Summertime blues is what is on the agenda this week.  The ending of the garden and the beginning of the planning the fall garden.  Some things that you can do to get ready is to till in all of the vines and leftovers.  This creates a good mulch and an additive for your soil.  I would even water it some to help create a good mulch.  By the time it is ready for fall you will be ahead of the game.

What can I plant for fall?  Tomatoes for one, if you can find them.  Green beans, squash, and lots of greens(turnips, mustard, kale).  With the weather that we have had for the last few years you might could get away with some 90 day sweet corn.  

I’ll share something that me and my grandson, Duke have done this summer.  Duke loves to fish and together Duke, me, and with help for granddaughter Harper, have built a worm bed.  It was pretty easy.  We used 3 five gallon buckets, compost, and of a start of worms.  Not an expensive project, but a lot of fun and a great interest for Duke.  I work with my 2 granddaughters Hadley Kate, and Harper with baking and sewing but Duke was left out.  This gave the 2 of us something to do and learn from.  Well, so far, so good.  I think it is time to add a few more worms to the bucket.  You-tube building a worm bed for us and I think it was a fun deal for MitMit and Duke.  I heard that he used a few yesterday to fish in the pond behind the house. I don’t know what they caught but Duke did have plenty of worms on hand.  I hope that one day he will tell his little boys about the summer that we built this bed and how much we both learned from it.

(Mitzi Thomas owns Minden Farm & Garden LLC. Watch for her column on Fridays in Webster Parish Journal.)