Preparing Your Garden for the Winter

Once the weather starts becoming colder and the leaves start to fall, a few people think it is time to put away the gardening tools and wait for the following spring to start working on their garden again. But this is not true. Winter is a very important time to keep your garden's health and ensure yourself a good harvest for the following year. You may think that might take to long to organize your garden. In fact it takes less than one day to set up your garden for the approaching wintertime.

As soon as the temperatures during night drop to below seven degrees Celsius for more than four days in a row, or frost is forecasted for your area, you know it is time to start preparing your garden. You should start with evaluating your garden design, find out which plants did do well in the past season, and which plants did not do well. Fall is a good time to make up your mind which plants will stay in you garden next year, and which ones should go.

It is also a good time to choose which new plants you want to grow to make your garden more colorful and healthy next year. Be sure just to plant the sturdier plants during autumn, that will be able to resist the wintertime. Some plants that will do good being planted in fall are: rudbeckia, Aster Novi-belgii, Anemone Japonica, panicle hyandea, endive, escarole, and Brussels sprouts. You will be able to find all of these and more in horticulture magazines or in your local nursery.

Once done with it you should start with neatening your garden. Begin by pulling out weeds that may have popped up and raking fallen leaves. Weeds and rotten leaves can carry insects and diseases that might be harmful to your garden. Also you should free your garden of passed annual plants and harvest your veggies and other plants that will not be able to resist the winter weather. Now that the leaves will be off your trees, you will be able to see the rotten branches. Cutting back the unwanted branches from your trees isn't essential to your gardens health, but it can assist afterwards by not falling branches on your plants as well as not blocking too much of the sun.

If you have more immature trees you should think about wrapping them and supporting them with posts to help them come through the winter wind and cold. Arranging mulch over your garden for the wintertime can be a helpful way to protect plants from sudden temperature changes and heavy snow. For mulch you can use about 10 centimeter of shredded bark, pine tree needles, or a variety of other materials. But you have to be careful not to mulch too early as some insects can still be alive and they will be able to take shelter in it for the winter.

As soon as you are finished with your gardening tools you should clean them properly and store them in a safe place where they won't get rusty and you know where to find them in next year. Also, before winter comes you should set out slug deterrent, as slugs are one of the worst bugs to have in your garden. And if you have a pond in your garden, don't forget to take out any fish that you have in them and bring them inside. There is nothing worse than a fish frozen in a block of ice.