Preparing The Garden Ready for W inter Every fall for many years, I laboured in my garden for hours digging, weeding, pulling out flowers, and leaving behind a barren soil devoid of any plants at all. I spent many hours of grunt work turning over the soil thinking it needed to be aerated and loosened up. I had no idea that my back-breaking digging turned out to be completely counterproductive. If I had, had a giant magnifying glass, I would have seen with my own eyes how I was harming the billions of microorganisms and creatures living in the soil. I might have seen earthworms that I exposed to the cold air slowly dying of dehydration or quickly being devoured by predators. As well, I might have crushed beneficial predatory beetles like ground beetles and ground-nesting bees which overwinter in my garden soil. Sometimes, I saw centipedes and millipedes quickly scurrying to safety. They were able to escape through protective tunnels. But, it turned out with my sh...