Kim, I don't really ever close my garden. In different years, I have let the heat or the cold end the garden for me, depending on the circumstances. I'm sure I'm shortening the life of my tomato cages, etc, by leaving them out all winter, but c'est la vie.

Usually at onion planting time (mid Feb/late Feb depending on how my work schedule is going) is when I get the garden cleaned up and ready for the new season. I add compost and manure as needed, pull old dead plants (tomato carcasses), dig all the grass and weeds, and turn the beds over if I can, then add cardboard and mulch to the paths. I do not have a tiller, and try to adhere to a "no-walk" rule in my planting areas to aid with preventing compaction, but the dirt always looks "prettier" to me when it's newly turned and fluffy, you know? My garden is smaller than some, 3 rows about 50 sf each, so hand digging is doable, but if I had a tiller I would surely use it!

For T-bars, I would get the hose and soak the dirt at the base, then go back the next day and try to wiggle it back and forth (or kick it, or get a sledgehammer to try to knock it back and forth). I think you have to widen the hole to be able to pull it up -- at least with my current level of upper body strength -- and I only have 4' posts!

Thanks Mia. usually I try to have everything neat and tidy for winter but last summer my givadarn broke. I simply abandoned the whole thing. there are so many carcasses out there its sad looking. I feel better knowing its not too late. with gardening I always feel I am running behind.
My first real year of gardening I did not have a tiller so I know I can do it by shovel. it just takes me so long to do it that way. a little at a time right ?
kim

Kim, I have 50 or more 6' Tee post that I pull in different ways. I get hold of the top of the post and run it in a circular motion to enlarge the hole, bend over and get hold of the post rather low, place my elbows on my knees and try to lift with my legs. the post may not come up but an inch or two but repeat the process. I have a very weak upper body and I find this is easiest for me. You can buy a T-post puller for around $25 but I don't feel that I pull enough post to justify one.

My north garden is ready to plant now if it would dry out a little. I have the idea that there is never a bad time to amend a garden, if you can do it without damage to the plants. I added some cotton seed mill to my north garden yesterday but it much too wet to till in. My north garden is so wet that I an trying to keep it bare to aid in drying by planting time.

Larry

Kim, I should take pics of my garden. Absolutely looks just like I left it before the first freeze. I gave up trying to do anything before spring. I try to pretend to myself that leaving everything in place lets the leaves gather around the plants and it makes "compost".. However, it does give me a chance to go out and start working early in the spring when its is warming up but not ready yet.

Mia, I leave my tomato cages out too... :)

I usually clean mine in November and cover it with leaves, but not this year. I have been trying to clean mine up a little, just a few minutes at a time, but it is no fun to garden in a coat. I am looking forward to 58 degrees tomorrow so I can finally get a little more done. Mine has never looked this bad before.

My cages stay out and my cattle panels stay up. I finally got smart and bought a t-pole driver last year, but I still don't have a puller. My garden soil is pretty light so I don't usually have much trouble getting them out when I want to move something.

Larry, I wish I had 50 t-posts.

My garden is driving me crazy and I really want to get it cleaned up, but it seems that all winter it has been too cold, or too wet, or I had to be gone. I am just having trouble getting it done.

Thanks yall, I feel better now that I am not the only one.

Larry I must say I had quite the giggle going picturing you running in circles around the t post. I misread the first time and well I needed that.
its a good thing I reread that or I might have tried it. I will try what you actually said.
My brother always told me don't say cant just figure out how. So I will figure out how. I must have driven that thing halfway to china, but it will come out or I could plan my new plan around it LOL.
thanks y'all
kim

Kim, I do it whichever way fits whatever is going on in our lives at the time. It doesn't really matter if I do the clean up in November or February, or if I clean up each raised bed right before it is time to plant something in that bed---it all works out in the end. So, don't stress over it....just do what you can whenever you can.

If it was a bad snake year, I often don't clean up the garden until January or February when I am almost 100% certain there won't be any snakes in there in the mulch. I have run into a pygmy rattler out and about in February but it was in the woods, not in the garden.

In our earlier years, I like to clean up in the fall, and I liked to add soil amendments then. Then I piled up chopped/shredded autumn leaves on top of each bed to prevent winter weeds from sprouting in them. This is my preferred method but....

In more recent years, it seems like I always am too busy with the VFD in fall and winter and never get as much autumn cleanup done as I used to. That's okay, because I have seen how much the little wild birds and bunnies (I leave the gate open in winter specifically for the bunnies) shelter in the garden and how much they look for seeds and other vegetative matter to eat. I think I have more songbirds in the garden in the winter than in the spring. Often they are searching for pest insects to eat and that's okay with me.

I get posts out the way others have described. It can be fairly easy or it can be really hard depending on how deeply a pole was hammered into the ground or depending on how dry or moist the soil is. Either way I do manage to get them done.

I don't think it ever is too late to rototill organic matter into the soil to improve it, as long as we aren't talking about fresh manure. If I'm working partially-decomposed, fairly fresh manure into the ground, I like to do it in the fall, not the following spring. With fully decomposed manure that no longer resembles manure visually, you can add it any time you please. You don't even have to rototill it into the ground. You can put it on top of the ground and it gradually will be carrying into the ground in various ways...by rainfall, by you using a trowel to transplant plants into the soil, by various insects, etc. It is just that you do get it into the ground more quickly if you rototill it into the ground.

Starting the tiller is one of my pet peeves. If Tim isn't around, I always can call a neighbor after I've tried and failed to start it on my own. I'm talking about a big tiller. If you're talking about a mini-tiller or cultivator, they are easier to start. I can start my Mantis by myself 99% of the time. We also have a lawnmower that can be hard to start at times. (Maybe I just don't have the upper body strength in my mid-50s that I had in my 40s......as well.) However, it has a rechargeable key thing....so as long as I plug it in to recharge after I mow, I can start it with the key the next time I use it, instead of having to use the pull cord. People with smaller pieces of property can use the great multi-attachment cultivators, trimmers, etc. with rechargeable batteries and I think those are wonderful. However, our acreage is large and those batteries don't last long enough for me to do one-tenth of what I need to do on any given day.

You'll find ways to do what you need to do. We have lots of armadillos that prowl around and eat at night. After we cut down a few trees at the ground level, but left stumps in the ground, I was disgusted with how long it was taking the stumps to decompose, but I didn't want to spend money to have someone come in with a stump grinder or something and remove them. So, I poured molasses and.or Karo syrup slowly onto the stumps and let it soak it. Within days, either armadillos or something else was destroying those stumps to find the syrup. They unearthed them in large pieces and small pieces and I just picked up all the pieces, carried them to a permanent compost pile where I throw big stuff to decompose slowly in order to fill in/heal a badly eroded area, and then put a few shovelfuls of garden soil in the place where the stumps had been. If you think creatively, you'll find ways to accomplish all the chores you need to get done. I know some single women who share a garden with a male friend or neighbor---he comes over and rototills and helps with chores that require a little masculine strength and she shares some of her garden harvest with him. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

Dawn

Kim...

I don't know your circumstances, but I have a couple of thoughts (since your "giveadarn" left).

Do what you can by yourself - and enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that comes from it.

Ask a friend to help when you just cannot do something (because of lack of strength, or knowledge, or whatever).

This year...plant things that are pretty much sure things, or that have a high success rate for you. Practice being thankful each time you're out in your garden - that you HAVE a garden, that you're harvesting healthy, wonderful things from it, etc.

And...find someone to whom you can give some of what you've harvested...an older neighbor, a young family, a friend in similar circumstances.

In other words, embrace your garden this year as fairly cheap, wonderful therapy - sounds like you just may need it!
(Said only because I have been there (still there in some respects) and I care)

Sharon

Thank you both for the encouragement. I do look forward to gardening so much and giving away part of the harvest is the one of the best parts. I enjoy all of it really. It is great therapy.
the tiller is a medium/ large troybilt. I have never had to start or run this particular tiller so I will get help with this. I actually did think of someone who would help me and I will let him use it in his garden. definitely more than one way to get it all done.
I hate to repeat myself but I love this corner of GW. Y'all are so helpful knowledgeable and encouraging. thank you
kim
and
my seeds came in from my co-op today and already are talking to me.