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Putting the garden to bed in the fall

Square Foot Gardening List - http://myweb.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

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My sq ft garden consists of two raised beds, 4' x 10' x 16" (they're 
high!) each. Last fall I did that seemed natural: after everything 
died in the frosts, I pulled the remains of my veggies and tossed 
them in the compost pile . Then I layered about four inches of red 
and silver maple leaves that had been collected either through my 
blower/vacuum (which pulverizes some of the leaves and chops others) 
or sucked up by the lawn mower - not particularly a mulching kind but 
that does some chopping. I mixed the leaves into the rest of the soil 
and left them for the winter.

Now that spring is here and I am trying to plant out there, I think 
maybe I  didn't do the right thing. Lots of the leaves remain intact, 
enough that I worry about some of my seeds not being able to make it 
up through them. I sort of feel like I need to screen the dirt, which 
wasn't what I was looking for at all!  I wanted it to be all 
decomposed and ready to go.

Should I have only put screened compost in there instead? Screened 
leaves? I have two screens: 1 inch and 1/2 inch. Are those fine 
enough?

And did I do myself a disservice by not planting some cover crop in 
addition to digging in the leaves? I just left the bare dirt all 
winter. But since I am fighting through the leaves, I sure don't want 
to have to fight through some cover crop next year.
-- 
Katherine Wendt
DataWiz Solutions
toll-free 1-877-DATAWIZ (328-2949)
703-288-1151
thefolks@memberstoaction.com
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