@jess_happy_smallholding: Here’s what I’m doing in the garden this winter: 🌱 Mulching my beds. A mulch is a layer that you apply to the surface of the soil to help with moisture retention and retain weeds. Mulching with organic matter has the additional benefit of feeding the soil life, which in turn feeds my plants. A mulch of organic matter is anything natural that will break down so compost, woodchip, animal manure or even wool. 🌱 Re-woodchipping my paths. A section of my vegetable garden has woodchip paths. These breakdown over time, which is great because they feed the soil life as they do so, but it does mean they need topping up every 1-2 years. I’m putting down a layer of cardboard first because I’ve been collecting it over the year and my paths were quite weedy so I wanted to add an additional barrier. 🌱 Planting trees and hedging is my favourite job! Planting trees and hedging in winter is a good idea for a couple of reasons. The first is that bare root trees are available. These are trees which are dug up from the ground and delivered without any soil around their roots (as opposed to potted trees). This is the most cost effective way to buy trees but bare root trees are only available in the winter while the trees are dormant. It’s also better to plant trees in the winter as they have time to establish before the dry summer. This is the same for fruit bushes. 🌱 Building structures. I never have time for making things in the summer so winter is an opportunity for this. In previous years we’ve made animal housing but this year, as there’s no plans for more animals anytime soon we’re going to be making some gates for the vegetable garden and plant supports with our willow. #selfsufficient #gyo #growyourown #growyourownfood #homestead #smallholding #garden #lovegardening #kitchengarden #veggarden #plants #igrewthis #ediblegarden #gardendesign #spreadsheets

Jess Gough

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Region: GB

Sunday 21 December 2025 08:03:56 GMT