The garden is just about finished; only the watermelons (of which I may or may not get any but the one), Brussel sprouts and a couple of tomato plants are left. Most of my tomato plants had or were starting to die off, so this weekend I decided to clean up the garden. I'll be the first one to tell you that I never do this the way I am supposed to. Especially with tomatoes, you are supposed to remove all of the plants and rotten or unripened fruit because they have a bacteria that will survive in the soil, even through winter, and can affect next years' planting. For this reason you are also supposed to rotate where you plant your tomatoes every 3-5 years because it can take that long for the bacteria to die off (also, never put tomato plants in your composter). I sort of do this. I rotate my tomato location, but when it comes time to dig up the plants, I just mow everything over. I know, I know, it's probably counter productive to the health of my garden, but I figure everything in nature has a way of working itself out. I'm not going for gardner of the year or trying to win any awards with the size and breadth of my produce, so if the yield of my vegetables are less, so be it.
I've been freezing a lot of Brussel sprouts and, as mentioned before, my house smells sickeningly of boiled cabbage. I'm hoping to get a couple of more watermelons so I can try my hand at "Zesty Watermelon Jelly", but so far I have only gotten one, and that was two weeks ago. There are more out there, but the weeds have overtaken them and I don't have the motivation to try and weed it. Again, I will let nature take its course and not worry about it.
I do love how nice the garden looks when is mowed!
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