Putting kiddos to bed nightly is a hefty-enough routine involving teeth brushing, onesie-wearing, prayer-reciting, stuffed-animal- finding, bedtime-story-reading-with-the-funny-voices-and-all, as swiftly yet thoroughly as we can.

Putting one’s garden to bed? It’s a totally different process, one that’s intensely more time consuming, rendering my husband and I ever grateful it happens but once a year.

And now it’s here, yes indeed.

We brace ourselves, don our favorite work jeans – mine have acrylic stains and a hole in the knee – and make our list as we take deep breaths.

For us, the best way to ensure a thorough winter’s garden rest is to break down the to-do into singular steps, tackling each at a time.

Because the days are only getting shorter, the temperature much cooler.

And so in this sort of reverse- Aesopian fable way, we must hurry and tuck in this garden tightly so that we can return inside our warm home swiftly from the dreary cold.

To tackle these steps, we first turn up the tunes. We harvest any remaining hardy veggies, like kale and beans.

Tomato, squash, pea and bean plants are ripped up. According to almanac.com, any diseased plants should be tossed, and disease free plants composted.

Really, consider the compost. It’s not nearly as messy or smelly as you may think. Compost tumblers are low-maintenance and easy to use with no pitchfork in sight. When done right, a compost made of just the right ratio of greens (nitrogen) and browns (carbon) winds up a rich, nutrient-dense soil with a warm, earthy smell that’s incredibly beneficial to your plants and free to make.

And if you do use a tumbler – or two – you can compost all winter long. Talk about your slow cooker.

Our boys absolutely relish in these garden bedtime chores. Once our garden beds are rendered newly free of dead plants and only soil remains, along with any freshly laid layers of compost if any, our kiddos run out in bright rain boots to race their outdoor Tonkas up and down the gardens, a sort of bonus rototill.

While they play truck wars, my husband and I dry and put away soaker hoses and stakes, and toss any leftover weed block tarp.

Storing away these items is key. But before you also store your garden tools into hibernation, it’s important to winterize your outdoor plants, and to plant your flowering and garlic bulbs for next year’s growth.

According to almanac.com, these following tips will help preserve your soon-to-be-dormant landscape for the frigid season ahead.

Prepare herbs for winter – Sage, rosemary, thyme, parsley, chives are all perennial. So they’ll be back next year for you, and the Scarborough Fair too. If you can, trim and save any remaining herbs for use all winter long by cleaning and dehydrating them or freezing them in olive oil. And remember, rosemary adds a fantastic dose of flavor to any Thanksgiving turkey. Ready the berry patches for winter – Prune summer-bearing raspberry bushes. Cover strawberry beds with straw. Mound up soil around blackberry canes to prevent hard frosts from heaving them out of the ground. This prep work now should help to yield a berry good harvest next summer.

Water your perennials and flowering shrubs once more – They’ll appreciate this extra dose all winter long. Once the ground is frozen hard, cut perennials back to 3 inches and mulch.

Prep trees – Don’t stop being a tree hugger just because it’s cold out. Keep small trees and shrubs from extreme cold by wrapping them with a cylinder of snow fencing and packing straw or shredded leaves inside. Remove any broken limbs.

Empty outdoor containers and store upside down – This will prevent them from cracking.

Put your toys away – Drain power equipment fuel tanks, and store your garden tools too.

Once all is said and done, take a gander at your landscape. Sure, it’s un–stimulating, brown, melancholy. But consider this not a sad ending but an inspired beginning.

The winter’s quiet in which our compost cooks and the world hibernates is time we take to map out next year’s plots; what did we savor this year? What was a total waste of time? What could we do differently?

Each year’s garden is a hope to improve upon the last.

Closing up one’s garden doesn’t mean it’s dead. Rather, it’s resting; taking five, if you will.

Five months, that is.

And as it sleeps, it’s our time to dream of what to grow next season. We’ve got time.

So until then, raise a mug of cider and toast to the coziness ahead.

And don’t forget to bring in those Tonka trucks.

— Michelle Cote is the creative director of the Journal Tribune and a nationally-syndicated columnist. She can be contacted at mcote@journaltribune.com.