It's between christmas and new years.. nothing going on in the garden cause i don't have a hoop house, low tunnels or a green house.. got all my catalogs and going through them to put in my order soonishly, cause.. starting in february i'll start some seedlings.. but not quite yet.. So, to keep you all entertained till i post again, which probably won't be for another couple of weeks.. here's a photo of my cat, Muddy.. he just turned 2 in November.. he's a big cat, about 15 pounds, not fat, just big! I call him little big cat. I know, not much to do with gardening but he is one good looking cat! ; )

I know i've been really slack about my blog lately. There are a few reasons.. #1. it's winter.. there's not a whole lot going on in the garden in winter. Though, as you can see from the above photo, i'm still harvesting kale, brussels sprouts, and not seen, collards, and lettuce. The second reason is i got the flu.. Kinda puts you off your game for awhile. I'm not 100% yet, but i've had to get back into gardens i work to clean up for the winter.

It's important to clean up your garden area before the ground freezes solid. You don't want insects making a nice winter home in your garden debris; just gives them a head start next spring. So besides overwintering crops, like garlic, you want to pull out all your stalks, stems, etc.. from your garden area. Not only does this help with pests, it also means you're ready to go next early spring.

Also, if you've had pests like tomato horn worms, or flea beetles, and the like, not only do you want to pull out all your dead vegetation, you want to turn your soil over now.. Reason, a lot of pests lay their eggs in the soil, by turning it over now, you can expose a lot of the eggs and hopefully kill them. While i'm not usually an aggressive person, i do believe in killing pest insects with vigor. After all, they're eating my food, i don't think they worked for it!

So.. maybe in the next few weeks i'll post a photo of my empty garden, which is kinda sad.. one day i'll start posting photos of my incredible greenhouse where i grow stuff year round, but till then.. and till February when it all starts again.. Lets harvest what's still growing, and give thanks for the season we had!