It's almost January and I hear the lamenting online about how people wish they could be gardening. Real gardening doesn't stop. It may take a slight break but tending to your garden in the winter season is key to making sure you have a good planting and good harvest next summer and fall.
Winter is a wonderful time to be working on your soil conditions. I hope you realize that every year with all the yummy veggies you are pulling out of the ground, it's using up nutrients found in the soil. What do you think makes up all those tomatoes, spinach and cucumbers? Winter is the best time to give back to the soil what it needs to keep producing all that food. We are talking natural items instead of chemical fertilizers here.
Nitrogen - Carbon - Natural Amendments
During the winter, we are adding carbon nutrients in the form of small wood chips on top of the soil. These break down over the course of the winter and spring and provide a type of protection over the soil. The wood chips from the year before all almost all broken down into a moist soft black dirt. The new chips on top help to hold in the moisture when the spring and summer sun is beating down on your garden.
Nitrogen is added in the form of straw that we also but down on the soil in the winter. Usually this is placed down under the wood chips. Also, each winter the old dead plants from the summer before are mulched and spread over the soil. We simply mow down the garden with a mower and this sufficiently chops up old plant material and spreads it over the soil. Hay or horse manure can also be added for nitrogen but you have to make sure you add this before the wood chips because these sources will contain large amounts of grass seed and you don't want all that growing in your garden along with your plants. Covering it with a thick layer of wood chips will keep the seeds subdued.
Consider other soil amendments like fungi and rock dust that are high in mineral content that healthy soil microbes love to grow in. Fungi LOVE growing in carboard. Plants LOVE Fungi. Fungi help to feed plant root nodules. So consider placing cardboard in your garden and maybe add some mushroom mycelium. It will help control weeds, give fungi a safe place to grow and it usually cost next to nothing at your local recycle center. Then over the top of your cardboard place your thick layer of straw or wood chips.
We have been layering our garden now for 5 years and it works great! If it's your first year and your soil looks compacted and rough, try adding a good layer of manure at the bottom. Then add mulched leaves or straw, wood chips and hay. Whatever you have or can get a hold of to layer on your soil. But putting that manure at the bottom will soften the hard soil beneath it and you won't even have to till it up. Over the course of the winter, the soil will soften on its own.
This is our garden after a snow storm last year. It's a little hard to get out and garden in this. But do you see the bale in the picture? That is baled up wheat straw that will be spread over the garden as soon as the snow melts. It's a great way to add nitrogen to your soil without adding the weeds.
Pretty soon, spring will be here and you will be harvesting those first spring veggies and your garden will thank you for all the hard work you have put into it. These are some of my favorite spring veggies, the Japanese Turnips! YUMMY! A few more months and I will be pulling these out of the ground.
So yes, you can garden in the winter season. In fact, I highly encourage it in order to add back much needed nutrients to your garden. So put your coat on and get out there in the dirt and have fun!
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Thanks for this interesting post. You make me want to go out and start a garden right now!
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Excellent info as always! @ironshield
I've been gardening just a couple of years now, last year I didn't do a thing over winter but this year I'm trying to pile on leaves, old manure from the chickens, grass clippings I collected, and mulch my paths with old bark from splitting firewood. As time goes on I realize the huge importance of building soil, gardening is not just sticking a seed in here and there and sitting back til something grows!
Bingo! Yep, gardening is a year round effort and activity!
This was really fun to read! Insightful too!
Another good set of skills for those looking to get off the grid. To produce our own food. Besides, the philosofy of the crypto investor isn't far from that of a Farmer. Teaches pacience, atention and caring, lots of research. Keep'em a groin'!!!
Gardening takes practice! You will have different successes and failures each year no matter what your experience level is.
I made a small atempt last spring/summer with Lettuce, tomatos, green peppers and Butternuts. In the end, only the Lettuce came out as a successfull experiment (it makes a great soup). I plant at home, in pots. After I tried Parsley and Mint and I got it right :D Next Spring I'll attempt to plant Lettuce, Coriander, tomatoes, peppers and maybe aubergines. I'll keep on trying. I just discovered your blog here on Steem. Nice info! Would advise me about any particular book or site to follow (besides your blog, ofcourse)?
I do more to my gardens in the winter time before I do in the spring!
Exactly!
Yes. So you work the foundations? Then, in the Spring, the soil is ready to help the plants grow?
I'm an expert in growing weeds.
There are a lot of good weeds to eat! I'm getting ready to dig up some dandelions for their roots and leaves, for the Steemit Iron Chef contest. Even in the winter, when there's any time above freezing, there are som good weeds to eat! :D
Dandelion wine! It's a great time spent picking the flowers with a loved one, and then once the wine is ready it's a special brew that brings back memories of that time spent together. Great for anniversaries or other times of reflection and gratitude.
https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-make-dandelion-wine-1327932
You know what's worth doing! :D I've made dandelion wine a few times. There's a certain time in the spring when so dandelions are in bloom that it's easy to pick a lot of blossoms! But even in the winter, a few flowers appear here in Oregon's Willamette Valley. And they are nice in salads or deep-fried. Enjoy your dandelion wine! :D
Weeds are edible? 😕
It depends on which weeds they are, but many of them are real food for regular people. In the US, so many of our weeds came from the UK and Europe as food crops. In my Steemit blog and on my YouTube channel, I show how I forage and eat a lot of different weeds. Weeds are worth getting to know! :D
It's not too big of an effort to move over to things you can actually eat. :)
Man, # 19 on the trending page! Nice to see something like this on there!
Yeah! It's nice!
Beep! Beep! This humvee will be patrolling by and assisting new veterans, retirees, and military members here on Steem. @shadow3scalpel will help by upvoting posts from a list of members maintained by @chairborne and responding to any questions replied to this comment.
very useful post for gardeners ,i,m also gardening from last 2 years.
Wauhhh......I'm also a farmer in working both in Rwanda and Uganda. If you come in one of these countries you will never find hard times either through seasons or variety of crop diseases.
In Rwanda, we plant during all seasons, water from hills help us to water the garden and we can use sometimes pipes and water pumps. Our products have less chemicals inputs and we try to manage so as to group at a normal rate.
In Uganda, agriculture keep on facing some challenges such as drought due to climate change. We have now stated using the various irrigation methods so as to ensure food security in the country.
Farmers have now stated using improved and quality with more productivity . Some protective chemicals which we use to protect some agricultural products such as cabbages and tomatoes are now used to ensure crop growth.
Let me stop there since the story is so big.
May be on my next post
Thanks for the interesting post! I am interested in composting programs and soil creation so...will follow you!
Another great post. I can't believe I'll be starting onions from seed inside the house next month. I put the garden to bed this fall with rabbit manure, grass clippings from my daughter's house (we don't have a lawn) and pine straw from the pine trees.
Thank you for the post! Interesting.
Great post, thanks for all the useful info! It's inspired me to go out and grab my shovel to get the snow off my own beds :)
Keep up the good work on the stead!
nice sharing brother. visit me too :)
I've got a huge garden. We grow a lot of spinach and other organic vegetables. We distribute them and cook them for personal consumption as well. We've got papaya trees and people often come by and ask for papaya leaves so that they can fight denge. I live in Pakistan.
However, I'm not a gardener-type person. I've hired a guy who comes to maintain my lawn/garden. I've posted about this on my blog...I don't take much interest in my garden
Great post Zach!
it is real ?how can get this much in this low upvote ?
Probably most plants doesnt like cold and winter so whatever you cover and keep your plants out cold and freeze, it's going to be under effect in cold.
Our strawberries is frozen in winter of last year due to weather condition under 0 celcus even so we tried to cove them with plastic staff but it doesn't work. So how can we cover them?
Thank you...!
thank you so much for this information on how to prepare a garden for the spring planting. Most of us "so-called gardeners" haven't a clue about how to get the Best harvest from our gardens. Just put the seed in the ground, water it and hope for the best. Ha! I upvoted this article.
Thank you very much!!! This will help me a lot
Wonderful post! I should follow you straight away!
such a great reputation for this post and great job, made me inspired
for this post iam following you by seeing this post and looking forward for your post this @tejjesh visit my blog seem simething interesting for you
thankyou
Good
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Nice article, and you're right, gardening is a full-time affair. I'm working on garden prep now, laying compost and mulch, tilling and chopping up the roots, hopefully freezing out the horrendous Bermuda grass that's so invasive here in Missouri. But the rewards far outweigh any excuse! We're still eating off our own canned tomatoes from almost three years ago!
Part of our garden, 2016
And I see you're in the Ozarks as well!
Nice post! You are a proponent and architect of all season farming to boost adequate food production. Thanks. I follow and upvote you. Pls do same for me.
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nice work who try this idea replay me.... and vote me friends thanks
Great information! Very useful! Thank you so much for sharing! I'm upvoting and following my Friend! Two thumbs up! :)
We can garden all year. What we do we rotate our beds and have one season fallow for each one where we give back the nutrients that our garden has used. Works pretty well for us.
Have you guys been successful in growing veggies / greens in the winter?
i like gardening for this reason i like your post...
Betifil thanyoo
People who love the earth react to everything, everyone with love. Good people are happy to deal with the earth. Good pictures always go on like this.
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Thank you for sharing.
This is great news for gardening enthusiasts that we have to endure cruel winters
This time of year can be the easiest for gardening the leafy greens and root crops. The insect pressure is gone. Setting up a good micro-climate and growing the right varieties and plants is a big piece of it. Even Swiss chard, collards, kale, mustard and turnip greens, can handle snow that doesn't last for days. Even our 4-day ice storm last year didn't affect them, except during that week. And we've had 21 degree weather several nights so far, and there are a lot of greens still actively growing. Including wild field mustard, dandelion greens, wild chives, bittercress, prickly lettuce, and so many other good-eating weeds! Winter can be productive!
Taking it to a whole new level! this is sweet, I never even thought about soil prepping but this honestly makes so much sense to me now lol thanks for sharing this bit of info, much appreciated
I love this time of year for the Garden. Just after Christmas one gets out the catalogs and starts the online searches for fun new things to try out. I am going to try out a system in my veg/flower garden starting seeds in January. I'll have to post about it. You are right, gardening never truly stops. :)
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It's great that you add natural substances to the ground and do not pollute the soil with chemical additives. You grow organic products. They are good for health. Most importantly, you save the environment. It's great.
Your post is a good reminder that there is always something to do on a homestead. Thanks for the reminder.
An informative and extremely interesting read! Do you grow all your own produce to eat during the viable months of the year? We live in an apartment in Bangkok, so we never have to worry about snow, or cold weather. My little boy has just started to grow about 20 different pots on our balcony, he loves it! We have a mixture of herbs, vegetables and flowers. I used love helping my mum out in thr garden in the UK! She used to send me to the neighbours house who had a horse, so it was my job to collect and spread the manure! I look forward to reading more of your posts, great work!
Hello, great work, i liked your post and reward it with upvote.
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