Rural Smallholdings Magazine

Preparing your planting beds

Winter farming is one of the best ways to enjoy fresh produce year round. If you plan carefully, you can enjoy fresh salad greens, peas, beets and carrots all through the cold winter months. And you can get a head start on your spring garden while you are at it.

One of the most important concerns for a winter garden is light. Days are shorter and the sun is also lower in the sky. No matter how beautiful a greenhouse or cold frame you build, if it isn’t placed in a location where it will get the maximum light available, the plants inside will not do well. So the first thing you must do is plan the location for your winter plantings so it can take advantage of any sunny days you have.

Once you have the right location selected, then you need to consider the needs of the plants. While you can plant straight into the ground, you can only do this if you prepare the ground carefully. The first step to proper ground preparation is to double dig the area.

Double digging is a technique that aerates the soil while bringing nutrients up from deep in the ground. The basic technique is the same no matter what size of bed you make. First, you remove the top layer of soil from an area that is one spade wide by one spade deep. Set this soil to the side. Fill the resulting hole about half full with compost. Add lime and a good quality organic fertilizer using the recommendations on the package. It can be a good idea to add some kelp meal at this stage as well, once again using the recommendations on the package.

Now, dig down so you loosen the soil beneath the mulch about one spade depth again. This will mix the mulch and fertilizer together with the subsoil. If you notice that this fluffs everything up so that the trench seems to be full, don’t worry. That’s what you want.

Now move over one spade’s width. Dig down one spade’s depth, tossing that soil onto the soil you just loosened up. Fill this new trench with compost, lime, fertilizer and kelp meal. Loosen the soil at the bottom of the trench, mixing the compost and everything else.

Repeat these steps until you have loosened the entire planting bed. When you reach the end, add the soil that you set aside. The main thing that you will notice is that when you are done, you will have the equivalent of a raised bed, with the soil being anywhere from 10 to 15 cm higher than the ground around it. The roots of your plants will love it!

You don’t want to walk on all your hard labour, so stick with beds that are around one metre wide. This is an easy width to work with because you can reach into the middle of the bed without losing your balance. Much wider than one meter and the bed becomes less functional.

Even if you plan on using grow boxes, double dig the soil beneath each grow box. There are several reasons to do this. 1) You can work manure into the very bottom layer (instead of compost). The manure will provide bottom heat all through the winter, but because it is in the bottom of the trench it won’t burn the roots of the plants. Next spring, the beds will be ready for a second double digging and produce a wonderful crop. 2) It will improve your yield considerably and support the health of your plants. 3) Aerated soil does not conduct cold as effectively. You don’t want the cold coming in from the side and damaging the roots of your plants.

Many smallholders find that putting a low border around each bed is helpful. While bricks are high enough, they conduct cold. Surrounding the bed with 100mm by 200mm sleepers will insulate the bed from the cold.

The next step for preparing a winter garden is to cover and insulate your planting beds. There are several ways to do this, which we will discuss in the next article, WINTER PLANTING ON A SMALLHOLDING: Ways to Keep Your Winter Garden Warm.

Still looking for Your Smallholding? Visit Greenshifters for the latest smallholdings for sale, rent and exchange.

Article by Rural Smallholdings Magazine