The garden beds are now readied for winter, a sign of quieter days ahead. To the rear, one of the hoop-covered beds holds hardy carrots, celeriac, and leeks. The other one contains kale, chard and salad greens snug under an extra layer of row cover beneath the hoops. In the front, a floating row cover provides some extra protection for frost-tolerant tatsoi and chicories. As for the middle bed, the cover is to keep it from freezing to allow us to plant garlic before the month’s end.
Harvesting: Chicories (puntarelle), tatsoi, kale, chard, salad greens, and fennel.
Preserving: Red pepper ristras for drying.
Diary of a Tomato 
Looking very organised and ready for the cold.
Always a balance between letting the vege go as long as they can, and needing to prepare their beds before it’s too cold!
Yes, I can imagine. It’s like the balance between letting things keep going as the harvests reduce and pulling it all out so I can replenish and replant for the next season.
And so another season says farewell.
We’re so looking forward to the quieter portion of this year!
I just picked my final cuke today and got four tomatoes. We may get our first frost tonight. But I also planted garlic and covered it in hay. Curious that you’re waiting on garlic planting.
The saying here is better to plant garlic too late than too early, as long as the ground can be worked. We try to time it to Veteran’s Day, but somehow missed that this year…
I love your hoops. I hope to be more organized next year and have some just like yours to help extend the harvest. The double row cover should serve you very well. Last year, I had to lift off the first 4-inches of frozen soil to plant my garlic :)
The nicest part about using the hoops is it allows some of the vege, like the kale, to come up early!
I’ve just started cleaning out my beds and am feeling a little sad about the bare spots. But the summer stragglers are still producing so I’m still getting some decent harvests. It’s hard to believe that winter is knocking on the door. Your garden looks snug and ready for the season.
I would say you’re getting more than decent harvests! But yes, though we’re more than ready for the quiet of winter, it is a melancholy time of year…
Very impressive!
Just a little plastic tubing and sheeting…
Did not know celeriac and leeks would survive through the winter under cover. Will the ground freeze?
Thought we have celeriac and leeks heavily mulched and under cover, you’re right, they won’t survive the ground freezing. We’ll begin to harvest some this week, and the rest when enough storage area opens up.