Cleaning the garden

I toss everything but bermuda grass in the composter. Okay, let the experts chime in--I bumped it. (Actually, I trash any diseased plant materials, too.)

katy

 

Yes, you can compost the tomato and pepper plants. If your plants were healthy all summer, no problem. For quicker action, you may make a pile of them and chop them with a mower. Anything green gets handled that way by me. I mix the plants with dry maple and ash leaves and run them through a bagging mower. Mixed with the shredded leaves, it becomes a hot pile which quickly kills any leftover bugs or possible diseases. The important thing is to get those dead or dying plants out of the garden. Then there is no place for any problem insects to winter over.

Martin

 

I compost everything regardless what other's say. Sometimes the conditions are just right for blight and other diseases. Your dog could track it in the garden or someone could visit. yada, yada, yada.

Ruth stout by the way just left everything fall where it may and planted the same stuff right back into it the next year with no bad results. I believe that is because her soil was so healthy that the plants were healthier and could withstand a lot.

 

I usually just let the plants (including tomatoes) die in the beds and leave them til spring. This year, because a bunny had taken up residence in my bunny-proofed raised bed ( ), I pulled them out and tossed right back into the bed.

The advantage of doing it this way is sometimes, you can get nice volunteers coming up the next year! This year, in fact, half my tomato crop came from volunteers. !!!