3:44 PM Tue, Dec 18, 2007 | Permalink
Cindy Brummer
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You'd think that cold weather would put a damper on outdoor gardening tasks. Yes, winter is just days away and it's been cold. Yes, many of my trees have gone dormant, and yes, the tomatoes and squash are toast. But there's so much to do.
Take care of the garden tools
If there's one thing I'm not good at -- it's cleaning my tools and stowing them away in the shed. But that's exactly what I should be doing. I should be cleaning all the dirt and rust from my shovels and rakes and sharpening the blades and edges.
I need to run the lawn mower until the engine is dry and change out the oil. I should also take the mower in to a service shop for yearly maintenance. Now is the perfect time before the spring rush.
Clean up garden beds and compost
If you're lucky enough to have lots of trees, you know the joys of raking leaves in the fall. (I guess you don't HAVE to rake leaves, but most people do want to keep their lawns healthy.) Thanks to my big huge pecan tree, my family has been raking leaves and gathering pecans every weekend for the past month.
But we don't bag our leaves and set them out for the city to pick up.
Unless the leaf pile is really gross.
What we've been doing is chopping up the leaves and either putting them on the compost pile or using them as mulch in those parts of the yard where the ground is bare. Leaves are not ideal mulch -- especially when it comes to veggie beds -- but they're great for other areas. We spread it underneath the pecan tree which will soon become my son's play area. Trees soak up tons of nutrients through their leaves, so it's much better to turn those nutrients back into your yard rather than give them to the city. (They're just going to compost them anyway -- you might as well reap the benefits.)
Plan for next year's garden
This is my favorite part of winter gardening. I LOVE combing through garden catalogs, dreaming of all the plants and vegetables that I want to grow. I found myself the other day staring at a recently cleared spot along the fence that would be the PERFECT spot for a Mexican plum, which are supposed to have beautiful blooms.
And of course, I am counting the days until it's time to go to the nursery and pick out our blackberry canes. We've been planning this for months, and January is the target date. I can't wait to pick my own right out of my yard.
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