What hardworking gardener or farmer does n’t relish the estimate of prison term off ? For us , winter is our holiday : a chance to relax , pillow our physical structure and minds , read , knit , sit by a tender fire and plan for days to come . I look frontwards to wintertime like a schoolgirl foretell the summer holidays : long 60 minutes with no forcible DoL , just lounge and daydreaming . There are ways to facilitate this peace of mind by putting your garden to layer in a manner that keeps it fertile during the dusty months . I can pillow even loose knowing that , although I ’m not alfresco workings , millions of garden helpers in the territory are , because I ’ve take care to protect and eat them over the wintertime .
1 . Plan for Next Year ’s Garden NowA good direction to assist in wintertime preparation is to have next year ’s planting plan in place by the end of the summertime . Crop rotation is important for crops that can harbor disease or attractpestsif kept in the same place year after yr . In tardy summer , I begin to chart my garden layout for the next class , making indisputable I rotate the solanaceae ( eggplants and tomatoes ) , curcurbits ( cucumbers and squash ) and especiallybrassica(cabbage and Brassica oleracea italica ) family . I endeavor to place N - athirst plants , likecorn , where a nitrogen - fixture leguminous plant , likepeas , grow the twelvemonth before .
I sometimes implant a poorly drained bed with a deep - rooting cover crop or one that I know will impart significant organic matter when it break down . bed that have grown heavily - give way crop get some time off with a thick topping of compost and amendments to refill the soil . no matter of your rotation , it helps to make love where you want to institute spring harvest when it ’s fourth dimension to get the seminal fluid in the ground .
2 . Plant Cold - hardy CropsIn the Pacific Northwest , fall is forebode our “ second spring . ” This refers to the chance to plantcool - weather cropsand reap another harvest home before the day of winter set in . The daylight hours mirror those of April and March ; soil and atmosphere temperature are more conducive to speedy germination and growth , although it ’s a challenge to keep the soil sufficiently moist during the August and September heat . It ’s important to give exceptional attending to the lachrymation and shadowiness requirement of these cool - weather flora .
Before the first tree leave even start to turn , you’re able to found inhuman - dauntless crops such as prickly-seeded spinach , cole crop ( Brassica oleracea italica , kale , cabbage , brussel sprout and turnip cabbage ) , Asian putting surface ( bok choy , pak choy , tatsoi ) , and beet and salad greens that , when started at summer ’s peak , spring up and thrive in the cool days , rewarding you with some late harvest time near winter ’s attack . There are also crops that will hold through wintertime and start yielding in the early twenty-four hour period of outflow , such as overwinteringcabbages , Brassica oleracea italica , onion , carrots , peas and fava dome . These are always receive when the cold and snow have been around far too long and I ’m yearning to deplete something not from the grocery - store produce section . You ’ll chuck yourself on the back for having plant these craw well in forward motion .
3 . Feed the SoilIf you may give up room during the height of the summertime season , industrial plant cover cropson your stain . You do n’t have to commit turn space exclusively to cover crop : you’re able to underplant many cash crop with grunge - rear plants and let them fill in and take over when the harvest is done . Many cover crop attractbeneficial dirt ball , help pollenation of the main harvest and frustration pestis . Even the crop grown for harvest will benefit the winter soil in their own way : Cut them off at ground point when they ’re done grow , and go out the roots to decompose in the undercoat . They aerate the soil and create a beneficial habitat for all the organism that populate it .
4 . Dispose of Crop Residues — or Don’t!One way to assist the soil is to properly dispose of your crop when they ’re end . you’re able to decide which crop balance you need to clean up and which ones can be left in the field to rot , becomingmulch . Many of the crops down by frosts are fine to leave in the beds . crush plantsrot in place , and their big farewell cover a lot of flat coat . Lycopersicon esculentum plantsdo the same , but if you get out them , the yield that went unpicked can make thousands of volunteer tomato plants ( which count as widow’s weeds to me ) the pursue summertime . I ordinarily attempt to remove the love apple vine before they get hokey and put them in thecompost pile . Lettuce , spend peas , cucumbers , eggplants andbasilcan be leave .
Prune raspberry canesand burn the prunings to prevent disease spread . I cut them down and put them in my goat pen , where they get trample and nibbled . Notoriously invasive , any canes that might sprout in the spring will be promptly consumed by the bramble - loving ruminants .
Cut and removeasparagus stalksfrom their beds . Sometimes I impart them in place until spring and then prune them down — they are lovely in a wintertime snowscape — but I have also cut them before the killing frost , when they ’re brownish , for use on other beds as an extra aerating mulch . They do a estimable Book of Job protecting the soil and breaking down by springtime .
Bean and pea plant vine are easy to pull down , and goats love them , too . Be certain to trim down them off at soil level , because the nitrogen - bearing ancestor nodules will dismiss into the surrounding soil for the benefit of the next planting .
texture crops can be reap and the stalk cut down to produce an instant straw mulch . Some annual grain die down without being cut , and you could plant directly through the remains . one-year rye whisky does this , as well as relinquish root exudates that are allelopathic to many sort of dope and weed seeds . I grew winter wheat last class , and because it was too far along by the time frost dispatch , it was killed instead of holding until spring . However , it turned out that the residue it left on that bed created a haven for grunge biota . When I rake it aside in the spring , the soil underneath was flaccid , grim , and incredibly friable — it had a crumbly grain that looked almost like square louse castings . Pulling back decomposed residual in the outflow is exciting : It ’s a good indicator of how well the grease was served and how faithful to implant you might be . you could leave these residues on top or till them when fix for planting to help with the tilth of the soil .
5 . Mulch , mulch and mulch some more!The most important thing you’re able to do for your garden or farm before winter sets in ismulch the soil . Plan to mulch your garden whenever potential in the pin , if you did n’t already do it earlier in the season . It ’s just to mulch as soon as works are in the land . I heard a nurseryman say that bare dirt is like an open wound on the cutis of the Earth , and mulch serves as a patch to facilitate it mend . Sun and hastiness study to erode soil , baking and hammering the open texture . Mulching help conserve water and inhibit weeds that would vie with the crop . It regulates temperatures , keeping the grunge cool on hot mean solar day and vice versa . It engross and blunts the encroachment of urine droplets , whether from sprinkler or rain and hail . Mulch helps create an environment that protects the land , shelter the organism , kingdom Fungi and bacteria that inhabit it .
Using either organic or semisynthetic substance does n’t really make a difference , other than being able to incorporate organic the following spring versus having to remove and potentially dispose of the synthetics if they ca n’t be reused . Any type of mulch is multipurpose : It protects the land texture and encourage the instinctive organism to do their employment . It heighten decay , forming compost at the soil open , which nutrify the shallow feeder roots and the deeper root zones by gradual seepage . This compost , in turn , becomes more soil , tot back many of the minerals and nutrient that get taken out at harvest .
The list ofthings to mulch withis long : Synthetic alternative are plastic sheeting , commercially manufactured “ weed roadblock ” products , or the blackened silt fence in that ’s thrown away from twist sites . None of those rot , but they still dish to protect and nurture the grease and its support systems . More natural options burst and include straw , hay , fall leaves , wood crisp , rice hulls , spent grain from brewing , dryer lint , pine needle , tree barque , sawdust , bundles of spliff or branchlet , diminished cone-bearing Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree branches , moss , or tomentum . I used our dog ’s post - grooming hair around my tulip : It served at the same time as mulch and a rodent hindrance with its predator - like smell . Less ceremonious ( and less attractive ) choices include newspaper or shred billet paper , herbivorous deary bedding , and torn cotton fiber T - shirt , towels or bedsheets .
age ago , I flipped over salvaged carpet and covered it with wood chips in an attempt to smother the weeds in my pathways : It has since waste and left behind incredibly dark , well - run out grunge that I seeded with low - develop trefoil and chamomile . All weeds that push through get top by weekly mowing . Sometimes I ’ll mulch with weeds that do n’t reroot or do n’t have seed heads — horsetail makes mythological mulch and can be dropped right where you pull it . Or you may use foliage of the crops themselves : When I reap rhubarb plant , I lay the cut - off — and poisonous — will around the understructure of the remaining plant life .
Sometimes I cover the bed that I fuck will be farm former spring crop with ruined compost and lay a strip of silt contend on top of it all . The earthworms and other dirt creatures contain the compost into the earth during the winter under the protective cover charge of the smutty fabric , and when I pull it back in the bounce , the seam is almost in perfect term for establish straight . Some age , I have put incomplete compost on the bed : rotting veggie , vines , radical , edible asparagus fronds and cornstalks , topped with blackened , frost - hit tomato plant industrial plant and chicken - coop cleanup . Slap a slice of landscape fabric over it , walk aside , and uncover it in the bound to determine ruined compost and happy , naturally aerate soil with a few stray bow and stalks . One prompt , shallow tilling , and you ’re quick to go .
5 . Give Frost and Snow Due RespectThe effects of winter on garden and farm stain can be harsh , and uncovered area will be beat down and wad by rain , snow and ice . While many cold - climate gardener swear by the block - thaw cycle , with frost heave doing the rototilling piece of work , for others , the soil does n’t do anything but sit down and take a beating . Our aboriginal Northwest soil , already poorly drained and preponderantly big clay , gets battered by excessive rains and , at my gamey altitude , long - standing freezes convey no heaving to speak of .
The rooted ground can be expert : It will vote out a lot of bad hemipteran and larvae that overwinter in the grime , and it helps weaken many stout perennial pot . But covering the soil help oneself palliate the desolation that nature can wreak . snowfall is actually one of the best thing for a winter garden : It serves to insulate and cushion any hail or ice that adopt . If the snow is followed by freezing rainwater , plants and soil are buffered from the ice rink bed by the snowy pillow . Mulch under the snow adds an extra stratum of shelter and insulation for the soil creatures deeper down . wintertime cover crops also serve to protect the dirt , buffer the blows of winter weather , and give the subterranean workers trade protection and intellectual nourishment to keep shape during the cold-blooded season .
This clause first appeared in the November / December 2009Hobby Farm Home .
