10 Must-Know Tips for Preparing a Raised Bed Garden for Winter

Preparing a raised bed garden for winter will set you up for success in the spring. If you take the time in fall to perform a few simple maintenance tasks, you'll be ready to go for the next growing season. For example, it's the perfect time to improve worn out soil and repair rotted bed frames. Use the following tips to help you enhance and protect raised garden beds through winter, so you'll have a shorter to-do list at the start of the next growing season.

1. Remove Weeds and Old Plants

Pollinators and other wildlife often overwinter in old leaf litter and the stems of perennial plants, so it’s best to leave these items in your raised bed garden until the weather warms in spring. However, if you’ve been growing vegetables and annual flowers and herbs in raised beds, go ahead and pull those old plants up and add them to your compost pile when the plants die back in fall.

2. Conduct a Soil Test

Soils become depleted over time, which can lead to plant nutrient deficiencies and reduced harvest yields. You can avoid these problems by testing your soil once every three years and adding amendments if needed. While tests can also be performed in spring, fall is usually the best time for soil testing because it gives you more time to add amendments and incorporate them into the soil before you want to start growing anything again.

3.  Apply Soil Amendments

Some slow-release soil amendments, like gypsum and sulfur, should be applied in fall because they take a while to break down into the soil. Fall is also the best time to add manure to your garden since fresh manure can burn growing plants, and even aged manure can pose a health hazard if it’s applied to gardens around harvest time. Compost can be applied in either spring or fall, but if you add it to your raised beds in autumn, you'll have less to do when the busy growing season rolls around again.

4. Plant Cover Crops

Cover crops can be used with or in place of compost and other soil amendments to add nutrients to raised bed gardens and protect the soil from harsh winter weather. These “green manures” are typically planted about one month before the first frost of fall, and then they’re tilled into the soil in spring. You can use different types of cover crops in your raised beds, but rye, crimson clover, buckwheat, and field peas are popular picks.

5. Install Season Extension Products

Many cold-weather crops can be grown through winter in mild areas without extra protection. However, if you live in a cold climate and want to grow winter veggies in your raised beds, adding cloches, grow tunnels, or other season-extension products may be in order. Watering plants thoroughly before the ground freezes can also make them less vulnerable to cold damage.

6. Add Mulch

Mulch is an essential part of any garden, but it’s even more important in raised beds where the soil is more exposed to the elements. Although mulch may not work well with cover crops, it can keep other soil amendments from leaching away, and it’s ideal for sheltering perennial plant roots from winter damage.

7. Put Away Plant Supports and Labels

After you clear out your vegetable beds for the year, it’s time to gather up stray plant labels, plant supports, tomato cages, and trellises and pack them away in your potting shed or garage until spring. If you find any bits of cotton or jute garden twine, you can toss them in your compost pile.

8. Conduct Repairs

If you’ve noticed any damage to your raised garden beds during the growing season, use the quiet hours of autumn to spruce up your raised bed frames and make any necessary repairs. That can look like adding a fresh coat of paint, replacing rotting boards, or using sturdy lengths of rebar to make frames a bit straighter. If the soil line has fallen, you may also want to fill the raised beds up again.

9. Drain Drip Lines

Water expands when it freezes, which can cause drip lines and hoses to rupture during the winter months. Protect your hose lines from damage by opening the end valves and draining them thoroughly before winter hits. Empty drip lines can usually be left in the raised beds through winter, but automatic timers, filters, and pressure regulators should be moved indoors until spring.

10. Expand Your Garden

There’s no such thing as too much gardening space. If you want to expand your raised bed garden or add new beds to your yard, install cardboard over the area where you plan to put beds and use the lasagna gardening method to build fresh soil over winter. When spring returns, add a ledger board frame around the soil and start planting in your new raised bed.