Are you thinking back to warm summer days when you dug in the dirt and grew amazing vegetables and herbs? While you may be limited to what you can plant in your winter garden, there are still ways to tend to your green thumb.
Embracing the Chill: Winter Gardening 101
While most folks clean and put away their gardening tools by November, you can still have a winter garden outside if you live in USDA growing zones 7-10.
You can grow leafy greens, root vegetables, and cold, hardy annuals in your garden plot or outdoor containers. Plus, you can grow windowsill herbs, hardy annuals, and houseplants indoors.
Read more: Elevate Your DIY Game with Brinly’s Ground-Engaging Attachments
In a kitchen garden, grow leafy greens like Swiss chard, some lettuces, arugula, radicchio, and root vegetables like beets and carrots. Pansies, sweet alyssum, and lobelia are three flower examples that will brighten patio containers this winter.
Indoor Herb Garden: Growing Herbs Indoors During Winter
Herbs brighten your home with green foliage and earthy scents.
Think rosemary, sage, oregano, parsley, and thyme for your indoor winter garden. You may need a growing light or put your herb garden in a sunny window. These herbs add zest to your winter soups, salads, and stews.
Realize not every herb will do well over the winter. Instead, stick to the ones that do well indoors.
Your herb garden should grow well with nutrient-rich potting soil, plenty of sunlight, and adequate watering.
Also, do the finger test to see if the plants need water. You stick your index finger into the soil until you reach the first joint, about 1”. If the soil is dry, then you need to add some water to the pot.
For a thriving herb garden, don’t overwater your plants. Herbs that get too much water will get root rot and not thrive in the wintertime.
Braving the Cold: Winter Gardening Tips for Growing Cold Hardy Plants
While much of the northern part of the U.S. has frozen ground at this time of year, in more temperate climates, you still may be able to use your ground-engaging equipment to put in a small kitchen garden near your home.
A kitchen garden is a small plot close to your home’s kitchen, so you can quickly go out and pick vegetables for your winter recipes. You also won’t need to tote water very far because of the winter garden’s proximity to your home.
You probably won’t be able to find seeds at your local garden retailer right now, but you can use leftover seeds from last spring to plant your garden.
Ensure that your winter garden has chopped-up leaves, straw, hay, or other garden mulch to help insulate the ground while your vegetables grow. You can protect your garden in the winter by using high tunnels.
What is a high tunnel?
It’s a metal-frame structure covered with greenhouse plastic. High tunnels aren’t permanent structures, and they lie above ground. Unlike a greenhouse, high tunnels don’t have ventilation or permanent heating.
You can use bed sheets or buy plastic to cover your winter vegetables when the temperatures dip below 32°F.
High tunnels naturally heat up on sunny days, but it will be cold inside on cloudy days. Still, you can extend your winter gardening well into the colder months.
You can buy high tunnels at garden retailers and online.
Winter Gardening with Indoor Plants
Winter gardening with indoor plants can range from the typical houseplants to poinsettias, Christmas cacti, and other holiday plants to overwintering annuals, such as begonias and geraniums.
Most garden centers and other garden retailers will have fact sheets for individual plant care over the winter. You can also find plant care for unique or sensitive plants online.
TheSpruce.com says that you should replicate the growing conditions of the plant’s country of origin. Some plants hail from the tropics, like African violets and Mother of Millions, come from Africa, with no definitive seasons, such as summer and winter.
Instead, Mother of Millions (also called the devil’s backbone), a succulent, needs a sunny window and minimal water since it doesn’t like to sit in wet soil.
Meanwhile, African violets grow low in tropical rainforests and need morning sunlight and consistently moist soil.
When you water African violets, do not put the water directly in the soil but in a shallow dish that the plants absorb through their roots. Also, don’t put African violets in a space where it can get afternoon sunlight, or you’ll scorch the leaves.
Finally, you’ll find that some houseplants need extra humidity, which can be achieved with a plant mister, a room humidifier, or by putting pebbles in a dish with water. But remember, not all plants need misting, which leads to fungi developing on the plants’ leaves.
The bottom line for winter gardening with houseplants: Avoid overwatering, place your houseplant where it’ll get enough sunlight for its species, and add moisture if needed.
Summing Up: Winter Gardening Wisdom
You can still enjoy winter gardening, whether it’s an outdoor kitchen garden covered with a high tunnel, a windowsill herb garden, or houseplants. Give your plants the right amount of sunlight and water.
Cut down on fertilizing since many plants go into dormancy during the winter, avoid overwatering, which can lead to root rot, and only add misting for the plants that need it.
Dreaming of a Spring Garden
While you may be dreaming about when you can return to the garden in the spring, you can now plan to invest in ground-engaging equipment to create a new garden plot in March. Also, some ground-engaging attachments help with snow removal—so you can use Brinly products year-round.
Our ground-engaging gardening equipment includes:
- 38” Sleeve Hitch Box Scraper
- 42” Front-Mount Blade for RYOBI 38” Electric Riding Mower
- 42” Sleeve Hitch Box Scraper
- 42” Sleeve Hitch Rear Blade
- Front-Mount Blade for RYOBI Electric ZTRs
- Sleeve Hitch Cultivator
- Sleeve Hitch Disc Harrow
- Sleeve Hitch Moldboard Plow.
You can buy your next Brinly ground-engaging garden attachment online. If you have any questions about your Brinly lawn and garden product, contact our customer service today by dialing 877-728-8224 or filling out our contact form.
Sources:
Extension.PSU.edu, Extending the Garden Season with High Tunnels.
HGTV.com, Tips for Growing Herbs in Winter.
Ibid, Winter Gardens.
TheSpruce.com, How to Care for Houseplants in the Winter.
UAEX.UADA.edu, Plant of the Week: Saintpaulia Ioantha, African Violet.
