Get Your Garden Ready for Winter!

Although the claim has been made that 2015 is likely to be the hottest year ever recorded, things are starting to cool off now that December has hit. With December comes the official beginning of winter, and for many states in our largely temperate nation, this means the beginning of winter weather: from daily frosts to full-on snowstorms, depending on where you are.

So how will you take care of your garden during the long winter months? Well, we at communEATi are here to help you get your garden winter-ready so that when spring comes, your garden will be a little more orderly, healthy, and productive.

Typically, you’ll want to start getting your garden ready for winter right after the first frost has killed off most of your annual plants. If you’re unsure of when the frost is there to stay in your area, you can look up a Frost Dates Calculator by state through the Farmer’s Almanac website. If you live anywhere that gets frost, it’s important to put your garden “to bed.”

Putting Your Veggies to Bed
You can try to postpone the inevitable (winter, that is) in your garden for a while by covering your vegetables with old sheets or bedspreads on cold nights, but the declining light and chilly daytime temperatures will naturally bring plant growth to a halt.

• -Leave carrots, garlic, horseradish, leeks, parsnips, radishes, and turnips in your garden for harvesting through the early winter.
• -Mark the rows with tall stakes to find them in the snow.
• -Cover with a heavy layer of mulch to keep the ground from thawing.
• -Pull up tomato, squash, pea, and bean plants and any stakes.
• -If they’re disease-free, compost them.
• -If they’re diseased, burn them or discard separately.
• -Remove all weeds and debris before the ground gets too hard.
• -Gently till the soil to expose any insects who plan to overwinter.
• -Add a layer of compost, leaves, and manure (if you have it) once most of the garden soil is exposed and till into the soil.

Preparing Your Herbs for Winter

• -Sage and thyme are considered perennials, going dormant in the fall and reviving themselves by spring without special treatment for the winter.
• -Rosemary needs to be sheltered outside (Zone 6) or brought in (Zones 5 and colder).
• -Parsley can withstand a light frost but should be covered at night in Zones 5 or colder.
• -Dig up a clump of chives and pot, letting the foliage die down and freeze for several weeks. Bring the pot inside to a sunny, cool spot; water well to harvest throughout winter.

Winterizing Your Perennials and Flowers
A perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. It’s important to water your perennials and flowering shrubs in the fall to ensure a good winter.

• -Once the ground has frozen, cut your perennials back to 3” and mulch them with a thick layer of leaves or straw.
• -If putting in a new flower bed next spring, cover the area with mulch or heavy plastic.
• -Before a heavy snowfall, cover pachysandra with a mulch of pine needles.
• -Move potted chrysanthemums to a sheltered spot when their flowers fade. Water well and cover with a thick layer of straw.
• -When the leaves of dahlias, gladioli, and cannas are blackened by frost, carefully dig them up and let them dry indoors on newspaper for a few days. Then pack in Styrofoam peanuts, dry peat moss, or shredded newspaper and store in a dark, humid spot at 40-50℉ until spring.

Garden Odds and Ends
In addition to your garden, you’ll need to prepare your gardening tools for winter.

• -Empty all of your outdoor containers and store them upside down.
• -Hang a bucket on a hook in your tool shed or garage and use it to store hose nozzles and sprinkler attachments.
• -Run your garden hose up over a railing to remove all the water; roll it up and put it away.
• -Cover your compost pile with plastic or a thick layer of straw before snow falls.
• -Drain the fuel tank on your lawn mower and any other power equipment.
• -Scrub down and put away your tools. You can also oil your tools to avoid rust.

By taking the steps to bed your garden and care for your tools before winter, you can ensure a healthier and more fruitful garden. And for more tips on gardening throughout the winter, yummy recipes, and other homegrown topics, be sure to stay up-to-date with our blog and follow communEATi on Facebook and Twitter!

Read More »

Veterans Day and Victory Gardens

Happy Veterans Day from communEATi!
This week, the communEATi team would like to take the time to focus on a very special November holiday: Veterans Day. It might not be the most fun holiday in November, but Veterans Day is incredibly important to our nation as it gives us the opportunity to honor and thank those who have served in our Armed Forces in a way that will never be able to match the risks they’ve faced.

The celebration of Veterans Day began after World War I as a way to commemorate the ceasefire that occurred November 11, 1918 between the Allied nations and Germany that ended the war that was to end all wars. Less than 25 years later, the United States would enter into World War II and, once again, call upon its citizens to become veterans.

As has happened in other times of conflict, the American people rallied and riveted, doing everything they could on the homefront during these world wars in an effort to help their loved ones overseas. Part of this effort came in the form of Victory Gardens.

How Homegrown Foods Aided the War Effort
Victory Gardens, also called war gardens, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks during World War I and World War II in order to reduce pressure on the public food supply. Posters and ads were everywhere, urging citizens to “Dig On for Victory;” trains, which would normally transport goods between states, were now being used to transport soldiers; and canned vegetables, which could be sent overseas, were rationed. Besides indirectly aiding the war effort, these gardens were also considered a civil morale booster because gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor.

At their peak, there were more than 20 million Victory Gardens planted across the United States. People with no yards planted small gardens in window boxes or larger rooftop gardens, and many schools across the country planted them on their school grounds and used the produce in school lunches. By 1944, Victory Gardens were responsible for producing 40% of all vegetables grown in the US.

Many different types of vegetables were grown in Victory Gardens: tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, beets, and peas, to name a few. Victory Gardens are also considered responsible for bringing Swiss chard and kohlrabi (a type of cabbage) onto the American dinner table because they were easy to grow.

Victory Gardens Today
While Victory Gardens lost their steam after World War II, there are efforts to revive the movement today. Victory Garden Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering communities to grow their own food, sees the new Victory Gardens as a fight of their own: “We are fighting for food security and the health of our ecosystems. We are fighting for resilient communities that support one another and for strong local economies,” their website states. And Food Not Lawns, an all-volunteer organization, works to educate communities about the health and economic benefits of using your yard for gardening, not landscaping.

The benefits of Victory Gardens - and their modern-day equivalents - definitely seem worth the effort. So if you plan on getting a modern-day Victory Garden up and running, you should really get to know communEATi; we’ll help you make the most of those homegrown goodies!

Read More »