Unless you have a great setup and are prepared for your garden to weather the freezing temperatures, you are going to experience a real loss over the next month or so. Your garden is going to wither up and die. Not all at once but some plants are going to die before others. Only the toughest things like kale and winter vegetables are going to survive.
All of the hard work you put into your garden will wither in a matter of days. That first frost is one of the most depressing things to see when your once strong and formidable garden goes all translucent and falls to the ground. Its the annual reality of gardening. The question is what do we do next?
You can use this experience as a sort of inspiration that will remind you of just how important a winter garden is. Are you going to go that route or are you going to eat off your food storage. Many people do the latter because the winter garden is no picnic. Don’t forget the days are shorter and the sunlight therein is shorter, too.
Still, there are many different things you can do with your dead garden. There is a wealth of information and a first hand experience of the death of a garden and what comes next.
One very important thing to mention is that this is not a time of total loss. This can be a time of great reaping and I mean in the seed department. While the plants and fruits are important, those seeds are insurance for next years garden.
Don’t discount the importance of collecting each years seeds. If you keep them safe and labeled you will also have a great barter item in desperate times.
The garden is never really dead but it will require more of your help in various seasons.