Early Winter Garden & Un-Resolutions

Winter wisdom for the New Year...but first, what's going on in the garden?

Putting the garden to bed is one of the most satisfying chores of early winter, don’t you think?

Harvested carrot bed mulched with chopped leaves and carrot tops

You’ve harvested the last of your fall crops, mulched and composted the beds (hopefully), and now you can sit back and let the soil do its off-season R&R.

The task that really gives me a sense of accomplishment is tucking in the asparagus for the winter. Timing—and Mother Nature’s cooperation—is everything.

You can’t really do much until the ferns die back through the fall— the soft, rich green material decomposing to a crunchy, muted tan. And they sure take their time.

Then you need several hard freezes, and a good snowfall to really finish them off.

Once the ferns are goners, dry as straw, you can finally cut them down and haul them away. It would be nice if you could just pull out the dead ferns, but no. Those suckers are still part of the living asparagus crown below the soil.

Ferns have finally died back

And even decomposed, the fern stalks are really sturdy. For me, hand pruners don’t work; I have to use tree loppers to cut them off at the soil level.

We have about 20 crowns, and the dead ferns add up to armfuls of biomass. About three or four huge wheelbarrow loads.

Once I’ve cleared the beds of all the dried ferns, I like to mulch with chopped leaves. The final step is to top dress with well-composted chicken manure to weigh down the leaves.

One row of asparagus mulched and top-dressed

Here’s where Mother Nature’s cooperation comes in handy. If it snows just as the ferns finally die down, you’re out of luck. The ferns will just freeze together into a mass until the snow is pretty much melted.

Last year, that’s exactly what happened. I didn’t get a chance to clear the beds until March.

Big mistake!

I learned that leaving the stalks over the winter creates a perfect breeding ground for asparagus beetles.

The beetle pupa nestle all comfy-cozy into the hollow cores of the decomposed fern stalks, before hatching in spring. They sure did in my garden. During our May harvest, I had a major asparagus beetle infestation.

They feed on the stalks—and the little nibbles completely destroy them. You might think, how could small beetles do much damage to a far larger plant?

Well, in my experience, I’ve found asparagus is at the same time hardy…and vulnerable. Even small pest bites in the stalk, especially in the tip, cause it to go “catty-wompus.” The stalk will bend over and stop growing.

When it comes to asparagus beetles, just a few bites makes the stalk pretty much wither away. For more about this destructive pest, here’s a two-part series on my Little Farm blog.

This time around, I was so pleased to finish my clearing and mulching this week. Now, having done my best to avoid another May beetle party, I can take a break from important chores…

Well, maybe a short one—until the rain and snow lets up and I can start tackling the feral oregano and wild blackberries invading my beds!

What’s going on in your winter garden? I’d love to hear about it!

Resolutely Avoiding Resolutions

This time of year, you can’t escape New Year’s Resolution advice. How to make resolutions, how to keep them, and if you can’t, how to get back in the game.

Everywhere you turn, you encounter mind tricks, triggers for success, and time management hacks to get ‘er done. You’ll also find multiple areas of your life you might want to improve: health, finances, career…and on and on. In fact, more than you ever dreamed possible.

Over the years, I’ve Seen. Them. All. Actually, I thought I had…

Until I came across National Public Radio’s list of 50—50, mind you!—different topics for your resolutions, “50 Ways to Change Your Life in 2024.”

I don’t know about you, but goodness! Just the title sounds exhausting.

I have been a resolution-maker for many years—determinedly creating lists of writing intentions and business goals. The problem isn’t making goals, it’s resolving to 1) start all these new habits beginning January 1st, and 2) freeing up the necessary time for your projects, also by January 1st!

But this week, I feel I’ve just gotten a reprieve—like permission to give up Resolutions for good—thanks to a trio of wise and thoughtful writers.

Ciara Ohartghaile, a fellow Substacker at Gorse, points out that we’re at the front end of winter (in the Northern Hemisphere)—in mid-hibernation, really.

“It seems totally counterintuitive to start something new or change your routines…January feels like a good time to hit pause, take it easy, plan your year ahead, rest and recuperate.”

Prue Batten, from the Knots in the String Substack, says,

“Nothing should be set in concrete. If this last year has taught our family one thing, it’s that curve balls come from nowhere when least expected and one has to adjust.”

For my husband John and me, the last five years feel like one long series of curve balls. Still, Prue’s words make me smile:

“It comes down to concrete! Mind you, not setting stuff in it remains my plan for the coming year.”

And from Anne Devereux-Mills, Author of The Parlay Effect: How Female Connection Can Change the World:

“…I am not one for New Year’s Resolutions because I’d rather make small but consistent, sustainable improvements all year round.”

These words of wisdom are cheering me up to no end…given that for much of the year, I’m committed to the Big Writing Interrupter, or Creator of Curve Balls: running our little homestead.

Many days, or even for weeks at a time, our place is my main priority (after family). The books I long to write simply have to be third on the list.

Clearly, if I’m going to write books—and just like Rome, a book can’t be built in a day—I need to be content with small, incremental progress.

Anyway, it makes perfect sense to let go of the whole New Year’s resolution business. If you feel the same, I hope you’ll take a look at Gorse and Knots in the String!

The Idea Box

Exactly one year ago, I shared my “story idea” box that sits in my office, A River Runs Through It: Writer’s Ideas. (After the Mighty Mouse story.)

This box is jammed tight with notes and manuscript pages and article clippings and bits and bobs of writing tips. The photo caption read,

“Where books are born?”

Oh, so many ideas, so little time

As it happens, my box contains notes for books I’ve been meaning to write for 15 years. At least. So the caption probably should have read:

“Where stories come to die.”

A few months ago, I got tired of the vibes my messy box was giving off: there was a whole lot of procrastination energy…plus a faint whisper of reproach. I emptied the box of all the files, organized every scrap of paper, prioritized each project, and basically gave my box a complete makeover.

New, improved Idea Box

Still, despite all the stories I didn’t get to, over the last year, I did tackle my main priority: the fourth book in my Little Farm in the Foothills series.

Happily, I’m heading into the home stretch!

My fiction priority is an Irish love story in my Ballydara series I’ve been kicking around for several years. I’ve written 20 pages or so—but it has sort of a complex timeline, and the story is interwoven with three previous Ballydara novels.

Over the past year I made more notes and plunked around in the manuscript, feeling like I just couldn’t wait to write it. But everything in me concluded that this book couldn’t be a side project, worked on here and there in between the Little Farm book.. I’d need to devote all my brain-space to it.

And you know what they say about the best-laid plans. See: Resolution stuff above!

Still, these last months, I’ve just been so hungry to write fiction again! I knew I’d have to work any story around the Little Farm book, and I’d have to start small. So why didn’t I simply go to my idea box and choose something?

Because another story idea, a brand-new one popped into my head a few weeks ago. This one doesn’t require all my mental bandwidth—at least not at this point. Fingers crossed!

Speaking of writing…

Here I am, going on about how I’m resisting resolutions—but I’m actually making a Substack-related one.

I’ve struggled with perfectionism since I was a kid. Even though I heartily espouse the saying about perfect being the enemy of the good, I still stress over every one of these posts. Worse, I spend way too much time editing and endlessly polishing them.

So! Starting now, I am resolved that once I’ve drafted a post, I’ll edit and polish it once. Maybe twice. Okay, three times at the most. And while I’m at it, make them shorter!

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Over at my Little Farm blog, this week you’ll find Are You Prepared? (For winter!) You’ll also find a holiday-related series about the Yule Lads, the Elf on the Shelf and other holiday frivolity—to maybe look at next year!

Thank you so much for starting off your New Year with me and Little Farm Writer—I’m looking forward to sharing another year with you!