Wet Weather Gardening

When the local weather gets cold and wet, take heed, because there are outdoor gardening tasks that can still be done during inclement weather conditions. Of course, there's also gardening tasks that should not be done, too.

For instance, you should not try to mow your lawn when the grass is too wet or saturated. All you're going to do is compact the grass further and, even worse, cause deep ruts in your lawn if the mower wheels sink in.

You should also try to avoid walking on your garden soil when things are too wet. Besides getting your shoes all muddy, you're also compacting the soil. The more weight on your topsoil, the more compacted it's going to get.

Some chores you can be doing right now include:

∙ Spreading redwood soil conditioner and organic compost throughout your garden. Anywhere there's bare dirt, including raised beds, vegetable gardens, flower sections and just regular landscape areas, can benefit from added soil conditioners and compost. You can buy soil amendments in bags from any garden center or big-box store. You can also shovel your own at area rockeries. I always load up my truck with four large plastic garbage cans, and order a half-yard at a local rockery.

If you need a lot of soil amendments or you can share some with a neighbor, consider getting several yards delivered. Be aware, though, that delivery charges are around $40, so the amount of soil you order should be significant in order to make paying for the delivery charge worthwhile.

∙ Yellowish-colored lawns. With all the cold weather, your lawn could use a boost of fertilizer to green it up. The least expensive and highest-nitrogen fertilizer out there is sulphate of ammonia (22-0-0). You can buy 20-pound bags for less than $5, and this will easily fertilize the average lawn. Be careful about how much you apply, and always apply using a fertilizer spreader. A neighbor destroyed a major part of their lawn by applying way too much fertilizer by hand, thereby killing their lawn.

∙ Make sure plants in containers are not sitting in saucers of water, or have standing water. This is not only a breeding ground for mosquitoes, but also can lead to root rot. There's a reason most containers have drainage holes in the bottom, namely to drain excess water and prevent rotting roots.

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