Setting Up For Winter

There is still time to plant out your winter vegetable garden. Check out our tips for getting started as the cooler temperatures set in.

​While gardening is not for everyone, many people do enjoy maintaining a home garden or tending to a small space in the local community garden. Even though gardening is most popular during the summer months, if you choose to, you can have a garden year round with a variety of seasonal vegetables and herbs. There are two different ways to look at winter gardens:

1. Gardening to have a winter vegetable crop during the winter months or

2.  Maintaing a garden through the winter for a spring vegetable crop.

Since we are already well into autumn, we will be looking more at the latter.

Don’t worry if you didn’t plan out a winter garden ahead of time. We are lucky here on the Sunshine Coast that the climate is temperate enough to allow for late autumn planning and planting. But - if you are in a cooler area you can always consider the use of a greenhouse.

Here are some winter gardening advantages and simple tips for getting started:

1. Winter gardens can be less work. Your soil and garden beds should be partly ready to go from the summer garden and, to a degree, should still contain some good fertiliser. Remove finished summer plants to make room for cold weather plants and turn the soil to remix before use.
2. It usually rains during the winter months, so watering will be minimal unless it’s a dry winter.
3. Although there are still a few insects to deal with that attack winter plants, pests like aphids and caterpillars, there are far more insects to have to fight off your summer vegetables.
4. The best advantage to maintaining a winter garden is that you will have tasty veggies during the winter or when spring arrives!
5. Now that we’ve had the major shift in sunlight patterns, watch to see what areas of your yard are being hit with sun and for how many hours per day, then check plant tabs to see if your winter vegetable needs sunlight (or ask us). If the vegetable does need more sunlight than your garden bed has to offer, consider potting instead so it can be easily picked up and moved to sunnier areas.
6. It is important to pay attention to frost warnings if you are in a high incidence area. This is necessary if you already have plants in the ground or are planning to transplant seedlings. If the forecast shows frost or extreme cold, use mulch to protect and insulate in-ground plants and wait to transplant any seedlings.
7. Loosen the soil at least 18 to 24 inches down and work in new organic compost and fertiliser a few inches deep and all around the bed, if needed.
8. Make sure your greenhouse transplants are big and strong enough to handle the colder winter weather. Transplanting a vegetable plant outside in the cold that’s too weak could cause the plant to die or not produce. 

Once you have set yourself up (or if you are a more advanced gardener if has done all this before), stay tuned for further articles on building up winter plant health, managing temperature zones and self sufficiency during the colder months.