Fall Clean Up Part 3 - Garden bed

So today I began the sad process of dismantling the garden bed. I removed the plants who had finished up - namely the broccoli, the stump of the tomatillo plant, one of the summer squash plants (the other one is still producing!).

I also potted the jalapeño plants because they still have quite a bit of peppers on them that still need some growing time. Plus, my brother mentioned smoking them and turning them into chipotles, which I think would be quite possibly the coolest thing ever. So the jalapeños are coming inside the house at night and going out on the deck in the morning.

I've been reading a book called "Wisconsin Garden Guide" by Jerry Minnich. It's very much a Wisconsin-specific version of the Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. The first chapter is all about soil, the second about composting and mulching. Both of them talk about how to build up proper soil and compost so that the plants roots dig down deep to anchor the plant and allow it to pull valuable nutrition in times of drought. Judging by the length of root on the plants I pulled up (that weren't dead but were done producing, like the broccoli), our soil rocks the house.