Winter isn’t just for flipping through the seed catalogs! It’s an excellent time to work on planning and building a healthier, more productive garden. Complete these winter garden chores to have stress-free planting season come spring. 

Organize and Check Seeds

Don’t toss those old seeds! Seeds don’t go bad after a certain date; their germination rate slowly declines. 

Whether you saved seeds from a previous season or have leftover seeds from us, it’s time to sort, test, and organize them. How you sort your seeds is a personal preference, but it’s a good idea to divide them into categories like tomatoes and salad greens, so you know what you have. 

Properly storing your seeds is critical, as it will affect their shelf life. The best-case scenario is to store them somewhere below 40°F with no sunlight and low humidity. If you have the space, airtight containers in the freezer are a perfect option. 

For in-depth advice on seed testing, expected shelf life, and proper storage, visit:

• Seed Shelf Life, Proper Storage, and an at Home Germination Test

Garden Plan

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Flipping through seed catalogs and looking at gorgeous garden layouts on Instagram is always a fun way to brighten a winter day. But, to make those dreams into something real, you need to plan for next season. And the earlier, the better that’s why we’ve included it on this winter garden chores list.

Crop rotation is key to pest and disease management, so a rough sketch of last year’s layout is a great starting point. Using your sketch, you can plan beds for next season, ensuring that you avoid planting any crop family (ex. Nightshades, alliums, brassicas) in the same spot for at least two years.

Once you have a basic layout, you may also want to incorporate some companion planting. Gardeners use companion planting to maximize space, control pests, attract beneficial insects, provide natural trellises, and more.

Consider succession planting. It’s a great way to extend the season and avoid gluts and shortages. Think about seeds you’ll need for spring planting and any you want to plant during the summer for a fall harvest.

Resources:

• Companion Planting: Benefits & Techniques
• Plant families: What they tell us
• Summer Succession Crop Planting: Avoid Gluts & Shortages
• When to Plant A Fall Garden
• SESE Garden Planner

Order Seeds

Now onto everyone’s favorite on the winter garden chores list: ordering seeds.

You’ve taken stock of your seeds and built a garden plan. Now is the time to order anything you’re missing. Getting your order in early ensures you get the first pick of your favorite varieties.

While you’re browsing the website or flipping through the catalog, take notice of key features. Watch for days to maturity, phrases like early, drought-tolerant, or heat-tolerant. You should aim to choose varieties that have resistance to pests and diseases that you have struggled with in the past.

Get detailed advice on what to look for when ordering seeds:

• Understanding Seed Catalogs

Build Healthy Soil 

A productive garden begins with healthy soil, and winter is a great time to work on soil building. 

Cover crops, and green manures are among the best methods for improving the soil over the winter. They provide nutrients, organic matter, and protect the soil from erosion. Unfortunately, it’s too late to plant winter cover crops in many areas. However, it’s a good time to think about spring sowing. 

One of the simplest, most effective winter garden chores is composting. It’s a great way to add organic matter and fertility to beds in the spring. Just add a couple of inches of finished compost to the top of each bed. 

Amending the garden can be tricky, especially when we can’t pinpoint the issue. A soil test is the best way to determine what your garden needs and winter is a great time to get one! Soil labs get busy in spring, so get your samples to them as soon as possible.

Soil texture is one feature that you can easily test at home, using a simple jar test. Knowing your soil texture will tell you key features about how your soil drains, compacts, and holds nutrients.

Resources:

• Composting 101
• Cover Crops for Beginners
• Cover Crops for Great Green Manure, Mulch, and More
• Build Soil with Green Manures
• Cover Crops: Improve Clay Soils
• Soil Season: Winter Cover Crops
• Getting a Soil Test
• Understanding a Soil Test
• Soil Texture: The Jar Test

Prepare a Seed Starting Set Up (and start seeds)

When you start seeds at home, you can grow anything you want. 

Growing your own seeds at home rather than purchasing plants means extra winter garden chores, but it also means you have access to an incredible range of heirloom vegetables, native wildflowers, and medicinal herbs, and more at your fingertips. But you’ll need a set up for them.

While most vegetable garden seeds don’t need light to germinate, they do best with some form of supplemental lighting once they start to grow. You’ll also need a place to put your seedlings, good seed starting mix, and containers. You may also want to consider heat mats for heat-loving seedlings like peppers.

If you’re new to seed starting, you may be surprised to learn that much of it takes place in the winter. We’re tucking seeds into trays weeks before our last frost date. For those in our zone, we offer a list of planting at the back of our catalog (available as a pdf below). You can also get personalized planting reminders with our garden planner or the Farmer’s Almanac “What to Plant Now” app. 

Watch out for varieties that need cold stratification. You’ll need to complete some extra steps to get a good germination rate from these.

Resources:

• The Basics: Seed Starting Supplies
• Basics: When to Start Seeds Indoors
• Basics: How to Start Seeds Indoors
• 8 Common Mistakes When Starting Seeds
• Cold Stratification
• Zone 7 Planting Dates

Take advantage of the off-season with these five winter garden chores. What do you do in the winter for your garden?

Each year we’re enamored by all the beautiful seed catalogs that come in the mail. Flipping through the pages of charming old heirlooms and stunning new varieties is one of the best ways to spend a winter day. But whether you’re new to gardening or an old hand, understanding all the nuances of seed catalogs can be a challenge and getting it right can make a vast difference in the productivity of your garden. 

In today’s post, we’ll tackle how to ‘decode’ all of your seed catalogs so that you can select varieties with the disease resistance, climate requirements, and growing period that work well for your garden.

Find the Seed Companies Location

Purchasing seeds from companies that grow in your region is a great way to ensure you’re getting varieties that will thrive in your climate. Here in the Southeast, we often look for plants that will tolerate long, hot, humid summers, common pests like vine borers, fungal diseases like blight, and mild winters. 

That said, growing seeds from outside your area isn’t a terrible idea, but there are some features to keep in mind. Therefore, it’s important to check the address on the catalog and find out where they grow their seed trial gardens. 

When browsing northern catalogs, take sun requirements with a grain of salt. A variety that thrives in full sun in Maine might enjoy some afternoon shade in Georgia. Crops also tend to take much longer to mature in cool, northern summers, so the ‘days to harvest’ may differ from what it will be in a southern garden. 

Many growers in the Northeast are doing breeding for disease resistance. You may find some interesting new varieties that are worth experimenting with in their catalogs. Cool season crops from the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest may also work well for growing in the Southeast’s mild winters.

Catalogs from California and the Southwest may also offer great heat-tolerant and drought-resistant crops that could be worth looking into, though they may not be as tolerant of our humidity. California catalogs are also a great source for Asian heirloom vegetables. 

Understand Days to Maturity or Days to Harvest

Most gardeners know that days to maturity is a rough estimate of the number of days it takes a crop to mature enough to harvest. But there are some nuances to this number.

When talking about transplants, the days to maturity usually refers to the number of days to harvest from the time you plant the transplant out into the garden, not from the date you started it indoors. When direct sowing, it starts the day the seed goes into the soil.

Occasionally, seed packets and catalogs may specify whether the number is referring to direct sown seed or transplants. 

It can also differ widely when you’re talking about greens. Is the days to maturity referring to full heads of lettuce or big bunches of chard, or is it talking about baby greens for salad? Sometimes, descriptions like ours for Barese Chard will specify: 25 days for baby greens/50 days for mature leaves. 

Keep in mind that conditions will also affect days to maturity. Cool spring nights will make heat-loving crops like tomatoes grow more slowly. Dwindling day length in the fall can significantly slow down fall crops like lettuce. In fall, we recommend you add 14 days to the days to maturity time for any variety you’ll direct sow and 14 to 28 days for any variety you will be transplanting. 

Learn more in our post, When to Plant a Fall Garden.

Look at Disease Resistance Keys

Disease resistance is a critical aspect of selecting the best varieties for your garden. These days, most catalogs show a variety’s disease resistance using codes and a key. 

For example, in our seed catalog you’ll notice our flagship tomato, Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter says (vw, fw1). When you check the key, you’ll notice that this means it’s resistant to Verticillium wilt (vw) and Fusarium wilt, race 1 (fw1).

*Note: In heirloom tomatoes, the lack of disease resistance in the description doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of resistance. Many heirloom tomatoes have not been extensively tested for disease tolerance either in the laboratory, or in extensive field trials.

Below are our disease resistance keys for tomatoes and cucumbers. Other catalogs may use different keys, so it’s important to check each one.

Tomatoes

Cucumbers

Other crops in our catalog also feature disease resistance information, though it’s just plainly in the description. For example, the Golden Bush Scallop Summer Squash description says, “Downy mildew resistant.”  

Gardeners in the Southeast Should Focus on the Heat

If you grow in the Southeast and are shopping for summer crops, heat tolerance should be a major focus. Consider varieties that have phrases like drought-resistant, heat-tolerant, and good pollination in heat. 

The long summer also means a short spring, so we need to carefully select our cool season crops. Look for keywords like short-season, early, bolt-resistant, and long holding. 

Consider Gardening in the Shoulder Seasons

Particularly in the Deep South, it may be prudent to plan a break during the height of summer. Few crops truly thrive in intense heat. However, the long seasons usually make it possible to grow one crop in early summer and another in early fall.

For example, you can often get a crop of early maturing tomatoes like Djena Lee’s Golden Girl (64 days), Pink Ozark VF (65 days), or Rosella Purple (65 days) in early summer. Then start more seeds indoors in July and get another crop as the season cools down in early fall. 

Understanding what to look for in seed catalogs can make a big difference if your garden. Decode your catalogs this season to find varieties that will work well in your climate, thrive against local disease pressure, and fit into your succession plan. 

Most of this information was based on Ira Wallace’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Southeast. Grab a copy today for month by month advice.