It’s getting to be that time of year. Wednesday night, our low is 38*. Not enough really even for a frost, but it’s got me thinking of what has to be done before our first freeze.

Gardening…. any ‘warm season’ crops will be pulled before the first frost (I’m hoping for another week or two). These are things like tomatoes, peppers, melons, cucumbers, summer squash. Cool season crops (most root veggies like beets, potatoes, carrots, turnips) and cole veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage) can handle even a light freeze (if the temperature gets down to about 30*, but not lower than 28*), so they will wait a bit.

I need to also take the caps off the ends of my soaker hoses, so if the water expands in them (due to freezing), it will have a place to go besides blowing out the hose. I will get the hoses and connectors picked up about the first freeze. That particular night always seems to get a little crazy.

We live in NE Colorado on the high plains, so winter can be… interesting. Getting ready for winter starts in the summer with falling trees, cutting and splitting wood for the woodstove that we heat with. We store our firewood in large totes so it can be moved easily with a skidloader. I have already cleaned the woodstove ashes out, but I need to black the stove (I use a commercial product) to help prevent rust and make the stove last longer. Wear gloves – it will stain EVERYTHING! I do this right before we have our first fire of the season. It needs to be heated to cure.

I will also disconnect all hoses and put a cover on the spigots on the outside of the house. This year, we will combine our younger chickens in the hen house with some of the older hens. I am trying to clean up my flock of miscellaneous birds into one that is dual purpose (for both meat and eggs) only. I’m hoping to get that part done next weekend. We will cull (butcher) most of the roosters and some older hens. This meat is not like grocery store chicken. These birds have eaten feed, but also bugs, snakes, mice, weeds, leftovers, vegetable peelings, etc – and they are older, so the meat will not be as tender. I fix that by pressure canning the meat to make it more tender. Canned meat is also way convenient.

Moving the chickens will make my chores more efficient, and I won’t have to worry about freezing waterers with them all in the chicken house, or at least not as much.

I also turn off the water to my canning kitchen, and set the heat as low as it will go (45ish) in our guest house to keep the pipes from freezing. Putting out some type of mouse poison is also a must when you live in the country. I have heard a couple in the last few days, so I put out a small bowl of Coca-cola. It works well as a mouse poison, and I don’t have to worry about poisoning the cats or dogs. The campers at our house will get a product like Tom Cat as they are well away from the house.

Fall also means harvesting root herbs like burdock, dandelion, licorice, elecampane, and ashwagandha before the ground freezes. If you are harvesting these, wash them well, let air dry, then chop up and run thru your food processor. If you wait until they are fully dry, it’s like trying to chop rocks.

If you have access to plums or crabapples that you want to use for jelly making, this is also the time to harvest them. I usually don’t have time to process the juice into jelly, so I can the juice (hot out of the steam juicer) until later in the winter when I have time to make jelly.

Preparing for winter and doing routine needed maintenance will help your things last longer and cost you less in the long run.

What do you do in your area to get ready for winter?