Can’t wait for spring? Winter is the time to prepare your garden and soil.

While it can be hard to leave the comfort and warmth of our homes to tend the garden once the weather turns cold, winter is a pivotal time for garden upkeep. Unlike northern climates, we have a 12-month gardening season here in Texas. That means we don’t get much time for “armchair gardening”. It's important to prepare your beds now and replenish nutrients.

Prepare your soil:

Healthy soil is the foundation of a productive garden. Encouraging healthy soil is the best thing you can do for your edibles, color, perennials and even established landscape shrubs and trees.  Refreshing your landscape beds and raised vegetables beds during winter will give you a jump start on spring.

Organic Compost breaks up our clay soil to make planting easier. Compost improves water retention and microbial activity. Microbial activity is important because it makes nutrients available to your plants. Vital Earth Organic Compost is one of our favorites.

Expanded shale breaks up our tough, clay soil and promotes improved aeration and drainage. It improves root develop by creating small pockets of air and water and gives roots a surface to latch on to. Plants that need good drainage, such as roses, thrive in soils amended with expanded shale. You can even add it to large containers to lessen soils compaction.

Did you know we include expanded shale in our NHG Premium Organic Potting Soil?

High Quality Top Soil can be mixed into landscape beds and raised beds to improve soil quality and stability, as well as used to level areas in existing lawns. Soil Menders Top Soil also contains a bit of humus to feed your plants.

To really give your vegetable beds, color and tropical a boost, add smaller amounts of Lava Sand to improve moisture retention and soil aeration; Green Sand as a natural source of iron, potassium, phosphorus – it also aids in moisture retention; and Worm Castings as a high nutrient supplement.

Top off all freshly amended beds with a 2” layer of mulch to give the garden a finished appearance and to keep the soil protected. We love cedar mulch, which is produced locally with native eastern red cedar, and shredded hardwood mulch. Pecan shell mulch is also a great alternative and locally sourced product.