Winter has arrived and I finally was able to put my vegetable garden to rest for winter. With our busy schedule and weather delays, we are putting the garden to rest later than usual. Better late than never though! If you haven’t prepared your garden for winter, make sure you do so!
Putting your garden to rest for winter will help prepare the soil for the next growing season. The soil needs new nutrients since the nutrients have been depleted from the growing season. The first step in preparing your garden to rest is to remove all of the dead plants. Make sure to discard the plants as they may contain diseases and insects. Don’t use last years plants as compost – this will only spread disease.
Once all of the dead plants have been removed, it’s time to add some nutrients back in. Some people plant a cover crop like barley that can be amended back into the soil in the Spring. We didn’t have time to plant a cover crop. This year we decided to add a layer of chicken manure followed by a covering of leaves. The manure and leaves are organic material that will decompose to add nutrients. Here in Virginia we have about three-four months before we can begin planting again. That means that there is plenty of time for the manure and leaves to decompose.
In the Spring, hubby will till the decomposed leaves and manure into the garden soil. Hopefully this method will provide enough nutrients. We will have to do a soil test after the tilling to determine if we need to add any other fertilizer.
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