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Dear Eartha,
My garden is showing signs of winter and I’m already having withdrawals. Any suggestions on how to keep my green thumb entertained during the winter months too?
— Phyllis, Frisco
I can sympathize. This is the perfect time to start winterizing your garden and I have several ideas to get you started:
1. Prep your garden beds now for spring — If you haven’t started backyard composting yet, you can start a compost bin now, add materials all winter long, and have great compost for your garden in the spring. It’s OK for your compostables to freeze in the winter. When plant and food materials freeze, ice crystals break down their sturdy cell walls into mush. For more on composting, visit our website – www.highcountryconservation.org.
For current composters — if your compost bin is full of unfinished compost, it’s time to put it to work. Go ahead and empty your compost bin and spread the unfinished and finished compost all over your garden beds. This method is similar to sheet mulching and winter snow will break down the materials to create healthy soil for the spring. Your plants will love the jump start of nutrients! As your plants start to yellow and wilt with the cold, try the “chop and drop†method of mulching. Simply chop your plants down and spread as a mulch on top of your unfinished compost. The double layer blanket will both insulate and nourish.
2. Try Indoor Vermicomposting — For those not so keen about trudging through the snow to compost in the backyard, start a worm bin indoors and have finished compost every day. Worms are the easiest (and cheapest) way to compost in the high country. All you need is a bin, a starter batch of red worms, newspaper or paper scraps, and a spray bottle. Worms eat your kitchen scraps, junk mail, paper towels, and cereal boxes and turn them into rich worm castings that can be used as soil amendment or compost tea (the ultimate plant fertilizer). If you want to learn more about composting with worms, attend the Conservation Center’s Compost Tea and Vermicomposting Workshop Sept. 16 from 5:30 to 7:30 at our office in Frisco. The workshop is $10 and you can pre-register by calling 668-5703.
3. Grow Food Indoors with Hydroponics — You don’t have to completely give up on gardening in the winter. If you have a sunny windowsill, you can still grow fresh herbs for your kitchen all year round. Even better, you can grow your own food with lights and hydroponics. Hydroponic gardening is an easy way to grow plants inside without messy soils and large spaces. Hydroponic systems use a nutrient-rich water bath to make essential minerals available to plant roots. Another advantage to hydroponic gardening is a higher crop yield. You can learn all about hydroponic gardening at another HC3 September workshop – Grow Your Own Food with Hydroponic Gardening on Sept. 17 from 5:30 to 7:30 at our office in Frisco. This workshop is also $10 and you can pre-register by calling 668-5703.
4. Share the Harvest — Finally, for all you composters, victory gardeners, high-altitude farmers and green thumb wannabes, there is a new listserv called the Summit Plant Exchange. If you have an excess of animal manure, plant pots, wood shavings, seeds or seedlings that you can’t find a home for or if you are looking for the same, this is the place for you. This is a FREE exchange similar to Summit Freecycle but specific for gardening and composting. You can find out more by emailing info@highcountryconservation.org.
Eartha Steward is written by Carly Wier and Jennifer Santry at the High Country Conservation Center. Submit questions to Eartha at eartha@highcountryconservation.org.
My garden is showing signs of winter and I’m already having withdrawals. Any suggestions on how to keep my green thumb entertained during the winter months too?
— Phyllis, Frisco
I can sympathize. This is the perfect time to start winterizing your garden and I have several ideas to get you started:
1. Prep your garden beds now for spring — If you haven’t started backyard composting yet, you can start a compost bin now, add materials all winter long, and have great compost for your garden in the spring. It’s OK for your compostables to freeze in the winter. When plant and food materials freeze, ice crystals break down their sturdy cell walls into mush. For more on composting, visit our website – www.highcountryconservation.org.
For current composters — if your compost bin is full of unfinished compost, it’s time to put it to work. Go ahead and empty your compost bin and spread the unfinished and finished compost all over your garden beds. This method is similar to sheet mulching and winter snow will break down the materials to create healthy soil for the spring. Your plants will love the jump start of nutrients! As your plants start to yellow and wilt with the cold, try the “chop and drop†method of mulching. Simply chop your plants down and spread as a mulch on top of your unfinished compost. The double layer blanket will both insulate and nourish.
2. Try Indoor Vermicomposting — For those not so keen about trudging through the snow to compost in the backyard, start a worm bin indoors and have finished compost every day. Worms are the easiest (and cheapest) way to compost in the high country. All you need is a bin, a starter batch of red worms, newspaper or paper scraps, and a spray bottle. Worms eat your kitchen scraps, junk mail, paper towels, and cereal boxes and turn them into rich worm castings that can be used as soil amendment or compost tea (the ultimate plant fertilizer). If you want to learn more about composting with worms, attend the Conservation Center’s Compost Tea and Vermicomposting Workshop Sept. 16 from 5:30 to 7:30 at our office in Frisco. The workshop is $10 and you can pre-register by calling 668-5703.
3. Grow Food Indoors with Hydroponics — You don’t have to completely give up on gardening in the winter. If you have a sunny windowsill, you can still grow fresh herbs for your kitchen all year round. Even better, you can grow your own food with lights and hydroponics. Hydroponic gardening is an easy way to grow plants inside without messy soils and large spaces. Hydroponic systems use a nutrient-rich water bath to make essential minerals available to plant roots. Another advantage to hydroponic gardening is a higher crop yield. You can learn all about hydroponic gardening at another HC3 September workshop – Grow Your Own Food with Hydroponic Gardening on Sept. 17 from 5:30 to 7:30 at our office in Frisco. This workshop is also $10 and you can pre-register by calling 668-5703.
4. Share the Harvest — Finally, for all you composters, victory gardeners, high-altitude farmers and green thumb wannabes, there is a new listserv called the Summit Plant Exchange. If you have an excess of animal manure, plant pots, wood shavings, seeds or seedlings that you can’t find a home for or if you are looking for the same, this is the place for you. This is a FREE exchange similar to Summit Freecycle but specific for gardening and composting. You can find out more by emailing info@highcountryconservation.org.
Eartha Steward is written by Carly Wier and Jennifer Santry at the High Country Conservation Center. Submit questions to Eartha at eartha@highcountryconservation.org.
