When people talk about winter protection for crops and fruit trees, many people ask themselves whether it is even necessary. After all, trees, wild strawberries and other plants in the wild survive the winter without additional care. However, since cultivated plants are not as resilient as these plants, winter protection and preparing the soil for the cold season definitely make sense.
How do you protect fruit trees and vegetable plants from frost?
To protect fruit trees and vegetable plants from frost, you should cover young trees with leaf mulch and plant fleece, lime fruit trees and cover vegetable beds with straw or leaves. Hardy vegetables can be protected and piled up with garden fleece.
Fruit trees
Especially when they are still small and young, you should prepare trees for the cold season as follows:
- The best time to install winter protection is before the first frost.
- Spread a warming layer of leaf mulch around the tree disc.
- With freshly planted trees, you should also protect the tree crown in rough locations. To do this, wrap it with a special plant fleece (€72.00 on Amazon). Foil is unsuitable as heat and moisture can build up here.
Trees grown in pots are placed in a protected corner. To protect the roots from freezing, tie jute around the container and place pine branches on the soil.
liming fruit trees
Surely you have already seen fruit trees whose bark was painted white. This ensures that the bark does not heat up so quickly when exposed to sunlight, which prevents frost cracks.
Pests that are already sitting in the cracks in the bark are killed by the paint. In spring, when the snow melts and turns into rain, the white color is washed away.
Preparing the vegetable patch for winter
At the latest when almost all vegetables have been harvested and the weather forecast announces the first night frosts, you should also prepare the vegetable patch for the cold season:
- Dig heavy soils about twenty centimeters deep. You can simply work leftover onions, spinach or lettuce into the soil, as the plant parts are a valuable green fertilizer.
- Normal soils are loosened with the digging fork.
- Cover beds with a layer of straw or leaves.
- Hardy vegetables such as leeks and cabbage remain on the bed. If the temperatures drop very sharply, you can protect these plants with a garden fleece and pile them up with some soil.
Tip
If you cannot overwinter empty planters in the basement, they also need winter protection. Bubble wrap around which you wrap jute is suitable for this. Place the troughs on a Styrofoam plate so that the frost cannot penetrate from below. If soil remains in the containers, you should cover them with pine branches.
