a bad spot (stuck in a trellis). If I have to trim them, I will leave the roots in the ground to break down over winter.

I like to add organic matter that is not composted (fallen leaves) before the winter season and then add finished compost in the spring if I'm going to amend the soil. I'll also add biochar in the spring if I have it available.

I let my chickens into my garden between the first frost of the year and the first snow cover so they can cleanup leftover veggies and hopefully leave some manure in its place. I've been getting a lot of volunteer tomatoes previously so hopefully they put a dent into my never-ending cherry tomatoes that keep popping up.

I believe it is good to clean up the old plants and put them into the compost pile.

As Timothy suggests, tomato cages would be good stored in a good location.

If there are no plans for a fall garden then bare soil would be good to cover with a mulch or leaves.

In the spring when the garden is refreshed folks can just plant directly into the mulch.

If there is finished compost then the soil could also be refreshed with that.

I have a simple process which seems to have evolved for my simple farming area - As I clear the season's crop out of the beds I use bracken and seaweed to mulch it thickly. I've already put bracken on one of my four beds, and started on the 'grains' bed. I'm yet to harvest the roots or potatoes....The other thing I've started doing is adding the charcoal out of my wood stove to half of the bed which will be 'grains' next year. The idea is that I will gradually add the charcoal just to one side to see if there is a difference side to side after a few years. I may just start adding all the ash though - my soil is acidic, so will benefit from the alkalinity of the ash, but it is bulkier to carry down the hill. I mainly add the ash to the 'legumes' bed during the growing season (having separated out the char) as I read somewhere that they would benefit most from the Potassium.
The over winter mulch hopefully insulates the soil from the worst of the weather, prevents some leaching of nutrients from the rain and breaks down to feed the top layer of soil by the time spring comes round again. I hope to have a little home made compost to add to the beds a few weeks before seed sowing in spring too.

In theory, I lay out bales of rotting hay over weeds I want to occult. Then I can bust them up and use as mulch in the spring or plant right into the bale. But often enough, snow comes before I get all that stuff done and then I just hunker down for six months.

I'm at the end of winter and prepping for spring planting, I have maybe 2 weeks where the beds can rest (it is rainy during this period, no point planting).
I rip out the old stuff and throw rabbit cage waste on the beds. Cover with mulch, maybe. Next week I'll pull back the mulch and maybe dig in the rabbit manure (maybe not, depends how much has already been incorporated. then plant seeds and we're off.

Deep leaf mulch, followed with urine every now and then.
Dried peas strewn about.
I'm looking for some cheap fava beans  to sow.

I normally do this in November. I add used straw to the raised beds, add manure, and let the winter and spring rains do their thing.   In the spring I add compost from the compost piles.

I should do more, but it always gets swamped in the rest of oncoming winter. I still need to dig potatoes.

I do pull up my tomato cages and set them aside, so I don't run into them and kill myself -- I got tired of the crappy commercial cages, so I made some out of hog panels. They're about 2x3 feet and support two plants each (or rather, contain them so they don't attack passersby, I've grown some monster tomatoes).

For those of us in warmer climates, this is actually the most intensive time of year. There's a lot to harvest from long season hot weather crops (winter squash, cowpeas, okra, and sweet potatoes for me), but there's also an urgent need to get the fall vegetables (mustards, beets, carrots, brassicas, peas, Irish potatoes) in the ground. I am often conflicted about whether I should leave the summer plants in to continue producing at the risk of being too late getting the fall plants in. This year I compromised by harvesting half of my sweet potatoes to make some space. Anyway, my point is that there is no rest season for the garden here, so adding compost, mulch, etc happens at various times throughout the year. I add mulch in the form of poultry bedding or lawn clippings under growing plants or a few weeks before planting heavy feeders. I also chop and drop crop residue at harvest time and this can be a lot of biomass for things like sweet potatoes. It's a constant churn.

I spread leaf mulch over beds. Often it goes and flies away so maybe I need something to weigh it down?

I also dig parsnips which provides “tillage” for next year, and usually work on continuing to shape the terraces, spread tree seeds, etc. I also dig holes to fill with compost material over the fall/winter months. The worms will generally have broken it up and incorporated it into the soil by spring time.

We refresh a section between harvest and planting.   Usually by trenching compost.

But most of the year here, we can garden year round.  When one crop come up, we usually plant another within days, or in the summer, intercrop.  For example, the peas are nearing their end, we plant chard or kale between the rows so they get the protection from the elements.  Then, when the peas come up, we chop them at the ground and the greens are 6 inches tall.

There are only a couple of weeks near the solstices when we can't work the garden.  Especially in the summer.  But for those times, we can start seeds inside.

I've thought about raiding the public parks for bagged leaves... elm and ash leaves make really good soil. But you do have to wet down or mix in the leaves, so the wind fairy doesn't take them!

In the yard, I usually just mow the dried leaves, if they haven't all blown away (not enough to be worth hauling back to the garden). Instant mulch. You can use a bagging mower to confine the output for other uses.

Hmm. Just occurred to me that I could use pine litter in the garden, since I usually want to acidify the soil a bit (helps prevent potato scab).

Jake Esselstyn wrote:I am often conflicted about whether I should leave the summer plants in to continue producing at the risk of being too late getting the fall plants in..

This, and its contrary, are an ongoing challenge here for me as well (I ripped out one snow pea plant today- they're still producing but next week I'm putting in the spring planting. Which in fact is early seeding of our high summer plants, to get a jump on the season. The weather is too unpredictable and it looks like we're going to get heat early, so I'm trying. I didn't get a single blessed okra last year, this year i am determined to get okra.

It's often snow and frozen ground from November through February here. In the fall I dig deep trenches and bury all the fallen leaves, 3-4 feet deep, with thin layers of dirt between thick layers of leaves. Then cap it with a thicker layer of dirt. In the spring I plant right into that top cap. I leave one trench open all winter and dump all the paper, kitchen waste and fireplace ash and charcoal into it, and then it gets capped in the spring. A lot of wood gets in there too, from sticks to rotting tree trunks.

So each fall it gets dug up again and the deep layers are pretty well decomposed after a year. The only drawback I have seen is that if the top cap of dirt isn't thick enough, some plants have trouble getting deep roots through the layer of leaves.

We wait till after all the leaves fall off a tree, then we rake em up and place them on the beds. I really dislike raking the same area several times. Fortunately different trees drop leaves at various times. We don't get snow cover here, and some years, the raking of some leaves gets postponed to late winter. Some beds get pine needles, and as many wood chips we can find for free.

No, my gardens do not have a uniform look.

I spread leaf mulch over beds. Often it goes and flies away so maybe I need something to weigh it down?

Do you have pine needles in your neighborhood? I have found that a light sprinkle will hold leaves in place.

I move critter bedding (goats, sheep, & chickens) from a big pile, as needed, year 'round. I use the deep bedding method, so it comes out to the pile as I can get around to it, all spring & summer, then I begin to let it build up in the barn & coop, starting about now, to keep the critters warm - it composts in place, and just smells earthy, by spring.

Like Joylynn, I don't mess with leaves, until they're all off the trees. We live in the woods - I would never get anything else done, otherwise. Even then, we only move them from where we need safe paths, and use the leaf blower to blow them next to all the raised beds & on the big shade garden. Then they get picked up and distributed as needed.

Beyond that, in about November, before the first snow, I round up all the tools and get them cleaned up & 'put away'. Over winter, when there's time, I'll sharpen edges, and oil them. No tomato cages, here - just bamboo poles, which also get collected. But, the livestock takes top priority, so while all the above is always planned, it rarely *all* gets done, before I run out of steam, especially since I'm still planting stuff. Today, I put saffron crocus corms into the huge containers, around my fig trees. Next week, I'll be planting garlic and maybe some of those many perennial herbal & medicinal flower seeds that do better planted in the autumn. Hope springs eternal...

I never seem to have a problem with leaves, uh, leaving , but Cincinnati is rather wet.
I am also growing in raised beds and containers, I can imagine in ground beds being different.

My leaves come in giant brown paper bags(thank you neighbors!)  so if I needed a covering for them, it's right at hand.
I am into winter sowing, propagating plants and container gardening, so there is always a pot or tray filled with growing medium available to act as a weight.

We spread leaves on our garden beds in the fall. It's better if they've gone through the leaf vacuum or the lawnmower. Chopped up, they stay in place. We also let our chickens roam in the beds after fall harvest, and again in the spring before planting, to mix things up and fertilize with manure. Fall or spring, if we have a full compost bin that has been sitting for several months, we spread that under the leaf mulch.

William Bronson wrote:
My leaves come in giant brown paper bags(thank you neighbors!)  so if I needed a covering for them, it's right at hand.

A local guy with a radio show about gardening call them "SPBs" which is short for "stupid people bags."

For my fall clean up I take down any tomato trellising , clean out any rotting produce and cut back all the above ground plant matter.  Last winter's wood ash gets spread over all the beds to empty the metal trash can and make room for this winter's ashes.  The garlic row gets mulched with a thick layer of leaf mold from the prior year's leaves.  The asparagus get a last of the season weeding and a think layer of leaf mold if I have enough to spare.  Otherwise that row and all the others get covered with this year's leaves.  And I fill up a 4' square bin made from pallets with as much of this year's leaves as i can squeeze in.  I have absolutely no shame when it comes to collecting other people's leaves.

This year I want to prep a section of a bed to try winter sowing in place.  Can't decide if I should just sow seeds and leave it exposed or try some covering.  Any ideas?

I "refresh" my garden by usually chopping up my harvested plants using my lawn mower with the bag to catch it all, then spread over my beds. (a lot of the plants do not chop up very good when wet.  Just gunk up the mower.  lol)
I say usually, but this year a forecast was for some rain, Maybe some snow.  I got over a foot of snow.  That was 4 days ago. Still have 6 inches or so of the white stuff.
Took 3 of the grandkids out today and raked the snow off the carrot beds and pulled carrots.  Canning them in the next few days, after the tomatoes, Canning tomatoes every other day as they get ripe.  Had to pull them 10 days ago because of a frost that was coming.  (and it came)
Tomorrow is raking more snow off my beds where the garlic is going and then raking more snow off the potato beds.
Everything is messed up for me this year, but I am hopeful of a thawing out this next week so I can get back to work in the garden.

Dianne Justeen wrote:
This year I want to prep a section of a bed to try winter sowing in place.  Can't decide if I should just sow seeds and leave it exposed or try some covering.  Any ideas?

To me, wintersowing in containers  is as much about protecting seeds and seedlings from critters as it is about moderating temperature.
I use dollar store dishpans and restaurant supply house bus tubs both for tops and bottoms
One pan or tub holds the soil, the other is inverted over the plants.
I have used the inverted pans/tubs directly in on the soil to good effect.
I got the idea from people using clear totes over their wintersown plants, but most clear totes disintegrate from exposure to the weather rather quickly.
The dishpans and totes last longer and are food grade, for what its worth.
White buckets work for taller plants.

I hope to find the time (and my body allows) to get the compost out of my compost heaps and to spread it over empty spaces in garden beds.
In fact my gardening season never ends. There are perennial vegetables, year-round-crops and vegetables to be planted in autumn for a crop next year. Most of my garden beds are never totally empty.

My compost heap is where everything goes I weed out. I first need to take off the upper layer and then I find the nice compost in the lower layers. I do my best to use three different heaps ... it doesn't always go as planned.

I was just futzing about at my garden, emptying a raised bed/container in preparation for moving it to my mom's house.
This made me remember that my prep can often consist of  emptying entire raised beds into other raised beds!

The contents of this bed were a huge chunk of cardboard, topped with a plug of compost surrounded with last year's leaves.
It started out 3 feet tall and sunk to just 2 feet.
I dumped it on a tarp, then fished out the sunchokes.
I planted those into a newer pallet bed and then arranged the rest of the contents on top of them.
When the other bed gets to moms house it will get filled with leaves and sweetgum balls, then topped with compost and planted with mustard, favs beans, turnip greens and probably some elderberry stakes.

This process is cyclical , two or three beds of half finished compost become one bed.
It kinda funny, because I love the idea of low disturbance and no till, but I am often inducing massive disturbance in my grow beds.
I do have beds and containers which only get covered with mulch and fed nutrients and do really well.
I consider those beds mature, and the other beds unfinished.
Immature beds are planted with free onions, potatoes, sunchokes, plus volunteer tomatoes and squash.
Harvest is kinda like a bonus for making compost.
Elderberry is supposed to be a good green manure and a compost accelerator, so I'm excited to have access to a grove to take cuttings from.
I want to see how they deal with having their green foliage stripped off over and over.

I refresh my beds Just before I plant in spring and fall. I remove what needs to go.  (I also garden year round, and find it difficult to remove producing plants to plant new plants that won't produce for a while).  I will mix what ever I have on hand. Today it was fish bone meal, azamite, green sand, bio live, a tiny bit of kelp meal, a little veggie fertilizer. all organic. I mix it in a bucket, and lightly sprinkle it on the beds. It's  not very much, but I figure especially since some are raised beds I need to replenish what the plants may have used. I want them to not only taste great, but be as nutritious as possible. Then I will top the beds with what I have. Today it was compost, potting soil, and soil conditioner. It's all organic. I work at a co-op, so if I can get a broken bag for a deal I will grab it, if you read the ingredients, they are all about the same. My beds are all filled with wood in the bottom, so over the years the soil level gets lower. I fill them as much as I can when I can. Even with my discount it can be pretty expensive. I'm working on making compost, but even though it's actually heated up this time I will never be able to make enough to keep my beds full. Then I water it well and plant.
I have to confess I enjoy the clean fresh look, and the the potential for amazing veggies, fruit, herbs and flowers to come.

In August or September I make a new garden plan for the next year, which is a map, of the 24 permanent 12 foot by about three feet beds in my main garden, the six in my North Garden, and the open space in Central. Because I do this every year, I have records of all my previous gardens, including colored markers around the borders to indicate amendments to each bed. I write my proposed crop in pencil--when I actually plant, I'll erase it and use pen for the actually planted crop, and the date.
I try to do most of my soil amending in the fall, so I don't have such a rush in spring. Usually I turn an emptied bed with a shovel and add perhaps an inch of compost, manure or leafmold, depending on what I've got and to a lesser degree, what crop I plan to plant--leafmold is supposed to be especially good for brassicas and carrots, and not good for peppers. I also may add sand depending on the condition I observe when turning the bed, and to some degree what I plan to plant. If the next spring's crops will be early, I cover it with hay; and if it needs a fine seedbed I work the soil with my hands to get it smooth. If the crop is not going in until April, I may plant winter peas or hairy vetch as a cover crop--especially if I don't have enough organic matter to feed all the beds. For a crop not going in until May, I may plant wheat or rye, to cut at pollenshed when it's easier to kill off the roots after cutting the tops to use as mulch; l sometimes I'll let one bed go to maturity to harvest the grain. I used to have my husband till Central before planting a cover crop, then again to get rid of its roots in spring. But I didn't succeed in getting a cover crop a couple of years and the soil got very heavy; I never seem to have enough manure and sand for that space--and I've succeeded a couple of times now in getting a cover crop established in September without tilling. This space is used for wide-row crops, mostly field corn but sometimes sorghum and one year in three it gets the tomatoes. I get big pieces of cardboard from furniture and appliance places in town and lay this between the rows--this serves to suppress weeds and hold in moisture and needs only a little hay on top to hold it in place, not a full covering. Often I have hay used for goat bedding, so the nutrients from the goat manure leach in to feed the plants. So, in September I pull up this cardboard and scatter rye and vetch seed, try to rake it in and where the ground is too hard I add a smattering of compost or bits of hay. If we get decent rains this suffices to start a good cover crop.

No exactly a garden refresh story, but at season end we usually have a vegetable smack down.  Heavy clay soil here, so I dig in all the leaves I can from the yard.  But to do that I have to pull all the remaining plants, which is when I find the cucumbers I missed that have turned into monstrous swollen yellow things.  The odd tomato that I left due to blossom end rot.  Extra zucchini that I can't pay to get rid of .  Half rotten mushy leftovers from the seed potatoes.   That sort of thing.  The vegetable smack down part comes from someone years ago throwing a rotten tomato at someone else.  Now we bring out the aluminum baseball bat, laugh ourselves silly and "mulch" up any leftover veggies.

I live in zone 8a. Last fall...about 6 weeks ago (LOL)  I cut the dead veggies and herb plants to the ground. I left the roots to hold the soil.

Last May I created a Bio reactor, which I am very excited to open up and spread on my beds. A bio reactor is a fancy term for very lazy composting with wood chips and leaf debris..

It's time to plant peas here.

I live in a hot climate area so I bed prep as I plant. This seems to cut down on hideous creatures digging up not-quite rotted compost.

I don't do much, the winter is the "refresh/reset" with a little work on my end putting some areas under a layer of raked leaves and/or raked up field and garden debris when weather permits my mood to do so.

Then come spring, maybe a broadforking down the centerline of rows. If I have woodchips I'll spread them in paths as well. Then typically its some light hoeing, mowing, and chop/drop to get started and maintain that weekly thru the growing season and see what pops up and survives of the seeds I sow :)

No plastic tarps, irrigation lines, or bought in ammendments here to fool with, that stuff drove me nuts at my place, I only do all that at the farm I work at ;) But then again we grow waaaaay more stuff waaaaay more "successfully" there than at my feral place!

I'll add a "winter coat" to my berms with leaves, humus or wood chips.

This year I added a layer of soil/organic matter, dead limbs and sunflower stalks to build up one of them that has sunk a substantial amount.

I still have to trim my shrubs for next year and also start taking cuttings around March-ish for propagation.

That's pretty much it, aside from trenching and building new berms, which I didn't do this winter but still have time before the ground completely freezes.