Winter is in full swing for those of us in the northern hemisphere, and unless you live in a tropical zone you’re likely to have a very quiet outdoor garden right now. While it’s (almost) always possible to have an indoor garden or at least a few inside plants to care for, many gardeners are missing the joy of being outside connected with the natural world via their outdoor garden spaces. Never fear—the team here at Gardzen shares that feeling so we’ve got a list of winter garden projects, activities, and other ideas to keep your green thumbs happy and your hands in the dirt even during the cold time of the year. Let’s dig in!
- First off, let’s get organizedand deal with some of the chaos that grows up around even the best-maintained garden space. This can be as simple as organizing your supply of containers, getting your seed packets in some kind of usable order, or clearing away some of the detritus of last season’s garden. Whatever your organization project might be, take a few minutes each day over the holiday season and address it. You’ll feel better and it will keep you engaged with your garden space.
- Taking care of your gardening tools is a great winter garden project and another good excuse to be outside or around your outdoor space. It’s also a natural outgrowth of organizing your garden supplies, so take a moment and look over your garden tools and make sure that they’re properly sharpened, lubricated, and stored in a safe and appropriate way. Quality garden tools will last for years when well cared for, so make sure you’re maintaining your gardening equipment!
- Don’t forget the compost heap for those of us lucky enough to have one. Composting requires year-round care of your composter or compost heap, so taking a bit of time here and there throughout the winter to check on how our compost is doing and give it the care it needs can be a great way to get outside and stay in touch with outdoor gardening even when many plants are dormant.
- If you haven’t already, now might be a great time to start a garden journal.It can seem a little cheesy, but writing down our thoughts, feelings, and gardening experiences can really help us grow as gardeners. Even keeping a weekly or monthly list of how things are going and what works/what doesn’t in your space can help a great deal. It’s also an easy and affordable winter activity—just a cheap notebook and pen or a file on your laptop and you can get started!
- Winter is a great time to expand our gardening knowledge, and there are a number of easy ways to do it. This is a great time of the year to connect with a local garden club, attend a few courses at your county extension office, or just do some reading. The local library probably has a number of books about gardening related topics, and there are a number of great online gardening communities as well. Even reading informative and well-researched blogs about gardening can be a wonderful way to expanding your garden know-how, find new interests, identify potential garden projects.
- And of course now’s the time to plan for the year ahead. Spring will be here sooner than we think, so this may be the perfect time to plan what we’ll plant, where we’ll plant it, and maybe plan a few new gardening projects or interests we’d like to explore. Gardening is all about growth, experimentation, and trying new things, so take this time to figure out what you’d like to do when the warm months return and prepare for them.
Winter may be a slow time in the garden, but it’s definitely not a dead time. We hope this list of possible winter garden projects gives you some inspiration to continue gardening all the year long!
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