Preparation for the winter and next year's growing season is the theme today.

First of all, you definitely need to continue to put things to sleep for this growing season. Number one on the list is to make sure you have disconnected everything from your outdoor faucets. You won't be needing hoses, timers or quick connectors for the next nine months. Put them away. Newcomers often learn the hard way that leaving hoses attached to faucets can actually have an impact on your faucet's pipe and cause them to freeze up. The expansion of the water as it freezes can crack pipes.

Next, all those tools you still have laying around need to go into winter storage: sprinklers, garden rakes, shovels, spades, trowels, garden carts, wheelbarrows and anything else you took out to garden this spring. I like to put some vegetable oil or WD-40 on the metal parts to help stave off rust and it never hurts to get some on the wooden handles of tools either, just to keep them in shape. The key thing is to organize them and put them where you can easily retrieve them next spring.

OK, if you are still (inexplicably and sadly I might add) using chemical "-icides" you need to read the labels to make sure you are storing them at the right temperature. Many will not do well with sub-freezing temperatures all winter long. The only way to know is to read the labels. By the way, put on gloves before you do. In fact, you may want to take them to the recycling center and dispose of them, once and for all.

How about all those gardening solutions you have? Even organic- based things should be carefully stored. Some of the things we use on our lawns and plants are great food for mice and voles. These need to go into appropriate containers. Others, like Bt lose efficiency if left in an unheated shed all winter long. If you are in doubt, you can check on the 'Net.

This is also a good time to prepare a bit for next spring. Yeah, I know it is depressing. Still, it is a good idea to clean and put aside a few starting containers, pots, labels and anything else you know you will need to start things, indoors, next spring.

If you are like me, you start more than seeds indoors during the late winter in anticipation of the growing season. No problem getting a small bag or two of soil or humus for them, but it always seems like a waste of money to buy a few cubic yards of soil to plant these other things in.

For example, I get as many lily bulbs as I can when they come on the local market in the spring. These do best if started when the ground still has a month or three of frozen soils. I hate the idea of having to go out and buy soil or humus for them. After all, they are going to be planted directly into the garden, not containers. So, in the fall, I always fill a few fish boxes or five-gallon buckets with soil or compost and store them where I can get at them in the spring.

Don't have compost or soil you can use? Sure you do. Use the soil in those now-finished tomato containers or from one or two of the deck planter boxes. You can fill them up again in the spring with the very same soil once you transplant the lilies or what have you. Of course, you might want to amend it in the spring with some good compost or humus.

Winter is coming. So is next spring. Are you prepared?

Jeff Lowenfels is a member of the Garden Writers Hall of Fame. You can reach him at teamingwithmicrobes.com or by calling 274-5297 during "The Garden Party" radio show from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays on KBYR AM-700.

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