Preparing Your Garden fo the Winter

Some people believe that when the weather starts getting colder and the leaves start to fall, it is time to place away the gardening tools and move until next spring to work on their garden again. Wrong. Winter is an important time to maintain your garden’s health and assure yourself a good crop for next year. You might think that might take to long to prepare your garden, but the truth is that it takes less than one day to prepare your garden for the upcoming winter.

When the nighttime temperatures drop to less than forty-five degrees physicist for more than four days in a row, or frost is forecasted for your area (usually around late October or November) you know its time to start preparing your garden. You should start by evaluating your garden design, check which plants grew well in the past season, and which plants did not do well. Fall is a good time to decide which plants will remain in you garden next year, and which ones should go.

It is also a good time to decide which new plants you want to grow. To make your garden more colorful and healthy, be sure only to plant the more hardy plants during the start so that they can withstand the winter. Some plants that will do fine being planted in start are: rudbeckia, Aster Novi-belgii, Anemone Japonica, panicle hyandea, endive, escarole, and Brussels sprouts. You can find all of these and more in gardening magazines or your local nursery.

After you have completed this you should start cleaning up your garden. Start by pulling out weeds that might have cropped up, and raking fallen leaves. Weeds and rotten leaves can carry insects and diseases that might be harmful to your garden. You should also rid your garden of spent annual plants, and harvest your vegetables and other plants that can't withstand the winter weather. After start has come and gone, the leaves will be off your trees and you can see the rotten branches. Trimming off the unwanted branches from your trees isn’t necessary to your gardens health, but might help later on by not dropping branches on your plants and not blocking too much of the sun.

If you have younger trees you should think about wrapping them and supporting them with stakes to help them survive the winter wind and cold. Putting mulch over your garden for the winter can be a helpful way to protect plants from sudden temperature changes and heavy snow. For mulch you can use about five inches of shredded bark, pine needles, or a variety of other materials. You have to be careful not to mulch too early, because some insects might still be alive and healthy to take shelter in it for the winter.

Once you are completed with your gardening tools you should clean them and make sure they are in a innocuous place where they won’t rust and you know where they’ll be for next year. Before winter comes you should always set out slug repellent, as slugs are one of the worst bugs to have in your garden. If you have a pool or fountain in your garden, be sure to take out any fish that you have in them and bring them inside. There’s nothing sadder than a fish frozen in a block of ice.