Winter Preps

Winter’s coming on. There’s a lot we have to do to get ready for winter.

You’ll need to put your gardens to bed for the winter. If you live in a relatively warm area, as I do, this is a simple process. You layer straw (NOT hay!) over your beds. If you want to expand your beds, this is the time to get the soil ready for spring. I use a combination of lasagna gardening and square foot gardening since I’m old and getting fragile. I find this combination method works best for me – no digging, easy to plant and harvest, quick to install, and I can get a huge harvest the first year. If I need to move a bed or add a new one, that’s a quick and easy thing to do.

It’s not always cheap, especially if you have to buy your soil and compost and can’t salvage the lumber from demolition sites, but it has the virtue of being adaptable to almost any suburban or urban area. Combined with gardening in kiddie wading pools, and not only is gardening easy throughout the growing season, it’s easy to put the gardens to bed for the winter. Build up your new lasagna beds, cover them thickly with straw. Your wading pool beds can also be covered thickly with straw. Beds with perennial plants in them – or root crops that you can harvest throughout the winter – can also be covered with a thick layer of hay.

Root crops may not grow much during the winter, but you can store them as if you were root cellaring by leaving them in the ground. Beets, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, skirrets, radishes, rutabagas, kohlrabi, leeks, and sweet potatoes can be kept in the ground, under a layer of straw with a row cover over them so you can harvest them even if ice coats them because ice will crack and shed off a row cover much easier than trying to break iced straw. In my area, I only put the row covers up if ice or snow is predicted – and that’s not often, and it doesn’t last for long.

Above ground crops that you can still grow and harvest from throughout the winter in places like Oklahoma include tomatoes, rosemary, sage, parsley, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, lettuce, kale, and spinach. These are also mulched with straw and kept under row covers or cloches. I grow tomatoes in a south facing alcove – a kind of “C” shaped area that faces south. The house works as a windbreak and, because it’s brick, as a heater. The temperature on that side of my house stays about 10 – 15ºF warmer, and with the guttering and roof overhang, it doesn’t get the heavy rain, ice, or snowfalls, which makes it ideal to keep growing tomatoes all year round. I prune them back and fertilize them, keep them mulched and with a floating row cover over them that I can raise on warm days. They aren’t as productive in winter, but it’s still nice to be able to pluck a ripe tomato every now and then.

The lettuces and such also need the protection of cloches or row covers. I use cheesecloth as a row cover unless I know a storm is coming because the cheesecloth retains the heat and allows ventilation, especially on those day as when I’m at work and can’t vent a plastic or glass cloche. If you dye the cheesecloth brown (I prefer tea dying) and pile straw around the cheesecloth, it looks like bare earth from a distance. This fools birds and keeps them off your crops. Also, if you live in an area where the zoning doesn’t allow you to grow edibles in view of the street or you don’t want anyone to know how much food you’re growing (either a zoning issue or a neighbor issue), this camouflage works well to hide your food.

You can plant winter wheat in the kiddie wading pools to harvest in the spring and then grow something else in the pools over the summer. Even in the wading pools and raised beds, crop rotation is a Good Idea.

Mow often in the fall so a good turf is built up. This prevents weeds from sprouting and gives you a lusher lawn come spring. The reason for raking is to help the lawn stay lush and well-built up. If you use a mulching mower, this breaks the leaves up and acts as a sweet compost for the lawn. If you don’t have a mulching mower, pile the leaves up and run the mower over them anyway to break up the leaves – or let the kids jump and play in them, or run them through a leaf mulcher/wood chipper.

Now’s the time to chop and chip your tree prunings. You can add this to your compost or use it as a light mulch for those plants that shouldn’t be buried under straw but still need some protection.

Empty your garden hoses and put them up for the winter. Put new caulk around your outdoor faucets and cover them.

Check the roof of your house. Look for curling, loose, split, and/or missing tiles. Get them replaced, nailed backed down, or whatever. Check the flashing around chimneys and other roof projections. You don’t want to be dealing with a leaking roof in the midst of a severe thunderstorm or in the slippery melt-off of spring.

Once your beds are winterized, consider your winter tools. You should already have cleaned your gutters, checked your snow shovel, stocked up on ice remedies (I prefer carpet scraps and clay kitty litter to salt – it works far better and doesn’t hurt your crops, lawn, tools, or vehicles), and checked your home’s caulking and storm windows. Now, walk around your home and look for flaws and weak spots. If your house has siding, make sure all siding is well fastened. If it’s wood, check the paint. If it’s chipping, peeling, or cracking, consider repainting before the weather gets bad. If the spot is isolated or small, you may be able to spot paint. You did save some of the paint back for that, didn’t you?

If your house is on pier supports, check the vents under the house and make sure the screens to keep out pests and strays are still sturdy and intact. Put covers over them to help retain the heat and block out cold winter winds.

Check your furnaces and filters. Clean or replace the filters, make sure the furnaces are in good working order. If you’ve had the furnace for a few years, you are probably familiar with its idiosyncrasies. Be prepared for them. If your filters clog up during the winter, lay in a stock of spare filters. If you always need to replace a connector, have several connectors ready so you don’t have to go out in an ice storm to get a replacement part. Clean the ducts.

Check your weatherstripping and caulking throughout the house. Put a water heater blanket around your hot water heater. Put pipe insulation on your water pipes. If you live in a very cold place, you may want to get heated pipe insulation. An electric lamp under the sinks will help prevent your pipes from freezing (and can gently thaw frozen pipes so they don’t burst). In ice storm or when the temperature falls below 25ºF, leave your faucets dripping so they don’t freeze.

Wash all your blankets, featherbeds, duvets, duvet covers, flannel sheets, and winter curtains. If you have wood floors, consider using throw rugs to help retain the warmth in the house. If you have heated mattress pads or blankets, check them to make sure they still work. Get them cleaned, too. If you can, buy more blankets. I don’t think you can ever have too many blankets. They come in handy for so many things besides sleeping under. They can be hung over windows and doors and in interior doorways for extra warmth and as impromptu floor rugs for wood or linoleum floors, or as cushioning for sleepover guests when you run out of beds. They also work well to distribute to others in a disaster or to use to help keep pets warm. In an emergency, they can provide safe footing across ice. I prefer carpet for this, but blankets work, too.

If you have a fireplace or wood stove, get the chimneys cleaned. Creosote build-up can cause devastating fires. Once it’s cleaned, open the dampers before you add wood and let it burn hot for at least 20 minutes every day. Then you can close the dampers and let it burn cooler the rest of the day. Use those CLR logs once a week.

Rotate your food stocks and inventory it to be sure you have plenty to get through the winter. You don’t want to have to go to the store any more often than absolutely necessary so a good food stock will allow you more leisure time and peace of mind.

While your checking your food stocks, check your fuel stocks, too. Make sure you have plenty of wood, oil, propane, kerosene, or whatever you use.

Check your fire extinguishers and batteries on smoke alarms.

Make sure you have plenty of batteries for all your battery-operated things. If you don’t have a hand cranked radio and flashlight, see if you can procure one of each. They are very handy to have.

Stock up on light bulbs, too because the cold can sometimes shatter them.

Have manual tools like can openers, screw drivers, saws, and wire whisks.

Have an alternative way to cook food if the power goes out, and have an alternative way to provide heat – and the fuel to use them. Sterno is one way to cook in an emergency. Arrange to have a sheltered area outside and you can use a grill for cooking.

Check your first aid kit and restock any used items in it. Right now, in the dollar bin at Target, they have the hand and foot warmers. I suggest stocking up on those. They can be very useful.

Make bags of long grain rice – tubes long enough to drape over your neck or squares to lay against your back or head or joints. These can be microwaved and used as heating pads. If you mix them with fragrant herbs, it will also smell nice.

Make sure you have a good stock of foods that don’t need cooking. Canned beans, canned tomatoes, hard cheeses, hard sausages, crackers, dried fruits, canned fruits, dry milk, canned meats like tuna and chicken.

Keep at least a month of water stored – that 30 gallons of water per person. Use the water and replace it as needed. You don’t have to buy water, tap water is perfectly fine. You can store it in clean 2 liter soda bottles (collect from friends or look on FreeCycle for some), cleaned fruit juice bottles (again, collect from friends or look of FreeCycle for some), or cleaned wine or liquor bottles (some cheap wines come in half-gallon or gallon glass jugs), or even 5 gallon carboys (glass or plastic) that you can get from flea markets or off FreeCycle. Keep some bottles of water in the freezer. It will help keep the freezer full and cold in case of a power outage, and you can thaw and drink it if you need to. Most hot water heaters hold about 30 gallons of water, so if you run out, you can tap that for more water (a last resort, but a good one).

You don’t have to buy expensive vegetable washes. You can make your own with equal parts of distilled white vinegar and water. Hard skinned fruits and vegetables can be cleaned by spritzing this mix on, rub it in, then rinse in water. Potatoes and carrots may need to be scrubbed with a vegetable brush. Soft skinned fruits and vegetables can be soaked in a bowl of the vinegar water mix, then rinsed. A soft bristle toothbrush can be used to scrub soft skinned fruits and vegetables that need a little extra cleaning.

And probably most important of all, spend a little time winterizing your car and practicing your winter driving skills. If you get a heavy frost or a light ice, find an empty parking lot and practice steering and braking so when you have to drive on the streets, you’ll be a safer driver.

Keep extra blankets, water, food, flashlights, ice scrapers, squeegees, towels, carpet pieces, and a first aid kit in your car. Have a shovel, gloves, warm cap, flares, boots, and a snow brush available, too, just in case. It also wouldn’t hurt to have a list of phone numbers you can call in case you need help – a towing service you trust, a friend or family member – and a fully charged cell phone.

And once you have everything all prepared and ready, be sure to enjoy the winter. Make snow ice cream, toss a few snowballs, go sledding, take photos, sip hot cocoa as you watch the sun glint off the ice, or read a book, knit, play a game or whatever makes you happy.