When the gardening year is coming to an end, it's time to winterize the vegetable patch. Here are our 5 tips for the right winter protection.
When the autumn harvest season and the gardening season are over, it's not just about emptying the pool, raking leaves and storing the garden furniture (reading tip: Winterizing the garden - small checklist). Then you also need to get to work and winterize your vegetable patch. That's important because it's the best way to prepare your vegetable patch for the next gardening season.
Let's just take the potato as an example. When growing potatoes, it is important that you properly prepare and fertilize the soil in autumn so that next year's potato harvest is very productive.
But how is a vegetable patch really winterized and is there something to consider? Our tips will tell you all this.
Tips for the right winter protection
➤ Tip 1 - digging up very heavy soil:
You don't actually have to dig up your beds in autumn. However, this does not apply to very heavy soils. Here it is even important that you dig them up, otherwise there is a risk of silting up, and there is also insufficient ventilation.
Dig the vegetable patch about 20 centimeters deep with a spade in November. If there are still soft remains of onions, spinach or lettuce on the bed, that's not a problem. You can simply work this into the ground. You should only remove the solid stalks and diseased parts of the plant and dispose of them in the compost.
➤ Tip 2 - loosen normal soils:
On the other hand, you should simply loosen up normal soil and work in some manure or mature compost. However, you should carefully remove the weeds beforehand, because then you don't have to expect sudden multiplication in the coming spring.
If you don't have any manure or mature compost ready, you can also make a foundation and plant clover on your vegetable patch, for example. The green manure protects and then warms the soil with its coveringplant matter and also supplies it with nutrients.
➤ Tip 3 - Cover beds:
You should also cover the loosened soil with a layer of straw or leaves for the winter. In this way, the soil survives the cold season optimally and is also supplied with sufficient nutrients.
Important:
Speaking of nutrients, you should never fertilize your vegetable patch at the end of the gardening season. That can do more harm than good. Apart from a foundation, no other fertilizer is allowed in the vegetable patch. You should only work fertilizer back into the soil in the spring.
➤ Tip 4 - protect planters:
Anyone who does not have a vegetable bed in the classic sense, but has perhaps planted vegetables on the balcony, must now adequately protect these planters from the cold in winter. Of course, it is best if you overwinter the planters indoors. If that's not possible, you'll have to wrap them up tightly. Proceed as follows:
- Wrap the bubble wrap around the pot or planter
- put a linen bag around the bubble wrap
- Place planters on styrofoam plates
- Cover soil with brushwood
➤ Tip 5 - Protect vegetables:
Actually, there are hardly any vegetables left in the beds in November because they should have been harvested by then. You can only leave plants that are intended for green manure and hardy vegetables such as leeks and cabbage. You won't have any work with it during the winter, but you can still harvest. Especially cabbage tastes much better after the first frosts.
If the temperatures drop very sharply, you can protect the plants with a garden fleece. You should also pile them up with some soil.