Winter is coming, along with snow and cold temperatures. You may feel tempted to slow down
in the garden once you’ve harvested your autumn crops, but there are still plenty of tasks to do.
The soil is still active and you can make spring cleaning easier by preparing now. Follow this
article to prepare your garden for winter.
5 Tips to Prepare Your Garden For Winter
1. Clear the Weeds
One of the first things you can do is clear the weeds. These pesky and undesirable plants can
become a bigger problem if you allow them to grow in the winter months. Go ahead and dig
them up now and ensure you remove the weed from its roots. You’ll serve your plants well by
removing invasive species like bindweeds. These can wreak havoc by colonising berry patches
and ruining a garden.
When you uproot them, separate the weeds from your garden because they can remain viable
and spread their seeds. It’s best to throw them away. After uprooting, you should replace it with a native species to help the soil. If uprooting is too tricky, you can spray with an approved
pesticide to treat the weeds.
2. Take Out Dead Plants
After uprooting weeds, another tidy-up task you can do is remove the dead plants. Some can
stay because their rotting adds nutrients to the soil. However, other crops may show signs of
disease or pests and fungi have overwhelmed them. If any plants begin to show illness, you
should take them out.
About 19,000 plant diseases derive from fungal organisms but can also come from bacteria.
Some signs of a fungal infection may include leaf or stem rust and powdery mildew. If you have
berries, watch out for a birds-eye spot. Plants affected by bacterial diseases typically have a
crown gall, fruit spots and cankers.
3. Tend the Soil
Once you’ve completed your cleaning, you can start preparing for the first crops of next year.
Tending to the soil in the winter will keep it healthy and reduce costs down the road. You can
add organic fertilisers, compost and manure and help your soil with essential nutrients.
Supplying nutrients now allows them to break down throughout the winter. Once spring arrives,
you’ll have less work to do. After layering the nutrients, you can start adding cover crops.
4. Sow Cover Crops
Cover crops are valuable for your garden because they protect your soil from eroding during the
winter. You won’t necessarily need them for harvesting, but their primary objective is to increase
organic matter in the ground. They’re also helpful for mitigating weeds and promoting
biodiversity in your garden.
Cover crops you may find helpful are Sudan grass, alfalfa, buckwheat, Austrian winter peas,
clovers and more. Some call them living mulch because they add nitrogen to the soil without
any chemicals. When sowing these crops, use tools like tillers and rakes to prepare the ground
for planting.
5. Use a Horticultural Fleece
If you have tender plants, you know how delicate they can be. Unlike your hardy plants, these
can’t survive throughout the winter. Trouble arises for them once cold weather and precipitation
arrive. You can protect all of your plants with a horticultural fleece.
Companies make horticultural fleeces from polypropylene because the material protects tender
plants from winter conditions. Its porosity protects plants from overheating better than other
materials can. Once spring arrives, you can continue to use horticultural fleeces to expedite
plant maturing by about two weeks.
Preparing Your Garden for Winter
Christmas music on the radio means winter is quickly approaching. Despite the incoming cold
weather, you can still do some chores outside. Tending to your garden now means less to do
when the temperatures are warm again. Use this article for five tips on preparing your garden
for winter.
Rose Morrison is a home living writer with over five years experience writing in the industry. She is the managing editor of Renovated.com and loves to cover home renovations and decor to inspire everyone to live their best DIY life. When she isn’t writing, you’ll find her baking something to satisfy her never-ending sweet tooth.