Many gardeners are already thinking ahead, taking steps this fall to give their gardens a strong start in the spring. Elsie Kathler, a member of the Steinbach and Area Garden Club, coordinates the community service project at the Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV). She says the Garden Club is responsible for maintaining the many flower beds and vegetable gardens on site. “Our volunteers are very dedicated from spring to fall till after freeze up to look after the gardens here,” says Kathler. Tips for gardeners When it comes to flower beds, Kathler recommends leaving decorative plants and perennials in the ground over the winter. “You leave them because they're either food for the plants, shelter for birds, insects and also it adds real interest in the winter garden. When you look out outside and you see different types of plants with the frost on the plants and the snow on the plants, it's absolutely gorgeous. It creates a beautiful landscape if you leave your decorative stuff.” For vegetable gardens, the approach is different as she says they remove all plants. “We put them on a compost pile and they're composted over the winter time and then into next year. And we use them in the garden after that.” While some gardeners debate whether to till in the fall, Kathler says they choose to do so every year. “Here we till the way Mennonite pioneers would have tilled it. They would have tilled it at the end of the fall, so it's ready for planting in the springtime.” She adds that planting a cover crop is another important fall step. “We use rye seeds, put it on and they usually grow to about three or four inches by the time they're frozen. But what that does is it adds more nutrients to the soil, and then you till that in.” Saving seeds Kathler also encourages gardeners to save seeds from their own produce for use the following year. “Seeds that are dry, things like beans and peas, these you just leave on the plant till they're dry and then just open up the pods and you have the seeds.” For wetter vegetables, like tomatoes, the process takes a little more effort. “There's two ways of doing that. One is just by drying them and squeeze them out and dry them on a cloth. The other way is the fermentation process where you squeeze the tomato into a jar of water and then just leave it for about three days.” She says the seeds will float to the top and can be collected. Cucumbers can also be saved for seed, but they need to ripen fully first. “You have to wait till the cucumber is orange, so you leave a big cucumber and it turns orange. Then you know it's ripe and you need to make sure that all your seeds are ripe before you gather them. So, then you just cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, and lay them to dry.” Kathler stresses the importance of storing seeds properly. They must stay dry and cool. “The easiest way of doing that is just to put them in an envelope, paper envelopes. Seeds are a living thing, so you want to give them a little bit of air, but not enough for them to rot. So, you can put them in a jar afterwards.” Building healthy soil Kathler notes that now is the ideal time to add compost to the garden. “It breaks down more into the soil and can incorporate itself into the soil so that I would say that's probably the most important thing you can do.” She also recommends that if you choose not to cultivate, leave the fallen leaves on the garden. “People say, ‘Oh, it looks dirty or it looks messy,’ but that's ideal because the leaves not only add compost to the soil, they also a place where our native insects can hide like our ladybugs and our solitary bees and other insects can hide.” Looking ahead As the season winds down, Kathler is busy using her harvest to prepare food for the winter. “Either making pickles or making salsa, or making marinara sauce from the tomatoes. That preparation for winter and winter storage of potatoes for example, you need to keep potatoes cool, or they'll have sprouts very early on and onions also need to be dry and then stored.” For fellow gardeners, she shares a word of encouragement. “Whenever you're gardening, consider it an adventure. Because people keep saying, ‘Oh, they didn't produce as much as I wanted’. That's part of the adventure to see how nature assists us because we're there to help nature. That's what gardeners do. It's not that we do the work and we do the production, that's not the case. Nature does and we help them.”