The Winter Garden....

This week I've started cleaning up the garden a bit, unloading the tomato towers and taking them down (they were full of worms, working the soil, a good sign).....digging up all the dead plants and putting the beds to rest.  Of course, today has been the coldest day of the year so far, so I didn't last too long out there!

This is what the garden looks like today...the garlic is in the front and there are a few things still alive and thriving there...carrots, chard, cabbage and some of the beets.

When the chickens see me in the garden, they rush to the front of their pen to see what I'll bring them...they are looking for anything that's still green.  I wish I had put in some ground cover just to feed them throughout the winter. Maybe next year....

The chickens love the fresh chard!

John is re-arranging the vegetable garden for me, adding more ground and another long raised bed, and he's still working on raising all of the fences around the garden to keep the deer out (pests!!) Today he added a new gate, and eventually we'll be putting a plastic cover on the hoop house to create a mini-greenhouse.

Meanwhile, I'm pouring through the many garden seed catalogs that I've been getting, ordering some new things for the spring.  At least I can do that in the house where its warm!