What should I do (if anything) to winterize my small vegetable garden (Buffalo, NY, USA)?

Question

Should I pull everything? Cover with a tarp? Mulch? Leave exposed? Should a rake the leaves from it or leave them? Any other winter preparations I should make to make spring that much easier on it?

Answer 1

Choose your garlic patch and plant it now. Mulch that. Straw is ideal if you have it, shredded leaves are OK, whole leaves mat down a bit too much, and also blow around too much before they mat down.

If you have carrots, kale, or other crops that do well in the cold, leave them be - mulch and mark the carrots so you can dig them as you need them through the winter. Just pick the kale when you need some.

The tops & leaves of dead garden plants should normally go in the compost pile - use tree leaves for leaf mulch. This is a step in the direction of disease/pest mitigation.

After that, many options depending on how you want to go. You could plant a cover crop (winter rye) to be turned under in the spring. You could mulch with shredded leaves, or buy straw, or pile on 3-6" of manure, or combine all three, or do different things to different beds to see what you prefer.