December in the Garden
Written by Lauren Ladov + Sarah Jackson
Lucy posing with the Abundance Homstead winter greens!
We are grateful for the slower pace of the winter season as it allows us to reflect and dream for next year, but we still make it a priority to get outside and get our hands dirty. We find time in the garden to be one of the most effective ways to fight the winter blues! Not sure what to do?
Here is abundance landscape’s top 6 Garden activities in December:
Harvesting
Protecting (Freeze + Pests!)
Planting Trees & Perennials
Adding Compost + Soil Amendments
Seed Planning (For rainy days!)
Hardscape Planning (For rainy days!)
1.December Garden Harvests in Atlanta:
Greens: By now, your greens like kale, collards, and arugula should be in full swing. To harvest, cut the outer leaves, so the remaining small leaves can keep growing. To cut, you can use pruners, scissors, or your hands. While you should be harvesting weekly or every other week, I also like to harvest before any big freeze. This way, there is less waste in the garden and there is less clean up from damaged leaves.
Roots: Turnips, radishes, and carrots, depending on when you planted them, may be ready this month. To know if your roots are ready to harvest, you can simply gauge by the size of the top. For turnips and radishes, the tops (also called shoulders) stick out of the ground, so if it looks like the size you want, just give it a pull to harvest. For carrots, you typically want a root at least an inch wide. Since the tops do not stick out of the ground as much as radishes and turnips, you want to gently brush away some dirt around a carrot to see how wide it is. To harvest, grab the stems near the base, and wiggle the carrot free. If your soil is particularly clay-y or tough, you can also use a trowel to loosen the carrot from the soil.
Herbs: Most perennial herbs like rosemary, thyme, oregano, and sage, continue to be harvestable throughout the winter months. Herbs like these are packed with nutrients, antioxidants, and have anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties. Adding more herbs to your diet can help keep fight off all those wintertime maladies. You can use your herbs fresh or dry. Another lovely way to integrate herbs into your cooking is to infuse them into oil.
2. Protect your plants
Good critters still thriving in the winter in a Abundance client’s garden!
Frost Protection: We’ll remind you of this over and over. If you want year-round harvests you need to protect your plants from frosts, however infrequent. Anytime the weather drops below 32 degrees, you will want to add a little extra protection to your plants, especially if they are not winter hardy. Mulch, blanket, frost covers all help your plants withstand negative impacts of frost. I also like to water my garden well before a frost because the water will help keep the soil warmer as well. You can check our detailed Frost Protection Article here.
Pest Protection: Surprisingly, you still want to think about pest protection too. While cool weather can decrease pests, you still have to be on guard for infestations, especially during those warmer stretches. Aphids, cabbage worms, and white flies are the main cool season pests to watch out for. Aphids are very small and it takes them a while to do serious damage. However, once an infestation is present in the garden, it is very difficult to get rid of! While you can try to wipe plants clean of aphids, it is worth applying an insecticide like organic Neem Oil to your plants. Be sure to follow the directions and also apply in the evening so the oils do not burn the leaves. Cabbage worms, on the other hand, can munch a collard leaf down to the stem in one day if hungry enough! Because they are green, they tend to camouflage on the leaves. Inspect your leaves closely, and look for any of their dark green crumbly looking poops. Worms are easiest to remove by hand. White flies, are moreso a gross nuisance than ever doing serious damage to plants. Neem or an organic soap spray can be an effective deterrent here.
3. PLANT TREES & SHRUBS
Did you know there are varieties of pomegranates we can grow successfully in Atlanta! Check out which ones in our Snackyard shop.
December is an excellent time to add trees to your landscape. Of course, we strongly recommend planting Fruit Trees! The best time to plant a fruit tree was 5 years ago, but alas, your future self will thank you in 5 years when the fruit trees start bearing fruit. Trees are going to be dormant at this time in the year, so they can get nice and settled in their new home and be ready to grow once sunlight is more abundant in the spring. Our Snackyard Fruit Tree Pre-Sale is currently live, we’ve hand selected fruit tree varieties that are regionally adapted to thrive with low maintenance here in Atlanta and Georgia.
Overhwelmed about what to choose? Sunlight, soil moisture, soil texture, and space will all impact which trees or shrubs you should choose and their likelihood of thriving, so if you’re feeling unsure lean on the experts! We can advise you during an onsite consultation or even do a complete landscape or planting design for you.
4. compost + sheet mulching
A sheet mulching example from Modern Farmer.
Add Compost - Fall and Winter are great times to add compost to your soil. It gives the plants an extra blanket of warmth and protection from temperature swings, and gives soil microbes time to proliferate so that the soil is ready for an abundant spring.
Sheet Mulch - sheet mulching is the technique of covering an area with cardboard and adding a thick layer of woodchips on top. This will smother existing weeds, and keep them from receiving any sunlight. The cardboard will break down in a few months time depending on conditions. This helps kill unwanted plant and give you an already mulched and cleaned area to plant into in a few months. If you are not planning to plant in that area and want to mulch a pathway, consider using multiple layers of cardboard.
Where to find cardboard?? December is a great time to do sheet mulching because there is also a lot of cardboard more easily available since it’s holiday season. So folks are putting more cardboard out for recycling. You can easily drive around and pick up cardboard from neighbors. Small grocery stores, restaurants, preschools, and liquor stores will all have excess cardboard boxes that you can either ask for or just dumpster dive for. When we can’t find cardboard in abundance, we typically buy thick painters paper and it does the trick just as well!
When to use plastic: We try not to use plastic as much as possible in our landscapes, however, there can be some nuances to consider. If there is not a regular maintenance plan with someone caring for the landscape weekly, plastic landscape fabric can be helpful in the long run. Any areas that are difficult to manage like slopes or hard to access areas, fabric can also be a helpful choice. If you do use a landscape fabric, use the highest quality you can find so it doesn’t quickly break down.
5. seed organizing & planning
Clean out old seeds - Go through your seed collection and see what you have. While seeds can last hundreds of years, their germination rates decrease with time and weathering exposure, where it is no longer guaranteed to be viable. I typically get rid of any seed that is over four years old. If you feel bad about getting rid of the seeds like me, I put all of my old seeds into a sensory jar which is a great play item for children over 5. I also get rid of any seeds I no longer like or honestly will never grow (looking at you rutabegas!). You can consider donating seeds to schools, or I often put seeds I don’t want into Little Free Libraries as an added surprise for passerbys! After cleaning out the old seed, I like to organize them by plant family and/or whether it is planted in cool season or warm season. After organizing, you can more easily see what you have and see what you need.
Order free seed catalogs! Seed catalogs are one of the only magazines I still use. They are the perfect Winter pick me up for you dream of lush Summer gardens. Seed catalogs are a great tool to help you plan your garden, ensuring you have the seeds you need at the right time and varieties that make sense. While the catalogs may seem somewhat excessive when you can simply browse online, I like to use the catalogs for craft and education projects too!
Southern Seed Exposure - seeds grown specifically for Southern climates. Smaller selection, mostly vegetables
Johnny’s - seeds grown more for producers. Good bulk options. Lots of well-researched and bred seeds for increasing production value
Baker’s Creek - good for unusual varieties, several asian varieties, focused on home growers
High Mowing - 100% organic seed, focused on producers
6. Hardscape Planning
Last summer, we did a massive ecological landscape rennovation that included three boulder retaining walls to reduce erosion, garden beds, and a circular zen patio.
Now is the Time! December is a perfect time to plan any hardscaping projects. A lot of people wait until the spring to start thinking about garden redesigns and any hardscaping additions, and then they have to wait 3-6 months before the install can actually happen. We strongly recommend that you start thinking about this as soon as possible! You may also need to hire multiple contractors for a variety of projects, so understanding who can do what, and when, and for how much, will help you figure out plans to move forward. Typically, you will want to do most hardscaping projects before you do any planting, so if you have big garden dreams, be sure to understand what kind of hardscaping is required first!
What is Hardscaping? Essentially, hardscaping is a landscape feature that is not a plant. Hardscaping can be used to not only address issues in your landscape but also to increase functionality of your outdoor living space. Most hardscaping features can also increase your property value in the long run.
Benefits of Hardscaping:
Hardscapes define spaces and shape how people interact with the landscape.
Hardscapes can slow, store, and sink water into the ground to prevent erosion and flooding + have an positive ecological impact.
Hardscapes can create make outdoor spaces more usable throughout the year.
Hardscapes can help conserve water by reducing the amount of area you need to water or irrigate
Hardscaping reduces maintenance by decreasing the amount of planted space that needs ongoing care.
Hardscaping can deter pests and unwanted guests on your property.
A stone raised garden bed we did last year. Learn more about our custom garden beds here.
Dry Creek Beds, Rain Gardens, and Retaining Walls: If you have flooding issues, regular puddling, or erosion taking place in your landscape, this is the time to make plans to address it. The sooner the better! The longer you wait on fixing an issue like this, the worse the problem will get and the more expensive it will be to address it.
This is a very Atlanta problem. Large amounts of annual rainfall in combination with old infrostructure, poor city planning, and lack of investments for upgrades (despite federal mandates!!) creates havoc on our storm water management systems causing Atlanta streets tend to easily flood during heavy rain events. With climate change, the problem is only going to get worse! Without proper rainwater management, heavy rains also wash fertilizer, pesticides, and fertile topsoil off our landscapes and into our waterways, which has extremely negative ecological impacts down stream.
Raised Garden Beds: How do you know if you need more garden beds? If you wanted to grow more plants this year but ran out of space, then the answer is: YES. If you want to add more perennial vegetables like herbs or asparagus, then the answer is: YES. If you had trouble transitioning between seasons and missed Fall planting times because you didn’t want to remove your tomatoes, then the answer is: YES. When deciding to build more garden beds, consider comfort while working and harvesting. If you like to squat while you work, short or in ground beds are best. If you like to be standing and bending, a taller bed is likely more comfortable. If you have any mobility or back issues, the taller the bed the better, consider at least 2 ft.
Newest additon to the Abundance Homestead!
Greenhouses - a greenhouse is a wonderful garden addition to a garden if you plan on growing your own plant starts or want to do a lot of propagation projects. Growing your own plant starts can save you a lot of money down the line if you have a very large garden or farming operation. However, if you will just be needing a tray or two of seedlings for your space, then a smaller option like a coldframe or indoor grow lights may be more worthwhile.
Chicken Coop - Daniel and Sarah have recently welcomed chickens into their homestead. At only a 10x7 ft footprint, the chicken coop is a small but mighty landscape feature that is fairly easy to relocate as needed. The chickens are allowed to roam free range around the yard during certain supervised hours and then roost and sleep in the coop. Chickens can provide a lot of benefits for the homestead. Besides producing eggs, the chickens are highly effective composters. They will eat the majority of the kitchen scraps and turn it into a high quality fertilizer. Their manure (once aged) will be used throughout the garden. When they range around the garden, they support pest management operations by eating lots of caterpillars and grubs. Moreover, the chickens provide endless entertainment.
Starting a Hardscape Project with Abundance Landscapes: Any hardscaping project you are interested in, we are here to help! We can offer a consultation to figure out what makes most sense for your site, create custom designs and renderings for you to visualize the projects, as well as manage the installation.
