Gone are the glory days of summer to the now dreary days of winter. You don’t need to be on active garden duty, but there are some winter chores you need to do to prepare your garden for spring.

Fertilising the Garden

It’ll soon be time to plant fruit trees and roses. You can prepare holes and add manure, such as sheep pellets, cow or horse manure for these woody plants to develop a deep root system and plentiful fruit and blooms. Next, you want to remove an inch of mulch from your gardens to allow sunlight to penetrate through and warm up the soil for spring planting.

If you have poorly drained soils, you want to add gypsum to your garden. Gypsum binds up soil particles together allowing air to help evaporate excess water. Gypsum also helps open up the soil to drain away water.

The Magic of Potash Fertiliser

Potassium, also known as potash, is a macronutrient that every plant needs in winter to protect plants from fungal diseases and rot. Your lawn also needs potash in late winter for a quick green-up in spring. Potash enables fruit and vegetables to develop larger crops, it produces abundant flowers and increases plants’ overall health. Potash works in the lawn, too, helping yard grass develop resistance to diseases as well as it improves your lawn grass’s ability to survive drought and heat stress.

Before applying potash to your gardens, test your soil’s pH as well as the macronutrients’ levels. Your acid-loving plants, such as azalea, hydrangea, and rhododendrons don’t like alkaline soils. So, don’t add potash to beds with these shrubs because it’ll make the soil more alkaline.

Also, if you have sufficient amounts of potash in your lawn and gardens, you don’t need to add more. Potash turns to salt when it’s in abundance and will damage plants. Finally, if you have sandy soil, you can add potassium to it. However, you’ll also need to add leaf litter and other soil amendments to help with drainage and soil health.

You get potash from the following fertilisers:

• Animal waste, such as cow and horse manure as well as sheep pellets

• Kelp

• Wood ash added to your compost also improves potash levels.

Fertilising Your Lawn

You should fertilise your lawn in late fall to prepare it for winter or in late winter to get grass to green up quickly come spring. Liquid fertiliser brings the fastest results. Your fertiliser should be high in nitrogen and potassium to give your lawn grass a good start.

Add liquid fertiliser to your watering can and mix with water. Sprinkle it over your grass. You can also use granulated nutrients, but you’ll still need to water your lawn afterward to activate it. Since lawn grass grows best in sweet soil with low acidity, make sure you add lime a few weeks after you’re finished feeding your lawn with fertiliser.

In winter, you don’t have as many gardening and lawn chores to complete. However, there are still some necessary things to finish before spring’s arrival in September. If you need a bit of extra help with fertilising, the team at Crewcut will be happy to help this winter. 

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