How To Close Down Your Vegetable Garden for the Wintertime

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vegetable garden damaged by the winter frost PaulMaguire/Getty Images

While autumn winds down, there's however some garden winterization to do. Hither'southward how to handle your last harvest, plus tips for cleaning up and preparing for next year.

We winterize our houses and cars, so why non winterize our garden besides?

The truth is, about of the states do information technology without really thinking near it. Every fourth dimension you rake the lawn or harvest your terminal bushel of tomatoes before frost, you're taking a few cursory steps toward winterizing your garden.

Merely there's more to it. Here'southward why it's important to winterize a vegetable garden, what tools you'll need and how to actually do information technology.

Vegetable Garden Winterization 101

Why Winterize a Garden?

Garden winterization is but skillful housekeeping. It looks meliorate than a tangled mess of dead plants, plus it cuts downwards on the spread of pests and diseases. If yous mix your edibles and ornamentals together, and then y'all'll appreciate garden winterization for a different reason: It could mean the departure between life and death for some perennials.

What Tools Are Needed?

When y'all're ready to winterize your garden, these are the most important tools to accept on hand:

    • Hand pruners to clip off thick-stemmed produce, like peppers.
    • Shovel to dig up root vegetables and dig leaves into the soil.
    • Chipper/shredder to shred leaves.
    • Wheelbarrow to movement plant debris out of the garden.
    • Rake for cleanup and to spread leaves and compost.

How to Winterize Your Vegetable Garden

Follow these steps and yous'll be ahead of the game in the spring.

  1. Harvest vegetables. This, of course, depends on the atmospheric condition and then continue an eye on the forecast. When there's a light frost due, you can salvage some of your plants past covering them at night. This may purchase y'all a couple of weeks of extra gardening time. You lot also can take potted vegetables and herbs to an attached garage to proceed them safe. Tomatoes harvested early, in anticipation of a frost, should turn color every bit long as they've reached the green mature phase (look for faint yellow or pink hues on the shoulders). Identify them in a single layer in an uncovered box at indoor temperatures.
  2. Dispose of droppings. One time a hard freeze (25 to 27 F) kills your crop, remove the dead constitute debris and put it in the trash. You lot don't want information technology in the garden, where it can harbor insect eggs or disease. Don't put information technology in your compost pile either, because chances are the pile won't oestrus upward enough to kill any pathogens.
  3. Dig leaves into soil. This is more piece of work, but gardeners can attest to how it helps the soil in the long run. Mixing leaves into the soil speeds decomposition and aerates the soil. I fashion to do this is to dig a trench 8 to 12 inches deep, line it with leaves, then cover with soil. Next jump, plant your rows adjacent to the amended soil. And then in fall, dig leaves into the harvested rows and leave the amended soil untilled in anticipation of planting the post-obit spring.
  4. Cover soil. Information technology's been said that nature abhors blank soil. That'due south why it created weeds for quick comprehend during the growing season and falling leaves for protection over the wintertime months. Y'all tin can follow nature'due south pb in several ways:
    • Spread compost. Really. You can spread compost any fourth dimension because it makes a great moisture-protecting mulch during the growing flavour and a great erosion-preventing mulch during the winter.
    • Spread leaves. Shredded leaves are preferred considering they're not as apt to blow away. It's a good idea to lay some undisturbed leaves, too, considering they offer an overwintering spot for butterfly larvae and eggs.
  5. Sow a cover crop. Roofing soil with plants is a good alternative to leaves. It involves growing plants such as clover, barley, millet and winter rye for a short while before turning them over to replenish the soil and improve its texture. Those plants sprout quickly and grow fast, then the soil has protection before wintertime sets in.
  6. Protect plants. During the summertime you protected your vegetables from creature browsing. Every bit you head into winter, it is more likely y'all'll need to protect hardy vegetables from the conditions. Hardy plants such equally spinach will survive even nether a blanket of snow, although they'll certainly end growing. Root vegetables and plants such equally kale and broccoli tin can keep going into the low 20s F if you protect them with a floating row encompass, essentially a miniature hoop firm that acts as a greenhouse.
  7. Plant. Mid to late fall is the time to sow garlic, which volition grow in jump and be gear up to harvest side by side summertime. Y'all might also go a quick crop of radishes to mature if you have a cold frame or floating row comprehend. Fall is also a good fourth dimension to institute raspberries and blackberries, making sure to mound the soil effectually their base of operations to keep them from frost heaving. Speaking of which, frost heaving is a serious concern in cold-winter areas with newly planted perennials. So if you mix your edibles and ornamentals together, brand sure the garden is well mulched going into wintertime.
  8. Dig up root vegetables. Although the superlative portion volition dice with a freeze, the business concern end of root vegetables is protected underground. You can comprehend the plants with straw and dig upward the cached portion any fourth dimension the ground isn't frozen. It'south especially like shooting fish in a barrel with sunchokes, a perennial sunflower with edible tubers, which uproots easily with its thick, rigid stems.

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Originally Published: Dec 31, 1969