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Dacha October: what you definitely need to sow closer to winter
The first frosts are on the nose. It’s time to plant greens, flowers and roots.
Experienced gardeners do not stop planting in October. And all in order to get seedlings in early spring.
candidate of agricultural sciences, agricultural technician
Sowing before winter has a number of advantages: the crop ripens faster, and fresh greens can be harvested immediately after the snow melts. Minus one: some of the seeds die in frosts, so the planting rate should be increased by about two times. But this is not scary: the seeds are now on sale and are cheaper than in the spring. Buying now soil for seedlings, planting material and tools, you can save up to 50% of the dacha budget. Discounts on seasonal products in the fall are large.
Landing candidates
Dill, celery, sorrel, salad и spinach easily tolerate frosts, and in spring they sprout smoothly and amicably. Plant root vegetables: radishes, turnips, beets, carrots… Do not forget about the flower garden: they overwinter well in the soil pyrethrum, iberis, delphinium, escholzia, cornflower… It is worth planting also purslane, godetia, gypsophila, snapdragon, petunia, Chinese carnation, calendula.
Garlic you can sow bulbs before winter, and onion – seeds. Then you get medium-sized heads and greens in the salad. Crops must be insulated with mulch. In the spring, the shelter is removed, and the garlic begins to grow actively.
No calendar
There is no exact sowing date, just try to catch the moment when persistent cold weather sets in. The main criterion is the freezing topsoil. Choose the most elevated places of the site for subwinter beds, where snow melts faster in spring.
Prepare the soil in advance, dig it up, add sand – during the winter the earth is very compacted, and the seedlings will have a hard time. In addition, the sandy soil is quickly freed from melt water. Apply fertilizers: compost, humus, or phosphorus-potassium. Make grooves 3–5 cm deep and cover them so that the rain does not wash away.
When the time comes, sow dry seeds, sprinkle 2 cm of sand on top and mulch with peat or sawdust. No need to water. Cover with spruce branches or dry leaves with a layer of at least 15 cm.
It’s important
The seeds undergo winter hardening, and the crops grown from them are less sick. For crops to successfully overwinter, do not forget to cover them with mulch: bark, peat, tops.
Top Grades
Podwinter plants have a minus: they often turn into color or do not give normal root crops. To avoid this, crops are sown directly into the frozen soil so that the seeds remain dry until the spring thaw. Some varieties are resistant to flowering. Choose them whenever possible. Beetroot: “podzimnyaya A-474”, “cold-resistant-19”, “polar flat K-249”, “Egyptian flat”. Radish: “heat”, “dawn”, rose-red with a white tip. Carrots: “Nantes-4”, “Vitamin-6”, “NIIOH-336”.