If you are busy with life, it is easy to overlook your soil. Please don’t as it is an important element in gardening. In the past, I haven’t focused on the soil in the Fall/Winter, but I am this year!
If you haven’t started a compost pile, now is the time since you are pulling so many plants from garden before the winter hits. As I mentioned before, I am way behind with traditional composting. Why is composting important? It nourishes the soil.
Since I don’t have a compost pile, I did some research on the internet and decided to follow this plan in prepping for winter:
- I loosened the soil with my cobra head which is the blue handled tool on the left.
- I sprinkled balanced organic plant food on next.
- I applied a thin layer of mushroom compost which I bought a while ago and decided to finally use it. When I researched mushroom compost, I learned that you should not apply it when you are planting your seeds as it is too strong. Final verdict is that It is best to apply it in the Fall. If I like the results I will use it again nest year. See http://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/mushroom-compost-use-carefully.
- I topped it off with some straw.
If you follow the steps above with the picture from left to right, you can see what I did.