Forgot Password?
Written by Lindsay Crowder   
Share |
Tuesday, 16 February 2010

Winter Gardening

The cold winter months tend to be the time of the year that most people wrap up their spring and summer gardens. However, the fall and winter months can provide many opportunities to continue gardening and make your soil even more fertile for future growing seasons. Whether you want to grow winter edibles, ornamental plants, or even just prepare your soil for the spring and summer growing seasons, there are a variety of simple solutions to keep your garden alive.

Determine Your Regional Potential
Many of the winter gardening tips and activities available will vary depending on your region of the country. The climatic patterns west of the Cascade Mountains in Washington, Oregon, and Northwestern California are well suited for winter gardening. The southern United States, including Florida and the rest of California, are also ideal climates for most winter crops. Northern regions may rely on cold frames or raised beds for certain crops but still have many gardening options available. The key to successful winter gardening is knowing the time of your region’s first “killing” frost. You can find that information here: http://www.thegardenhelper.com/hardiness.html. Once you have identified the growing seasons of your region, you can get started with some of the following activities in your backyard:

  • Composting and Mulching: Because your soil is alive year round, it is important to continue replenishing it with nutrients throughout the winter months. Fall and winter are important seasons to turn and add organic material to your compost pile for future growing. For more information on composting, check out: http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsGuides/Make-Your-Own-Compost.html, http://www.greeniacs.com/GreeniacsGuides/How-to-Build-a-Composting-Toilet.html, and http://www.howtocompost.org/. Mulching during the colder months will protect your soil and help insulate the roots of any plants that are currently growing. Laying down about an inch layer of organic material like shredded bark or wood chips will protect your garden.

  • Cover Crops or Green Manure: Cover crops, also known as green manure, can be planted to add nutrients and organic material to your soil during cold months, suppress weeds, and control pests. Some of these crops will not last in really cold areas, but you can try planting clover, rye or vetch. They are generally very low maintenance, requiring water during droughts and a mow only once or twice during the winter season. Read up on cover crops at: http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-3-81-789,00.html.

  • Natural Pest Control: Maintaining mulch and cover crops in your garden will surely minimize weeds and pests, however late winter is a good time to apply organic herbicides. Corn gluten meal is a good choice to stop weeds form taking root, but be sure to water it thoroughly after application to avoid animal pests.

Growing Winter Vegetables

Winter months are a great time to grow hardy winter edibles like leafy greens and root vegetables. Many of these vegetables can be planted in mid to late summer or early fall to be enjoyed by mid-winter. The types of edibles you are able to plant can depend highly on your climate zone. Although many winter vegetables can withstand the frosty months, many of them can also be grown year round. A great resource for locating your climate zone and finding the right vegetables for your region can be found here http://www.sunset.com/garden/climate-zones/. Some suggestions from www.wintergardeningtips.com include:1

  • Plant Mid-Summer: beets, broccoli, brussel sprouts, carrots, kale, mustard greens.
  • Plant Late-Summer or Early Fall: arugula, carrots, corn, escarole, fava beans, garlic, lettuce, onions, radishes, spinach, squash.

Ornamental Winter Plants Many ornamental winter plants can hold up in any climate zone across the country. However, it is important to check your climate zone before deciding upon a variety. According to www.wintergardeningtips.com, you can consider planting:2

  • Annuals: You can plant a variety of annuals in late winter and early spring, depending on what area you live in. Try out foxglove, snapdragon, nasturtium, pansies, calendula, bachelor buttons, and sweet alyssum. Some of these plants are intended more for the warmer parts of the country, so make sure to ask your nursery or extension agent for more information.
  • Bulbs for Spring: Daffodils, day lilies, iris, tulips, and ranunculus. Plant these bulbs in the fall and winter for early spring blooms.
  • Evergreen Vines: There are a huge number of pretty vines that will provide your garden with year round color and interest. English ivy is an excellent overall vine for your landscaping. Even vines like wisteria that are deciduous can add interest with their sculptural trunks.
  • Ornamental Grasses: Blue fescue and blue oat grass are good choices that will keep their shape and often their color through winter.
  • Herbs: Lavender and rosemary can withstand fall and winter months.
  • Others: Aster, Azalea, Big Betony, Big leafed Hebe, Boxwoods, Christmas Fern, Gaultheria, Golden Ragwort, Juniper, Pansies, Oleander, Winter Jasmine, Winter Heather, Yarrow, and then some!

Other Winter Plants
Some other plants, shrubs, and trees that grow year round but can have added interest in winter months include:3

  • Evergreen Trees and Shrubs: Alaska False Cypress, American arborvitae, Boxwood, Bristlecone pine, Colorado blue spruce, Douglas-fir, Eastern red cedar, Eastern white pine, Juniper, Mugo pine, Ponderosa pine, Sawara False Cypress, Scotch pine.
  • Plants with Unusual Shapes or Colors: Bald cypress, Bamboo, Blue beech, Cherry tree, Cotoneaster, Corkscrew willow, Kentucky coffee tree, Ornamental Pear, Paperbark maple, River birch, Shrub dogwoods, Weeping Mulberry, Weeping willow.
  • Plants with Fruit, Berries, or Seeds: American holly, attractive berries, Bayberry, Chokeberry, Japanese Pagoda Tree, Catalpa, Ornamental Pear, Oregon holly grape, Pyracantha (Firethorn).
  • Groundcovers: Christmas fern, English ivy, Euphorbia, Hens and Chicks, Japanese spurge, Purpleleaf wintercreeper, Vinca (Common periwinkle).

Here’s to making the cold months fruitful!

Browse all Greeniacs Articles Browse all Greeniacs Guides        Browse all Greeniacs Articles
_______________________________________________________________________________

1 http://www.wintergardeningtips.com/fallandwintervegetables.html
2 http://www.wintergardeningtips.com/ornamentalwintergardenplants.html
3 http://www.wintergardeningtips.com/winterplantlist.html




Add your comment
RSS comments

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Click here to Register.  Click here to login.
Last Updated ( Monday, 07 February 2011 )

SEARCH GREENIACS.COM

Green Facts

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.