Winter Prep for Your Garden
Winter is right around the corner, as we make our way through the last month of fall. This is the season where the life force/plant juices has descended down into the roots to seek warmth. Especially all your non-evergreen deciduous plants.
November continues to be a good month for fall planting projects as long as the the temps stay above freezing.
Many people often believe there isn't much to do in the garden in the winter months. Winter and the wetter/cooler months of the year are generally better than the hot/dry season for working the ground and the following projects.
Working of the soil in areas that you want to improve, or areas that have hard pan or clay. With more moisture around, this makes throwing your 9 pound pic ax and shovel into the dirt you want to turn over easier to work with.
Gardener & Bloome's Soil Building Conditioner is an excellent soil amendment for hard pan and clay areas specifically. Deeply working and digging this one in can help break things up.
Carving out pathways with sand, gravel, and pebbles. Laying out freestanding boulders and stones for creating boundaries and definition in your garden. Again, this is where nature offers the moisture to work with you, especially on carving of pathways where you are leveling out the ground before laying materials.
General weeding projects, followed up by layering soil amendment and/or bark mulch. Thorough weeding should be done before laying soil amendments and mulches. This helps to smother out new root growth, reduce seeding, and give your garden beds a clean and finished look.
Deep root weeding/digging out invasive plant species. Blackberries, English ivy, and switch (crab) grass are good examples of very invasive plants. Same applies here as the point above, where you can smother out new growth shoots by laying thick soil amendment and/or mulch.
Pruning deciduous trees and shrubs. If the leaves have all fallen, it makes it easy to see the whole structure of the plant and how it fits dynamically into the whole of your garden.
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