Green Thumb Guru: Prep garden for winter to ease spring planting

By: 
Daemon Coughlin, Oakridge Nursery & Landscaping
As your harvests dwindle after the first fall frost, it can be tempting to forget the garden until next spring. But it’s worth your time now to clean up the debris and protect the plants and soil. Next spring, you’ll be ready to plant sooner, your soil will be healthier, and pest and disease problems will be at a minimum.
One of the first things you can do is clean up the garden. Save time at years’ end by making cleanup a regular part of your gardening season. Pull or cut weeds before they can form seed. Also, pull out crops as soon as they are finished producing so that they do not harbor insects and disease.
Collect stakes, temporary trellises, and any row covers you will not be using until next year. Scrape off soil and rinse in a 10 percent bleach solution to remove any insect eggs or disease pathogens before storing.
Get the soil in shape. You have four options for dealing with your garden soil at the end of the season. Leave it, cultivate, mulch it, or plant a cover crop.
If you’re really strapped for time, you may choose to do nothing to protect the soil. On the plus side, leaving the soil can help reduce the number of weed seeds that will germinate next spring. Unfortunately, though, bare soil is prone to wind and water erosion, as well as compaction.
Fall cultivating or tilling has several advantages. It can kill pests that overwinter in the soil or expose them to birds and other predators. It can also bury plant debris that may harbor overwintering insects. Leaving the soil rough and unraked helps collect snow and moisture over the winter months.
Mulching in the fall can help if you have perennials or other plants and bulbs. Mulching helps keep the soil temp constant throughout the winter. Mulch will also slow the soil from warming in the spring so it should be removed in early spring.
Growing a cover crop will reduce erosion and add important nutrients to the soil. Till the soil in early fall and plant oats, winter wheat, or red clover. Till under the crop in early spring to add nutrients to soil before you plant.
So, spend some time in the next couple of weeks preparing your garden for winter and you will have a much easier time starting it in the spring.

Category:

The Brandon Valley Journal

 

The Brandon Valley Journal
1404 E. Cedar St.
Brandon, SD 57005
(605) 582-9999

Email Us

Facebook Twitter

Please Login for Premium Content