Winter Gardening Tips for Your Garden
RAKE THE LEAVES AND PICK UP TWIGS, STICKS AND BARK.
This is an easy task that can warm you up and become a family activity. If you’ve got trees that drop their leaves, you’ll have mounds of them. For a bit of fun before the raking begins, let the kids (and you) go totally wild amongst the leaves. When I lived in Melbourne, my daughter’s favourite thing was to jump, play and twirl amongst the leaves, throw them up and let them flutter down over her. If you don’t have kids, bring out your inner child and have a go yourself. After you’ve raked the fallen leaves, you can turn it into mulch or compost. The bigger branches can be used as firewood to light up a fireplace or if you have a space in your garden to have an open fire – what a great excuse to toast some marshmallows.
AERATE THE SOIL
After summer and autumn, the lawns usually become compact and weedy. Winter is the perfect time to aerate the soil to prepare for the next planting season. Aerating lets in moisture in the soil and allows the grass roots to breathe. You can do this using a garden fork. Ok if you have a small area or one of those roller aerators. I’ve seen ones that you push along or you could hire one from your local landscape place. You can then dress the soil with a layer of coarse sand or loam. Come spring, you can further fertilise the soil. If you notice that the rain is puddling and does not seep into the soil, you can apply a hose-on soil wetting agent.
DIG THE VEGGIE GARDEN & PLANT NEW CROPS
If the weather conditions permit and if the soil is not overly wet, winter can be the perfect opportunity to dig a new vegetable or garden bed to turn into green manure crops in time for the planting season. Winter is also the perfect time to pull out those pesky weeds. You can also still grow vegetables that don’t mind the cold weather such as snow peas, English spinach, broccoli and lettuce. We sell a range of tunnels that can help you in your winter growing.
POTTED FLOWERS ARE GREAT
No better way to cheer yourself up than by having some pots of colourful flowers. The wonderful lady who looks after my kids during the day, has flower pots by the front entrance so when I drop the kids off in the morning I’m greeted by some pretty flowers and I got to say that I feel pretty happy looking at her colourful pansies. Pansies and polythanus flower very quickly. Water regularly and keep flowers in bloom through deadheading and providing plant food once every ten days.
So, there you have it, some ideas to get you started. If you have any winter gardening ideas or advice, why not share it with us
Learn more Winter Gardening Tips & Ideas:
- Winter Gardening Tip #1: Starting Seeds Indoors … – About the time February rolls around, I often find myself staring outside, imagining tomatoes ripening or carrot and radish tops peaking out of the soil. I think our Home Gardeners and Youth Grow Students start feeling the …
- You Grow Your Own Food? Winter gardening preparations part 1 … – I made my low tunnel hoops today out of electric conduit. Tomorrow I can hopefully get them up in the garden. Here is what I did: Pretty cheap so far: 10 1/2″ electrical conduits @ $2.00 each 1 1/2″ pvc pipe @ $1.73 1 pack …
- You Grow You Own Food? Winter gardening preparations part 2 … – Almost done with the low tunnels, I just have to hay the beds, plant them, and cover with plastic when cold. Today’s cost: $0 I scavenged some strapping to make the stakes, even took screws off the pieces for some of the …
