As the summer garden season winds down, there are two important things to remember. First - "It ain't over ‘till it's over." The calendar won't stop your produce from ripening, eventually the weather will, but likely not for six weeks or longer. So use it until it's gone.
Second, to keep your garden as sustainable as possible, remove as little plant material as you can. Composting on-site is far more earth friendly than hauling your tomato vines halfway across town, and then going to the same place and getting somebody else's composted tomato vines as a soil amendment.
Of course seriously diseased material may need to be removed. But nothing in my yard fits that description. If you have bindweed - often mistakenly called morning glory, after weeding put it out in the sun to get crispy dry, and it won't re-sprout when you use it in a lasagna compost. Same with your other weeds.
A rodent-proof compost bin is great for kitchen scraps and lots of garden leftovers. Mine is 32 inches in diameter and eats its own volume dozens of times before I get to empty it.
But the easiest way to return all the non-edible things your garden produced to the soil is a lasagna compost. Put a layer of weeds, bolting lettuce, and vines right on your garden. Top it off with cardboard and leaves. The worms are ready to rumble through it this winter so you'll have fertile soil next spring.
Big things like cornstalks take a while to decompose. I lasagna them where I plan to put tomatoes or squash in next year so the lingering stalks can be pushed to the side. You can also dig a trench and bury slow decomposers like corn stalks. No need to till the soil. The worms will do a better job than any machine.
I'm John Fischer with Good Gardening.
