Winter gardening
how to...
I recently had a conversation with a few family members. We discussed ours thoughts on winter gardening. Both were fairly firm in their wish to garden only in warmer weather while I raised eyebrows by saying that I was more than happy to garden on a cold winter day. This weekend saw days of cold clear weather which naturally meant winter gardening so I thought I would jot down some of my thoughts:
Winter gardening is weather dependent. If it is raining then winter garden will happen on another day. But do make sure when the weather clears to head out with the shovel and have a go at digging out your stubborn weeds like dandelions and docks while the soil is super soft.
You need to dress for winter gardening. Layers work best. A t-shirt or long sleeve top to start, then a woolly jumper, followed by coat - hat and scarf are optional. The idea with layers is that as you heat up you can strip of your layers. It will be cold to start but you will get nice and toasty once you start working. Of course I am assuming you are wearing your gumboots - make sure you have your woolly socks.
Gloves - I don’t normally garden with gloves but have come round to wearing them this winter for two reasons. 1 - If you are weeding the soil is super cold and your fingers pretty quickly get numb. 2. I tend to find I get poked and cut myself a bit more in winter as leaves have fallen so branches and broken stems seem to be rather inviting to a finger. I caught myself a beaut in the weekend with my finger and split bamboo stake. I am still nursing a rather sore finger as a result.
Start time is usually 10 am knock of time around 3pm. We work with the sun in winter. Effectively tea time hours.
Tasks at the moment involve largely cutting things back and creating new compost piles as you go. The delight with doing this work at this time of year is that you can see your garden in a different way. Hopefully you spy some growth as you cut back your perennials which is such a hopefully feeling. I also love how the height of the garden has changed with the focus now on small delights that appear at ground level.
If you can get out into the garden at this time of year even if it is a 15 minute to casually chop back of a few things I encourage it. It will do you the world of good especially if you are like me and struggle with the lack of sunlight and the short days. I can talk myself out of stepping into the garden a million times before I go outside but I almost never regret doing it.
With much love
Mel