Top Ten Winter Gardening Tips

by country life | Oct 19, 2011

Looks like it’s time to start wrapping up again as the weather turns cold for the winter.

Here are our Top Ten Winter Gardening Tips to prepare your garden for the cold months ahead:

Empty any of your pots that are not frost-proof and move them under cover to protect them from the winter weather.
Have all you garden machinery serviced during the winter season and drain all excess fuel.
Avoid walking on frost covered grass.
Plant any bare-root or pot-grown ornamental deciduous tress.
Check all tree ties and stakes are secure before winter winds hit.
Sow seeds of early cabbage varieties indoors, learn more about planting cabbage.
Sow broad beans outdoors for an early crop.
Plant onions and garlic in your vegetable garden in December, this will be ready to harvest in early spring.
Lift and divide any perennial flowers when we get a good day.
Tidy up your strawberry beds by removing unwanted runners, old leaves and developing weeds.

2 Comments

1 Naomi - CountryLife Horticulturist 07 Dec
Sean,
Thanks for your lovely comment, so glad your enjoying our new site!
That’s a great question; ideally the location of strawberries should be changed every 3 to 4 years. So using the older strawberries will yield less and less every year.
Your newly propagated runners are ideal for new plants but should not be planted in the same bed as you need to allow your soil to recover.
The plants need to be feed in the spring with phosphorus and this will help fruiting every year on older plants and new runner.
Enjoy your harvesting and hope to see you in one of our Countrylife stores.
2 Sean 24 Oct

Hi

I love your new website, looks great. I have a quick question. I have strawberry plants for 4 years now. I have taken runners most years from them. Should I remove older plants now and make room for younger runners to develop. Will the crop on older plants be smaller with every year that passes? your advise would be great.Thanks

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