Fall is the time to prepare garden soil for next spring's vegetable garden. The spring season is often wet making it difficult to work soil without forming clods that remain the rest of the season. By contrast, fall is usually drier allowing you more time to work the soil when it is at the correct soil moisture content. Even if you work soil wet in the fall and form clods, the freezing and thawing that takes place in the winter will break them down, leaving a mellow soil the following spring.

More benefits:

• Insects often hide in garden debris. If that debris is worked into the soil, insects will be less likely to survive the winter.
• Diseases are also less likely to overwinter if old plants are worked under.
• Garden debris will increase the organic matter content of the soil. Working the debris into the soil is often easier if you mow the old vegetable plants several times to reduce the size of the debris.
• Organic matter (leaves, rotten hay or silage, grass clippings) can be more effectively added now than in the spring because there is more time for it to break down before planting.

As a general rule, add two inches of organic material to the surface of the soil and till it in. Be careful not to overtill. You should end up with particles like grape nuts or larger. If you work your garden into the consistency of dust, you have destroyed the soil structure.

Source

As tomatoes cannot be stored at temperatures below 50�F. You need to find a location that is above 50�F but as close to 50� as possible. For most, this will probably be the coolest part of your basement. On the afternoon before the first freeze is forecast pick all the fruit on the plant that are full-sized (regardless of color). Discard any with severe cracks, disease spots, bruises, or that are otherwise defective. Divide them into three groups:

• Those that are full-sized and still green,
• Those that are showing some color,
• Those that are mostly red or nearly red.