Gardening 101: What to Do in the Winter for Healthier Soil in the Spring
As the year and the active growing season comes to a close in the northern hemisphere, there still is one thing you can do now to improve your gardening experience come spring: winter soil amending. Here are five things you can do now to help improve your soil.
Photograph by Rasbak via Wikimedia, from Weed Wisdom: What 10 Common Weeds Are Trying to Tell You.
Digitaria sanguinalis (crabgrass).
1. Weed.
Remove all the weeds, especially if you didn’t get a chance to do it earlier and they have gone to seed. Removing them now cuts down on annual weeds self sowing and perennial weeds from coming back next year.
2 . Test your soil.
Photograph by Erin Boyle.
It’s always good to know if your soil is missing any nutrients.
Photograph by Joi Ito via Flickr, from Gardening 101: When to Use Compost, Fertilizer, and Mulch.
If you do nothing else to improve your soil, add compost.
3. Add compost.
Either homemade or store bought, compost will improve your soil quality by replenishing the nutrients to the soil. This is really important if you grew or plan to grow heavy feeders like tomatoes.
4. Mulch.
A layer of leaf mulch is great for winter soil. An added benefit: the mulch minimizes frost heave (which forces winter crops like garlic out of the ground prematurely).
Photograph by Marie Viljoen.