Winter Gardening Tips

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Getting some of those gardening jobs complete can help care for a garden even in the depths of winter.

Having an organized garden is possible even if you are busy working or looking after your home. There are many different things that you can do to make sure that you take care of your garden, too. It will mean that it is easier to upkeep, if you are doing the jobs that can sometimes seem stressful, but in truth they are a great way to exercise and have fun.

Dead Leaves

Dead leaves are a nuisance; they can damage the grass if they are left there for long periods. It is something that you will need to keep on top of during the winter months. But a word of caution: if your grass is too wet you can do damage to this if you walk on it too much. You should plan to rake the leaves at least once a week if you have minimal leaf drop, for more leaves you might need to rake them twice a week. The more that you do this the tidier your garden will look.

It is possible that you can store leaves and then when they decompose they are great for the garden; they make a great mulch for your borders. But it does take a long time for this to happen. There are many gardeners that encourage you to put the leaves in black bags and leave them in an unused corner of your garden. They will need at least a year just sitting in the bag. If you have a small garden it is difficult to find a spot. But the results are really great. I have recently found a bag of leaves that had been there for just over a year and the mulch was great. I had obviously run out of black bin bags because there was a white one too, this wasn’t as decomposed as the leaves in the black bags.

Weeding Your Borders

This isn’t always possible in the winter but if you are able to pull up any weeds before they have time to take hold, this will be time well spent. If you are looking for a tidy garden it is important to keep up with your weeding, even 20 minutes twice a week should mean that you have control of the weeds, but this will depend on the size of your garden. The more plants you have in your borders the less space that you will have for the weeds to appear.

Cleaning Your Gardening Equipment

Sometimes the weather is too bad to work but you should use this time to maintain your gardening equipment. It will mean that you will be aware of items that need replacing, but also regular maintenance can prolong the life of your tools.

It can also prevent the spread of diseases that can develop on unwashed pots; you will want to give your plants the best chances of living disease free. It can prevent the spread of mould and other problems that can destroy crops and plants.

It is a great time to clean out your water-butt; this is the time that you are able to remove the dead leaves from the bottom that have managed to work their way in. It will mean that when you come to use the water in the spring and summer you will have less bacteria in the water and this can prevent the spread of disease in your young plants. It will also give you time for the rain to re-fill the water-butt. You can always save any of the water when you are emptying, you will just need to use a garden sieve to make sure that when you put the water back in you are not returning any of the debris that you are trying to remove.

Organizing Items

This is also the time of year when you can sort through all your gardening equipment and you can work out ways in which you can store them so they are easy to access and find when you need to use them. There is nothing more annoying than going to look for an item and you end up purchasing it again because it has not be put away correctly.

There are many jobs that you can do during the winter months; they can help towards a more organized garden and this can save you time in the more hectic summer months. It is about preparation and spreading the jobs so that you have time to do them.

What are your favourite winter gardening tips?