pic 2 - bush beans

I would pick everything before the hard frost.

Yeah those plants are dead. I'm sure they look much worse now.

Same deal here in nw tennessee. Heavy frost the last 3 mornings. Those plants are done. My least favorite time of year for gardening is this time when it's basically all over.

Friedokrie.blogspot.com

I'm not planning to compost on my own. Can I just cut these plants at the stem and bury the tops in the ground? If so, must I make sure all the baby peppers/beans are removed .... Will I have a bunch of plants next year if I don't?

thanks!

Yes and yes although woody stem plants like peppers take a long time to break down so you will probably find the stems mostly still intact come spring.

Dave

thanks digdirt, would i be best to just cut everything off the woody stem and bury everything but that part?

M_gold in my opinion you can bury the whole pepper plants. If the seeds you bury germinate in the spring you can just pull them up. Or, you can do a little extra work now and pick the aging peppers off. Either way, try not to over think it. Best of luck to you!

Depending on how many you have, you can chop them up some as you harvest. Pick off the fruit and cut the stems into 2"-6" lengths. The chopped pieces will breakdown much faster. It's true that they may still be there come spring, but they won't hurt much. If you have it, toss a little cheap N fertilizer in the bed just before tilling. Or, just use urine. The urine contains N and will assist in the decay of the woody stems. Mulch thickly to keep the soil a little warmer through the winter.

What's everyone's thoughts on burying Septoria ridden tomato plants? Along with tomatoes that were mostly starting to rot on the vine. Could perhaps have bacterial disease too. Last year I all I did was mulching mow the garden down and it didn't appear that anything overwintered.

Agree with Craig that you are over-thinking the whole process. :-) Don't make end-of-season garden clean up anymore complicated than it has to be. Would I stand there and strip off every leaf to keep the stems out of the garden or to keep seeds from re-sprouting come spring? Or take the time and energy to chop up the stems? Hell no. If you aren't going to make a compost pile then just bury it all. Come spring what is left of the stem gets tossed out of the bed. And sprouting seeds is a normal part of gardening we all have - you just turn them under or pull them. So relax and keep reminding yourself this isn't brain surgery.

Peter - Normally recommended is that infected plants go to a compost pile rather than into the garden soil. It doesn't make much difference in colder climates but can be important in warmer climates with very mild winters. Most all tomato diseases will not over-winter when exposed to cold air temps and most can't survive on dead plant tissue. But buried in the soil insulates them so in theory some bacteria could survive.

Dave

This is why I said "Depending on how many you have..."

I have a 2' X 14' half-bed of peppers. I won't cut them up and bury them because I have a compost pile. However, if I wanted to bury them, cutting them up would take all of 5 mins. NO PROBLEM!

This guy might have 2 pepper plants and it might take him 1 min. to cut them up. That would save him the trouble of bending over and working the stems out of the tiller tines later. Unless of course he has as many as you Dave and uses a tractor. Sometimes small effort now saves hassles later. But, as I said, it depends on how many one has to deal with.

Or, like I did last year, hit it with a lawn mower :)