Color or Character

I love the analogy of getting old with getting better, but I wonder sometimes if I am getting more colorful or just becoming a character. Where did September go--one day I was thinking my tomatoes would never ripen and the next I was harvesting the potatoes and watching the leaves fall. So, you want some thoughts on winterizing the garden.
One of the things that is the most satisfying about growing a garden is when all the produce is gathered in and the weeds are all tilled under. Some how looking out at the garden all brown and resting, knowing that the vegis are in the root room makes me feel safe from the winter winds.
So, the first thing is to gather the produce and then remove all the plants, if you want you can form a compost pile and add all the plants to it. Don't add weeds or when you use the compost it will be full of weed seeds. Next till or spade the soil. This will get roots up and also aerate the soil and the winter freeze will break up clods if your ground is clay. Now is a good time to add manure to the soil cause it will have all winter to break down.
The whole yard will benefit this time of year from an application of weed spray. The weeds are going dormant also and will pull the killer down into their roots and they won't reappear in the spring.
Now is a good time to move perennials or plant some new ones. The nurseries have sales on leftover plants and the warm soil and cool temperatures make the plants build roots quickly and they will come up in the spring looking great. I'm going to move a hosta and some ferns this fall so that they will be where the sprinkler system will water them next year.
You can take in some flowering plants at night and stave off their death a few more weeks or after a light frost, trim the tops and store the root bulb for the winter where it won't freeze. Then replant next spring and save buying new plants like begonias every year.