Rebecca On...Gardening Organic in Raised Beds

Garden looking a bit messy? Even a raised bed garden needs cleaning, especially if you're gardening organic. Small beds may require less maintenance, as celebrity gardener Paul James can attest, but you still need to care for them, as celebrity gardener Rebecca Kolls of HGTV's "Rebecca's Garden" will tell you.

So how does Rebecca care for raised gardens in the fall? Some hints:

• Save heirloom annual seeds, which sprout more easily in succeeding years.
• Cut back perennials and mulch to defend against the coming winter.
• Rip apart veggies--those you don't eat are great for the compost heap, a key in raised bed organic gardening.
• If your soil is damp and you can't amend right away, try a cover crop such as winter rye, which is a supercharged fertilizer if you're gardening organic.

Raised bed gardens simplify these tasks. Now if you could just get Rebecca to tackle your small-space closet, which is also messy and impossible to maintain! Better keep watching HGTV.