We had our first snow of the season last night. It was beautiful to see and helped knock remaining leaves off the last of the apple trees and stone fruits. It’s always something I look forward to because the first snow is kind of like a scrub brush that wipes away disease, pests, and the mistakes of a growing season. I’ve layed down wood chips, sprayed, and cleaned and packed away most of my tools. Peppers, figs, guavas, and persimmons are in the basement as temps are supposed to dip well below 25 degrees. I’d be curious to hear about people’s end of season tasks/chores/rituals as we go into the dormant season. Thanks
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Last night was the second snow of the season. 12/5 was the first real one.
End of season tasks ended two weeks ago with persimmon, fig, hardy banana wrapped, potted figs moved to the unheated basement and tropical potted plants moved inside the house.
Now it is time to read up, strategize how to fit more trees into spaces that do not exist and order more trees that I do not need 
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After trying to use up all the fruit, the biggest end of season challenge for me is getting the hardware cloth around the base of my trees. It’s the Whitetail Buck and the Meadow Vole that I am protecting them from. I like to leave pokey wires on the upper portion of the wire hoop. These keep the deer’s nose occupied when they try to rub my trees.
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My ‘dormant season’ thoughts turn to projects designed to make next year easier. I so look forward to cold weather to get ‘buildings and grounds’ stuff done.
I just installed a thermostat-triggered vent to blow cool air into the hoophouse so I don’t have to manually vent it when the sun heats it up in the winter o/w cool crops bolt.
I have 2 more raised beds to trench around and install 1/2" hardware cloth to mole/vole proof them. So about 80 linear feet of a 9"trench. (Part of my ‘growing in Fort Knox’ ops.)
Transplanting landscape and fruit trees and some repots (someone gave me 3 citrus plants) is a nice winter time chore.
Remediating annual and perennial beds according to soil needs. I use a broadfork to aerate and nute at the same time.
The ‘funnest’ task for me is making lists!!!..stuff to repair, find gadgets that might make work easier, and seeds to order, scions to acquire, and generally how to do it better next year.
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Still have leaves on my apple trees. Everything else is leafless! The lawn was mowed for the last time a week ago. The citrus is inside, and due to the heat on constant temps. All of the citrus is now forming flower buds. Waiting until Feb for pruning. No snow yet. 
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Citrus is out of the greenhouse and under lights in the basement. My potted peaches, plums and blueberries are all tucked up in sawdust and put in a room in a minimally heated chicken house. All my grapes are laid down and under a pile of peat moss. The fence is up around my small orchard and the rodent bait traps are out.
Our greenhouse is shut down for the winter and I am all tucked up in the house pouring over scion selections. My list has a life of it’s own, it had become so crossed out and new varieties inserted that I have rewritten it at least10 times. I have researched the choices to death and just when I tell myself with determination that the list is done, I come across a thread on this forum that points out a positive trait of a variety I had previously rejected and… I’m writing it again.
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I work on winter tasks all winter. Wheel barrow loads of aged manure and wood chips are wheeled around to my top producers to replenish them after all their hard work. It will be -10 F within a week the forecaster thinks. I’m waiting for warm days in Feb to plant my new apple orchard. Waiting for all leaves to drop so that in late January or Feb I can spray my first copper spray. I will put on sulphur , dormant oil, and copper then but only once leaves have dropped. Most rabbit guards are on and voles and cottontails are my enemies for the next few months again. Deer need to be watched because they trim apple, cherry, and pear buds this time of year leaving an angled cut where next years apples would have been.
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Please describe.
I have a very well insulated chicken house that started out to be just a plain wood structure, but my dad is a carpenter and kept on building (He had a thing about energy efficiency). My husband likes to call it “the palace”.
There is a couple of feet of insulation in the floor and ceiling and a little less in the walls. I use a heat lamp until it gets really cold and then I have a small heater on a thermostat that will click in. But with the chickens and the insulation, it does not stay on long.
He also built two very small areas so I can separate out my chicks and hens, isolate the sick or put a broody hen in there to set in peace. I hijacked one for my more cold sensitive plants this fall as I was running out of places to keep them dormant in the winter without them freezing to death in our very cold winter.
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