As the temperatures are dropping, you’ll want to make sure that you take measures now to protect your crops and plants from the cold winter weather.
Here’s how to take proper care of your garden before the winter comes.
Vegetables
Here are tips for cool climate vegetables:
- Keep in polyspun garden fabric under the threat of light frost
- Harvest your pumpkins, potatoes, sweet potatoes and onions before the first frost.
- Veggies like Brussel sprouts, carrots and other root crops can stay in the ground after a light frost
- Cover any root crops that you are storing in the ground for winter with a thick mulched layer of straw or chopped leaves
- Harvest green tomatoes and store them indoors; also get ready to harvest fall crops likes broccoli, cabbage, spinach, and onions
For warm-season vegetables, you should:
- Renew beds for fall planting and make sure you compost and use fertilizer
- Sow plants like carrots, beets, lettuce, and other root crops for the fall harvest
- Set out cold crop transplants like cauliflower, Chinese greens, cabbage, broccoli, and mustard
Perennials
All you need to do to ensure that your perennials will grow back is to cut them back a little and mulch to protect them from the cold.
Roses
You’ll need to mulch or compost your rose bushes to keep them warm at their base. if you have a fragile breed of roses you’ll want to make sure you cover them with some kind of protective layer like a rose cone or cloche.
Annuals
- Cover them with some polyspun garden fabric when a light frost could occur
- Pull up dead annuals after a deep frost and put them in the compost pile. Get rid of anything that has a fungal disease
- Leave a 3 to 4-inch layer of chopped leaves or other material over your annual beds. Leave a 2-inch layer if you think the self-sown seeds will germinate in the spring
- Make sure you take notes so your remember what’s in your garden next spring
- Plant seeds of annuals that are cold-hardy for an extended winter bloom
- Continue weeding, watering, and watching for pets
- Cut geraniums, coleus, impatiens, and begonias to root for houseplants
Trees and Shrubs
Tips for cool-climate trees and shrubs:
- Deeply water trees and shrubs before the ground freezes
- Once the ground freezes, spread winter mulch up to 6 inches thick
- Fertilize what’s been in the ground for at least one year
Tips for warm-climate trees and shrubs:
- Stop feeding tropical trees in September so they can harden off while dormant in the winter
- Plant or transplant nontropical trees and shrubs and don’t fertilize until the spring
- Prune any injured branches
Bulbs
Make sure you take the following steps to protect your bulbs:
- Dig them up and brush off dirt for storage. Place in a breathable container in between newspaper. Do not let your bulbs touch. Store in a cool dry place
- Mulch your beds with evergreen boughs. This will prevent the bulb from being heaved to the surface
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