Southern Soil Fall Issue 2022, Vol 5

Get Going with Kira King

Kira King has a 4-acre homestead in Savannah, Georgia with her husband, daughter, and menagerie of animals. After graduating from the University of Georgia with a journalism degree, she began her own social media marketing company which over time morphed into a homesteading blog and podcast.

The Homestead Kings treasure local and sustainable food practices beginning in the home, the simple lifestyle that homesteading provides, and the companionship they share with their animals. They didn’t grow up in the homesteading or farming way of life, but Kira says they got there as quickly as possible and still learn something new every day.

What to do this Fall

Fall, the most welcomed season of the year in the South. After a long, sweltering summer, fall brings with it a cool reprieve with its crisp mornings, warm, pleasant days, and early nights. Every season change provides signals to your mind and body on how to respond and what to do. Fall prompts us to get ready for winter. It cues us to get those green brassicas in the ground soon so that when all the world is alive with the reds, oranges, and yellows of autumn, our bodies still have greens to thrive on. It reminds us that we are living beings that are just as affected by the seasons’ changes as the gardens and animals around us. As with every season, there’s an abundance of things to do, but somehow with fall, after the urgency of late summer harvesting and preserving, it feels that we can take

on its tasks with a slower, more restful pace.

In the Garden

Just because the sun is setting earlier and the nights are getting cooler doesn’t mean that your gardening season is over! In fact, it’s just starting for a whole new set of cool-loving crops. Now is also the time to do a restorative garden reset before the frosts come. Garden resets look different everywhere depending on what type of beds you grow in, whether they’re perennial or annual garden beds, and what resources you have available to you.

In our garden, a reset looks like cleaning out our deep litter chicken coop for one of its bi-annual deep cleans and spreading this rich, nutrient-dense compost onto our annual garden. We then cover the compost with a thick layer (2-4 inches) of mulch. Our mulch is not the typical mulch from the store and is composed of both green, nitrogen-rich plant matter and woody, carbon-dense plant matter. Having both of these types of plant matter within the top dressing of our garden beds means that even over winter, our mulch is not only covering and protecting our compost/soil underneath it, but it is also breaking down and continuing to feed it.

If you don’t have access to this mixture, don’t worry! You can use your own version of compost and mulch depending on what’s available to you. There are wonderful businesses around south Georgia that sell beautiful, fertile compost soil or maybe you already make your own with the food scraps

from your kitchen all year long. Adding nutrients to your soil can sound difficult, but in practicality, it’s extremely easy. Just remember that the soil is teeming with life from the tiniest microorganisms to the earthworms you come to regard as the best friends of your garden. For mulch, you can use something as simple as leaves that drop from your trees, grass clippings from your lawn (minus the seed tops), or shredded newspaper. There are few places you can go wrong with mulch. The important thing is that the soil is always covered and isn’t exposed to the elements. This ensures that the millions of lives within it remain active and healthy which in turn sets your plants up for success.

If you’re planning on adding some berries or fruit trees to your landscape, now is a great time to plant them. It may seem counterintuitive to start them as the weather cools down, but the cooler weather actually helps them establish their root systems without the stress of the summer heat and drought

and helps them prepare for growth come early spring. Also, provide them with a heavy mulch layer, but not too close to their trunks, to conserve soil hydration and minimize weed encroachment.

For annuals, we have a great growing season all year long in south Georgia.

It’s now time to start:

• Kale

• Lettuce

• Mustards

• Carrots

• Onions

• Radishes

• Turnips

• Broccoli

• Beets

• Cabbage

We’re so fortunate in our climate that we really canfeed ourselves from our garden every month out ofthe year!

If you have animals, now is a great time to assess their living conditions. Are their pens in need of repair? Do they need new waterers or feeders? Does their bedding need to be refreshed? Do you need any more supplies or feed for the upcoming winter? The cooler temperatures bring about some reprieve for animals too, but their basic needs are still the same. Your chickens will enjoy any leftover garden bounty as treats, discarded pumpkins after the season, or even scratching around in the piles of leaves you rake up.

Your goats will love you for giving them access to your transitioning garden to clean up before your reset. Just make sure to do a quick internet search to double-check the safety of the plants you give them for animal consumption. If you’re getting a set of fall chicks, set your brooder up before their arrival and use an appropriate heat source to keep them warm and healthy until their feathers come in and they can handle the colder temps.

In the House

Fall is a preparation time for winter for your house too. Now is the time for all of that fun annual maintenance.

Here are some ideas to get you going. Check your gutters, search for air drafts, change your filters, touch up any exterior paint, patch any roof leaks, clean the outside of your windows, pressure wash

the siding, winterize your pipes, clean your chimney, and more. The key is to prepare so that when those winter winds are howling, you’re nice and cozy inside without a worry as to whether or not you left something important undone.

Don’t worry. It’s not all hard work! Decorating for a new season stimulates our creativity, and the brisk, fall air rejuvenates us all. Bring in natural elements by using your old corn stalks as decoration on your porch or dipping colorful leaves into wax and making a vibrant garland for your mantle. Arrange some of the dried flowers from long-spent stems into an eye-catching vase for your dinner table. Add a thick, cozy throw blanket to your favorite resting spot, and fill your home with the insatiable smells of a big pot of chili and freshly baked pumpkin bread. Be intentional and welcome the earlier evenings with a hot apple cider and a leisurely stroll around

your quickly changing garden. It’s slowly getting ready for its winter rest, and while we don’t go completely dormant during winter, we can learn quite a few lessons from emulating our garden’s activities or lack thereof. Sit around a fire with your family and friends, look up at the stars, and enjoy just being present in this new season.