The warm weather is far away, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on garden maintenance! Indeed, during the cold seasons, plants work too. Moreover, if you want to help your plants get through the winter and find a beautiful and productive vegetable garden in the following months, you must not be impressed by the first frosts and continue to put on your gardening gloves despite the cold! To avoid killing all the plantings in your garden, here are a few mistakes not to make when the cold and winter arrive.
Your flowers, shrubs, fruit and vegetable trees, and other aromatic herbs will thank you in advance.
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Mistake 1: Thinking you can’t sow or plant anything
It’s true that with the cold weather, the garden goes more or less dormant. We tend to think that it is no longer necessary to garden. In the end, we leave our outdoor spaces a bit abandoned and the garden looks like a desolate field. And yet, there are many varieties of flowers and plants that can grow during the winter. For example, winter is a great time to plant carrots, watercress and herbs. The key is to avoid periods of frost and to protect the new seedlings. You can also decide to plant cover crops to protect the soil. Winter rye is a very good choice!
Mistake 2: Deciding to stop weeding the borders and the garden
Gardeners may decide to take the winter off. However, this is not the case for weeds, which can take advantage of this time to make themselves at home! So don’t hesitate to spend a little time hand weeding, but also to remove moss from fruit trees. To avoid having to weed all winter, nothing prevents you from covering certain areas with a tarp to prevent any weeds from thriving, but also seeds from germinating. Leave your tarp in place until the warm weather returns.
Mistake 3: Forgetting to protect garden soil and plants in winter
Under the pretext that we take less care of the garden and that “nothing grows” (even if we had seen earlier that this is false), the gardener can be led to let the plants die without care or protection. However, the soil needs to be protected and isolated from the cold! With a good mulch (cereal straw type) on 10 to 20 cm thickness, shelters, wintering sails and mounds created for fragile seedlings in the fall, you can however prevent many losses in the garden, as well as the big damages common in winter in the garden.
Mistake 4: Not watering young plantings
Just because it’s raining or snowing, and therefore the garden needs less water in the winter, doesn’t mean you should abandon watering fall plantings. These young plants will need you to remember to water them when the rains are scarce. This will help them to thrive and develop their roots. However, don’t exceed one watering every ten days!
Mistake 5: Not harvesting winter vegetables in the garden
If you leave these vegetables in the ground, they won’t grow any larger unless the weather gets milder. Also, neglecting the harvest can attract rodents, as your plantings will gradually rot. You won’t be able to enjoy them and many undesirables could invite themselves in your vegetable garden! It is therefore necessary to keep them cool in the refrigerator or in crates in the cellar or garage until you can quietly cook and eat them.
