Every year starting in October it is time to winterize your garden beds which will improve your garden next year.
There are ways to improve how to winterize your garden beds that I will explain so that you can get the best results.
How to winterize your garden beds: Clean/Cover/Relax
Most importantly, remove any plants that show signs of disease and throw them in the garbage; do not compost or put them in garden recycling bins.
If you compost take the plant materials that your are removing and cut up and place in your compost. These materials are free and will add great nutrients for your future garden.
When you are going to remove plants instead of pulling them up you should cut them off at ground level to allow the roots to decompose over the winter. Not only will this add great nutrients back into the soil but it can also add nitrogen and aerate the soil.
If a plant does not look healthy it is a good idea to pull them up and look at the roots to see if you have any issues with root-knot nematodes or other pests.
Once you have the garden plant materials removed it is time to trim back anything that you will leave over winter such as herbs.
You can also use the plant materials and flowers to cover your garden beds, allowing the good bugs a place to overwinter and protect your soil.
It is a great time to put out traps for slugs and snails to reduce their populations, or use Sluggo if it is dry for several days or more.
Now is the time to transplant anything that you want to move so that the plants will have time to reestablish themselves for next year.
If you used mulch to top your beds off last Spring now is the time to pull that back and add organic fertilizers to the soil to reinvigorate the soil for next year. Once you have done this reapply mulch/leaves to protect your soil from winter rains and snow.
If you are early enough in Fall and have your beds clean you can grow a cover crop that not only adds great nutrients to the soil but also protects soil from run-off, compaction and nutrients being driven deep into the soil.
It is very important to know How to winterize your garden beds to improve your garden for next year’s plants.
As you clean up your garden in the Fall it is a great time to take notes on how your plants look and the health of your plants to know how to address next year’s garden.
Now that you know how to winterize your garden beds and have completed the tasks you can rest assured that you have prepared your garden for success next year.
