FIMBY: Time to shut it down?

This is another installment in our Food in My Back Yard series, devoted to edible gardening.

The tomato plants are disappearing from my community garden.The melon vines, cucumbers and eggplants, too.

They might be played out, or devastated by pests. Or the gardener is just done with the whole production, eager to enjoy some time off from intimately tending (and cooking and eating) homegrown edibles.

I get it, believe me. For years I never grew a winter garden -- no cool-weather greens, no winter peas filling the spots where the tomatoes had been. The exception, eventually, was garlic, which has its own issues. (Plant in October, but don't harvest until June, really?)

So don't feel guilty about shutting it all down just as pumpkin spice season is taking over. Winter gardening, with less daylight, more rain and colder mornings, can be challenging.

But ... don't walk away from your garden just yet. You need to tuck it in for the winter. Future you will be so happy you did. Here are some tips:

-- Assess first what is healthy enough to be composted and what is diseased and should be tossed. Start the work lists with that. And harvest anything that could ripen on a counter indoors or can be frozen for later use.

-- Cut down and compost any tomato plants that made the healthier list, but if you can help it, don't yank out the roots just yet. Cut the plant off right above ground level. Those roots have been in there for months, contributing to the soil microbial community, and pulling them out when fresh will disrupt that process. Let the roots die naturally-- and often they are huge -- and they will come out more easily in early spring.

-- Remove tomato cages, stakes, and any other support elements. Put away those that are in good shape, and toss any that are not usable another season.

-- Remove and store any drip irrigation lines, especially the thinner ones. They will last longer. Ask me how I know this.

-- Weed. Seriously. It's easy to walk away from the weeds, but they keep working when the gardener is not. Seeds happen. Get rid of anything you can see, and the garden will be so much easier to work next year.

-- Give the soil a boost before it goes on break. For a garden bed that has hosted heavy feeders, such as tomatoes, cucumbers or corn, I like to rake a layer of poultry manure over the soil, then cover it with straw (not hay) or leaves. This allows the winter rain to work nutrients into the soil naturally. And the manure will be mature and ready to till under in late winter or early spring. 

-- New beds or sites of lighter feeding plants can receive a layer of compost, if that is all you have; it's handled like the manure is. This will help the soil, too. Remember, though, that compost is soil amendment, not fertilizer, so those parts of the garden might need some balanced fertilizer before spring planting.

-- Got worms? If so, this is a great time to harvest worm castings, assuming the wigglers have been busy all spring and summer. The worm castings are ideal to add to new beds, containers or soil that seemed too weak for the plants it held.