When late October rolls around, most home gardeners are starting to prepare their garden beds for winter cold temperatures, frost, and more.
It’s super important to prepare your garden beds correctly, to ensure your plants are protected, to preserve your soil, and to give you a head start for spring gardening.
Here are the most important tips to help you succeed this winter season and winterize your raised garden beds the right way.
Harvest Any Leftover Fruit or Veggies
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Before focusing on your plants, turn your attention to any leftover fruit and vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, or bean plants (think: green beans, snap peas, and more).
Move and store only the mature fruits you find in a safe place indoors or in a greenhouse and make sure to throw away any early or rotting fruits in your compost pile (if you have one).
Remove Dead Plants From Raised Garden Beds
Now, it’s time to refocus your time on removing plants from your raised garden beds. Dead plants are not only unattractive, but if left in place in your garden beds, they can potentially contribute to disease or fungus issues next year.
Pulling up and discarding all parts of infected plants helps reduce infection for the springtime, particularly in smaller garden beds that haven’t had much opportunity for crop rotation.
Protect Your Raised Garden Bed’s Soil
When you have raised garden beds, it’s important to protect your soil before the daunting winter weather storms in! Cover crops can be used to protect the topsoil in your garden beds from erosion and the bitter cold.
Cover crops, like wheat or rye, are fast-growing plants that are used to do exactly what their name says: cover and protect your soil in time for winter.
Add Mulch To Your Raised Garden Beds
Mulch is beloved by all home gardeners for its protecting properties to plants and soil. When you add organic matter to your garden beds, it restores the nutrients within the soil.
And you don’t have to buy mulch at the store either! You can use everything from your own compost, manure, and even old raked-up leaves or straw.
Inspect Your Raised Garden Bed’s Frame
It’s also important in particular for raised garden beds, to make sure the soil under the garden bed frame has not disintegrated. If it has, you need to add more soil where that problem is. Secondly, ensure that the corners of your raised garden bed are solid and not flimsy.
It’s super necessary to replace any rotting wood to help prevent the frame from collapsing, especially when temperatures drop.
Shut Off Your Irrigation System
Jardinage Pro / Kevin Norris
Many raised garden beds have irrigation or sprinkler systems connected to them for easy watering. If you do have one, it’s really important to cut it off before winter comes. Failing to winterize your system could potentially result in costly damages to your system.
While you can certainly do this yourself, if you’re nervous about this task in particular you can always call a professional!