Garden Things to do in December

• Mulch your garlic. Need a good source of organic straw? Call up Aurora Farms in Charlotte, VT. They grow grains for the Nitty Gritty Grains Company, and their bales of straw are just beautiful - no weed seeds, nice long strands with hollow stems to insulate from the cold, and best of all it is organic. You don't want to risk introducing persistent herbicide residues into the garden.
• Plant bulbs before the ground totally freezes (quick!)
• Plant some paperwhite bulbs for forcing. You can find out how right here. 
• Give your houseplants a trim, a feed, a little love. Check them for pests, wipe them off with a little neem oil if you see anything crawling around. This is a great time of year to give houseplants a little shower. The heat source in your house is likely quite dry, and most of your green friends like the feeling of rain. Recreate it for them. You can sing to them, too, while you are at it.
• Make a few holiday gifts from the garden - herb salts, lavender sachets, cranberry apple chutney, herbal vinegars, calendula skin oil, or rosemary short bread. If you don't have any of the necessary garden ingredients, you can always purchase them and see it as inspiration for growing your own next year. Pinterest and the internet are brimming over with ideas and directions for making all kinds of beautiful  holiday treats from the garden. The links above will get you started.

• Make a garland, wreath or swag with stems, twigs, branches, seed pods, dried flowers, and other goodies from fields, woods and gardens. I love growing a hedge of Ilex verticulata and a small row of red osier dogwood for their berries and twigs make striking additions to winter greenery like balsam or pine or cedar.
• Poke at the compost pile. Try to introduce some air into its nether parts so that it really heats up before the cold sets in. Add some fallen leaves, and a little manure from a horse farm or friends with chickens. You get the idea.
• Look at seed catalogs! They are coming out now and the best therapy for  December Darkness is those spring dreams of budding life and sowing seeds.

Stick Season Tasks

• Plant bulbs. Watch this video with Charlie Nardozzi if you don't know how.  Gardener's Supply in Burlington, Williston and on line, has a great selection of flowering bulbs that will wow you in the spring.

• Mulch your perennials with leaves. No need to think of leaves as waste...they are loaded with carbon and a perfect way to add organic matter to your gardens. They will offer some winter protection too.  Here are some other leafy ideas.
• Cut back annuals if you have not done so yet. Or leave the sturdier ones such as sunflowers and amaranths since they make lovely perches for song birds. Not everything needs to be so tidy.

•  Build a raised bed for next year
• Weed and cut back perennial beds.
• About all that food you diligently canned and froze all summer - start eating it!

• Let us know what varieties worked well for you. You can contact us through this website.
• If you want to make a new garden for 2013, now is a great time to mark it, remove the sod, and amend with compost.
• Turn the compost pile.

• Clean off tools, oil them, put them away neatly, and feel good about it all.

 

•  Store garlic and onions in a cool, dark, dry place.
• Make a pot of potato leek soup.
• Mulch your leeks and root crops, if you have some in the ground still, with straw, so that you can harvest them after frost comes.

• Sit by the fire if you have one, light some candles if you don't, and enter the time of contemplation and restoration.

FAQ #18: How do I make compost?

Make some kind of container about 3’ in diameter, such as a length of chicken wire or 4 pallets hitched together to make a square.  Put a layer of sticks on the bottom, just thrown in to allow air to flow into the pile.  Add a variety of plant material, in layers if you can, but it’s not really necessary.  You need some brown material, such as leaves, and some green material, like freshly pulled weeds, grass clippings or kitchen scraps.  Top with a few handfuls of manure, if you have it, or half-done compost.  This isn’t necessary, but speeds up the process.  Sprinkle with water so the pile feels like a damp sponge.  Don’t soak it, it needs air.   The pile should heat up.  When it stops, turn it.  A compost aerator makes turning the pile an easy matter, so I do it more often, but you can also use a shovel or garden fork. Having two compost piles makes it easier to use the finished compost, since one can be allowed to finish while you’re adding to the other. Use the finished compost on your garden.  Even if it’s not be finely screened compost, it will finish decomposing in the soil.

FAQ #8: How much/often do I need to compost?

If your garden soil is naturally rich in organic matter, an inch or so of compost at the beginning of the season and again in midsummer is probably plenty. If you have very sandy or nutrient-depleted soil, provide as much compost as possible - several inches at the beginning of the season, a few handfuls for each plant at transplanting time, and a thick re-application in midsummer. If you have very poor soil it is also a good idea to rotate the growing area and grow nitrogen-fixing cover crops to increase the organic matter and nutrient content of the soil. The best way to determine your nutrient needs is to do a soil test. Soil can be tested using  a simple test from the garden garden center, but a professional soil test will provide more detailed information and recommendations for amendments. Soil samples can be sent to UVM Extension for soil testing for about $14. Find out more about soil testing here.