TIME TO PUT YOUR GARDEN TO BED FOR THE WINTER
And To Start Planning For Spring

by Beth Lopez
The last of the summer flowers has died, the street lights come on earlier and jacket weather has arrived. I am getting my garden ready for winter.

The sweet pea vines were yellow and crunchy when I pulled them down. The big garden waste bag had its first layer. The last of the little green tomatoes are ripening on the windowsill. The tomato plants were almost bare when I pulled them out of the pots. I shook the soil out of the tangled roots, back into the planter for next summer’s tomatoes. Another layer went into the big bag.

The clematis was cut back mid-August and sits in the corner. I was told that clematis likes to have its toes covered, so a layer of sedum, a type of short succulent, covers the top of that pot to keep the clematis roots cozy over the winter.

I cut down the dahlias just as the last flowers dropped their petals. The tubers are stored in newspaper in a cardboard box to await spring planting. There are more tubers than I had last year, plant one tuber, harvest 3. I love the generosity of plants.

And the heavy strong dahlia stems fill up another layer in the bag.

The annual herbs, the basil, dill, and savoury were harvested and dried; the plants were pulled and put into the bag. Some of my older perennial herbs had reached their end. The sage, oregano and thyme were pulled and I will order new plants for next spring. The new rosemary, chives and lemon thyme that were planted this summer are thriving and will be fine to winter over.

When the garden was cleared of these plants, I loosened the soil, added some composted manure and took out old roots and stones to create a soft nourishing bed for new stock.

In the middle of the summer, as I watched the garden grow, I made note of what bloomed when and where. I made up a plan for my 2023 garden in the hopes of showing off my flowers in the best way.

Years ago, when I first started my garden, I planted lots of grasses. I love the way grass dances in the wind, showing off its feathery seed heads. Then I fell in love with bulbs and the grasses came out and I started learning about the care and feeding of bulbs.

Next summer’s garden will be a celebration of bulbs. Early spring with its shorter delicate flowers will explode yellow and purple – daffodils and dwarf iris will start the parade of blooms and maybe a few hyacinths if the last year’s bulbs produce. Behind them, the alliums take over in early summer, their bright round flower heads standing straight and tall. Late summer and early fall are graced with the dahlias with their mathematical precision and amber beauty, but I’m adding a few spikes of gladioli as exclamation marks.

My job now is to prepare for that display. November 2nd and the iris, hyacinth and daffodil bulbs are planted. They will spend the winter sending out roots and getting ready for the stems to break ground as it warms. The alliums are also in the ground will also wait out the winter snuggled underground, waiting a little longer before they flower.

A covering of newspapers discourage cats and squirrels alike through the winter.

I covered the new bulbs with newspaper held down with my small stakes. If I don’t cover them, the neighborhood cats appreciate the nice soft soil as a litter box. The squirrels also love to have an easy spot to bury their autumn harvest. The paper hopefully will keep out the unwanted attention and protect the hibernating bulbs.

The dahlia prefers to spend the winter in the newspaper cradle. They will be planted out in the early spring, beginning their work of creating roots and stems. I expect the second part of my bulb order in April with more tubers supplementing the dahlias and some new gladiola bulbs.

But my fall gardening continues.

Bags for sprouting spuds, with side-doors for easy harvesting.

I just got two new bags made just for planting potatoes. A nice layer of soil mixed with compost covers the bottom of each bag. I’ve got three Peruvian purple potatoes from market and three German yellow flesh fingerlings. I cut them each into two or three pieces, making sure each piece had an eye, and nestled each kind into its own bag. When the stems start pushing out, I will add layers of soil around the growing stem to encourage more shoots and more potatoes.

There is even a risqué little door, like the trap door on long johns, closed with Velcro, down near the bottom of the bag. I can open it, slide in and harvest potatoes lower on the plant, allowing the top to continue growing. I’m so excited. I’ve never actually grown potatoes before. I’m sure my great great-grandmother Annie McGuire O’Brien would approve. If it works as I hope, I’ll make a pot of Colcannon to celebrate.

Or, maybe garlic mashed potatoes because I’ve planted two garlic heads worth of cloves. More bulbs of course.

Benji, the Benjamin fig tree, has moved back inside, his winter home. He’s not as happy inside and will spend the next three months dropping leaves. But when he moves out in the spring, two weeks and he’s a changed tree. Already, dreams of spring.

Peas love a Vancouver winter and benefit from a late-fall planting.

My other planting job is the sweet peas. I plant out seeds in late fall, this year the second week in October. I’ve had varying results from these. One year thick vines full of leaves were cascading over the fence with snow blanketing the tops. Other years, they’ve broken the ground and sprouted a few inches.

Either way, they survive the winter and have a head start in the spring. Peas, both the eating kind and the floral kind, love cold weather, at least, Vancouver cold weather. They can go in very early spring, as long as the ground isn’t frozen. But I love the long head start of the fall planting. I have usually ended up with flowers before the ones sold at the market. But then I plant more in the spring too, so there are some plants still flowering into late summer.

This year I am trying a new experiment. In the past I would buy a variety of sweet pea seed packets, throw them all together and plant. I know there are some I like more than others, but have no idea which is which.

This year I am being organized. I soaked each kind in a different little jar with the packet in there too. I was lucky that I had little plastic seed packets. I know, the paper envelopes are better for the planet, but this is what they had. And it means that I can punch the corner, thread a zip tie through the hole and hang it over the section of fence where that type is planted. For the first time, I will know which kind make that lovely veined purple, or the gigantic and so perfumed white flower. I won’t know until next June probably, but I’m excited.

The last job is to take out the garden clippings bag.

It’s a little sad, this final flurry of work to prepare for winter and to prepare for spring. Soon, I won’t come out as often. But when I look at that tucked up bed of bulbs, and sweet pea sprouts, the potential I see will warm the cold days ahead.

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL GARDEN?

Do you have a garden in the West End or Coal Harbour that you would like to share - a curb garden, a boulevard garden, a round-about garden, a building, roof, or patio garden, a community plot, or something entirely new?

If you would like me to write about your garden, please contact me at beth.twej@gmail.com.

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Kevin Dale McKeown
Editor & Publisher