Preparing your garden for winter & spring
Monday, February 22 by Hamish Dodd
G’day Green Fingers,
Well sadly we are nearing the end of my blog. There are a few things
I want to talk about – what you can do to prepare yourself for winter
and next spring, the vegetables that you can grow throughout autumn
and winter, the tomato competition, and the winners of my landscape
design plans.
First off, things that you can do to get your garden ready for next
year’s great season. Repairs and maintenance are a vital part of any
working garden and this will vary depending on each individual layout
and what you have got in your garden at the end of summer. If you
have a glass house this is the perfect time to give it a good clean
up. Check any louvers and vents that may require attention as well as
giving the main structure a thoroughly good clean. If you have open
beds in your glass house it is often a good time to be changing the
soil or at least giving the soil you have in the garden a good
turning over with Yates Organic compost. Sterilizing all areas of
the glass house are the key as you need to start off with a healthy
environment free of pests and disease. Another area that can often be
neglected is irrigation. I didn’t have any in my vegetable garden but
if you do have it is important to make sure that it is all up and
running well by the time spring comes around and don’t forget to
check the batteries in those automatic watering timers. It is also a
good time to make sure all the paths in your garden are in good order
– this is an integral part of your garden – if you have shells for
example, clean them and build up the levels of the paths.
Another thing of course is that the compost should be ready – if the
time is right you may want to look at spreading the compost you have
made over the past season and get that dug into the garden. You can
still make compost throughout winter so that is ready for use
during spring. At this point it is also important to look after the
rest of the soil in your garden particularly when it comes to things
like your pots. I would be changing all my pots and putting in
fresh premium Yates potting mix. It is also important to look after
the soil in your raised beds and don’t forget , you can always start
to turn in lime, fertilizer and compost into your open ground beds.
I am lucky enough in my glasshouse to have heat pads. This means
that I will be able to hopefully start producing some crops slightly
earlier this year and the heat pads will also assist me with the
production of some winter crops. Some of the winter vegetables that
you can grow are of course the brassica’s – broccoli, brussel
sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage- and Popeye’s favourite food – Spinach,
and it’s partner SilverBeet. As you can see there is a huge range
of produce that can still be producing throughout the winter months
as long as you get the seedlings into the ground now, before the end
of summer, while there is still adequate warmth and sunshine . And
don’t forget to keep up the watering regime preferably first thing in
the morning.
Congratulations to the winners of my landscape design plans – Emily
Johnston from Pukekohe and Danella Sutton-Field from Nelson – I ‘m
looking forward immensely to meeting you both so that we can get
stuck into doing some fantastic plans.
And the final note for this blog – good luck to all you tomato
competition entrants – I can’t wait to see how everyone has done
compared with my effort. Well, that’s all from me this week – I’ll
be back in touch in a couple of weeks to wrap things up for the season.
Happy Growing,
Hamish
“Back to blog >”:/hamish-dodd/
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