5 Reasons Why Winter Gardening Is BETTER Than Summer Gardening!

In this video, I share 5 reasons why winter gardening is better than summer gardening! Most gardeners associate gardening with warm weather, but the truth is it’s easier to grow vegetables in winter than in summer! This video explains why growing in winter is easier and why growing food all year long is possible no matter where you live.

Summer gardens come with all sorts of challenges, and nature works very hard to take your garden’s harvest from you before you get any. This is not the case in winter for most gardeners. Most garden challenges disappear in cold weather, and the only challenge that remains is keeping plants warm enough to grow. Luckily, that is easy, and I’ll show you some easy cold protection methods that will make winter gardening season your new favorite growing season!

I use the following products* to grow food in my winter garden:
Row Covers (Medium Duty): https://amzn.to/3NEqCoW
Row Covers(Heavy Duty): https://amzn.to/3tyBI8b
Frost Blanket: https://amzn.to/3tunGV6
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Jobe’s Organic Fruit & Nut Fertilizer (4lb): https://amzn.to/47Hmv2S
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MiracleGro Organics (1lb): https://amzn.to/46dta3L
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Jack’s Blossom Booster 10-30-20 (25lb): https://amzn.to/45FIuXh
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My Hoop House Designs: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1gY7BoYBGIHTXtdhw3mMeOyMgLPt8pKR&si=gxZc5liwZtN9AL5Z
My Cold Protection Methods: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1gY7BoYBGIG1w1u_K6CDIhfsqG8dMnPj&si=fE4SGTbAc8t13AdK

TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Winter Vegetable Garden Tour
2:51 Reason #1: Insect Pests
4:48 Reason #2: Garden Diseases
5:55 Reason #3: Irrigation
7:06 Reason #4: Weeding
8:44 Reason #5: No Sweat
10:11 How To Keep Plants Warm
11:51 What About Gardening In Cold Zones?
14:56 Adventures With Dale

If you have any questions about the winter gardening tips in this video, want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!

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EQUIPMENT I MOST OFTEN USE IN MY GARDEN*:

Miracle-Gro Soluble All Purpose Plant Food https://amzn.to/3qNPkXk
Miracle-Gro Soluble Bloom Booster Plant Food https://amzn.to/2GKYG0j
Miracle-Gro Soluble Tomato Plant Food https://amzn.to/2GDgJ8n
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6.5 Inch Hand Pruner Pruning Shears https://amzn.to/3jHI1yL
Japanese Pruning Saw with Blade https://amzn.to/3wjpw6o

Double Tomato Hooks with Twine https://amzn.to/3Awptr9
String Trellis Tomato Support Clips https://amzn.to/3wiBjlB
Nylon Mason Line, 500FT https://amzn.to/3wd9cEo
Expandable Vinyl Garden Tape https://amzn.to/3jL7JCI

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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B

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© The Millennial Gardener

#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #wintergarden #wintergardening

What’s growing on gardeners it’s Saturday December 23rd and we are only 2 days officially into winter here on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina but the entire Garden is doing awesome and on today’s video I’m going to share with you five reasons why winter gardening is better than summer gardening Yes you

Heard me right and now I’m going to explain to you exactly why if you’re new to the Channel please consider subscribing and hitting the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon storefront and spread shop in the video description for list of the gardening products I use and

Awesome custom designed apparel and other gear your support is greatly appreciated it’s natural to assume that gardening is a summertime activity after all that is when things are most conducive to growing at least it seems like that to the untrained eye but the reality is there are so many things that

Can go wrong in our garden in the summer so many challenges that we have to overcome whereas in the winter we really only have one Challenge and that is temperature regulation if we can just get get the temperatures under control then gardening becomes easy because there’s really no other challenges and

Luckily with our human brains and enuity we can make that happen winter abundance is just incredible I mean look at those collared greens and lettuce look at all of the garlic plants they are just thriving look at these massive heads of mustard greens we have leaks Galore

Growing like weeds we have an abundance of radishes that are coming up peas peas peas snap peas they are going to be ready soon look at all of those green onions just incredible and just look what we have growing on in here mustard greens cabbage green cabbage purple cabbage brussel sprouts just perfect

Broccoli mature and ready for Harvest so many types of beautiful delicious kale and don’t even get me started with herbs we have thyme perfect cilantro we have more leaks we we have Dill that is coming up and getting ready for Harvest more kale more leaks all kinds of beets

Growing our carrots are starting to break ground and if you’re blessed to live in a climate where you can Crow Citrus I don’t have to tell you how privileged we are to have ripe Citrus this time of year the abundance we have this time of year we are just so

Thankful for we are truly blessed and it is all so easy all of this abundance around me is just so easy I spend literally 20% of the amount of time working in my garden in the winter than I do in the summer that’s why I say winter gardening is better than summer

Gardening so what exactly are my secrets well I will tell you and here are the five reasons why reason number one why I say winter gardening is better than summer gardening is there are no insect pests now I don’t know what your climate is like but here on the East Coast

Especially in the Southeast insect pests in the summer are an absolute nightmare we are overwhelmed with Leaf footage bugs and Japanese beetles and stink bugs and all kinds of other Leaf Hoppers and horrible things white flies cabbage moths squash Bine vores pickle worms it’s just a nightmare growing things

Here in the heat of the summer and you just wind up having to spend all of this time spraying your garden now I know some people think that you can find ways of having everything work for you with just natural defenses but the fact is a

Lot of the insect pests that we deal with here in North America are imported from other continents they are invasive from free trade in between continents you have bugs that hop on deliveries from very far away and then they colonize here in North America with absolutely no Predators so they just

Take off and those are a lot of the pests that we deal with in our Gardens right now and you really just have to do some type of spraying in order to keep them under control at least when you live in the humid Southeast now I don’t

Know about you but I don’t like spraying my garden even with Organic insecticides I don’t like paying for them I don’t like the huge amount of of time that it takes I don’t like the fact that during our thunderstorm season we get so much rain that I go through the cost and the

Time of spraying everything and then 6 to 8 hours later it all just washes away it’s very annoying and I love the fact that in the winter I don’t have to do any of that because all of the insects for the most part are dormant yeah we

Get a nice 60° day like today and some of the gnats may come to life you may see some flies here and there but they’re not really doing any damage and as soon as the sun sets they go back to sleep again so being able to Garden all

Winter long without having to spray anything for insects is just a revelation it is wonderful it is so much more fun to garden and you can keep things as organic as humanly possible because you just don’t have to put any kind of sprays on your food reason

Number two why gardening in the winter is better than gardening in the summer is there’s no disease just like with the insect pest problem we don’t have to spray any type of fungicides or bacteria sides this time of year because all of the diseases for the most part are

Dormant now in the summer here because it’s so incredibly humid and it rains so much we have nightmarish conditions with diseases so once the humid weather and the wet weather starts we have no choice but to spray our Gardens if we want our plants especially the sensitive plants

Like tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers to survive all season long well even the organic fungicides I don’t like using because again it is a lost and it is time I loath having to spray my entire Garden because of all the rain and humidity that we get and then the next

Day it just all washes away again it’s like what am I even doing this for well again this time of year we don’t have to worry about any of that stuff because there are no active diseases in our garden so once again we can garden as

Much as we want without any time or money spent spraying our food reason number three why winter gardening is better than summer gardening is you rarely if ever have to irrigate your garden that’s because of two distinct characteristics number one pretty much everywhere in the United States gets

Rain in the winter places like Texas the desert Southwest the West Coast they get little to no precipitation in the summer well in the winter they actually get a pretty decent rainy season and number two generally speaking the evaporation rate is low because the angle of the Sun

In the sky is low and it’s also fairly weak so if you get rain about once a week or so the sun just isn’t there to evaporate all that rain from the soil so generally speaking you won’t have to irrigate your garden which is a huge

Timesaver and saves on costs now here in the Southeast we get a lot of rain in the summer however the sun is so intense that I often still have to irrigate so I can’t imagine what people that live in the southwest or the West Coast have to

Deal with where it doesn’t rain for weeks or months at a time so it’s so nice to not have to go through the stress of Watering your garden because there’s just enough rainfall to deal with the much weaker conditions of the Sun raise your hand if you love weeding

Your garden I’m sure some of you out there see weeding is therapy but for most of us we probably don’t like weeding our Gardens very much especially during the heat of the summer so my fourth reason why winter gardening is better than summer gardening is you

Don’t have to weed or at least the weed pressure is dramatically reduced that’s because the soil is cold in enough and the air is cold enough right now that weed seeds generally don’t germinate now this bed of collared greens and lettuce is really coming along well this has

Been growing for probably like 6 to 8 weeks now and I haven’t actually performed any weeding since I transplanted things out and I’m looking around right now and I’m seeing a couple of little things germinate here and there there’s a little weed there’s a little weed here’s a little tiny weed

There’s no way I can even show you this on the camera they’re so small M so even after over a month of not really doing any work to this bed and I live in a pretty warm climate where weed seeds can still germinate during the winter I

Still have little to know weeding to do without having to weed my garden it makes everything so easy I mean just look at that bed it’s basically pristine the same situation is true with my garlic I have not weeded this since I planted my garlic several weeks ago and

Everything looks fantastic Weed Free even with my old kale bed I actually planted these kale plants early last winter so they’re almost a full year old and there’s just nothing really germinating here it looks like maybe I have one small weed that’s growing in there but you know what if that’s the

Only weed pressure I get this month that is pretty amazing and the fifth reason why winter gardening is better than summer gardening is there’s no sweating I don’t know about you but where I live it is brutal working in the dead of summer so I like to do all of my heavy

Physical labor this time of year for example one thing I’m doing this winter is I’m building a lot of these hoop structures on my raised beds because they’re great for year round gardening I can keep the frost off during the winter I can keep the insects off during the

Spring with insect netting then I can swap the insect netting out for shade cloth in the summer and keep the plant stressed lower by keeping them under partial shade and it all works so well another thing that’s great to do this time of year is to mulch your yard so if

You like adding mulch to all of your fruit trees or you like adding compost to your garden the winter is the time to do that so for example now is the perfect time to get yourself a big load of wood chips or a big load of mulch and

Then we’ll Barrow that to all of your fruit trees because you’re not going to sweat you can take advantage of the cool weather and while I still think it’s too early to add any compost at least finished compost to your garden bed if you want to wait until late winter when

Planting is imminent within a few weeks that’s a great time to do that heavy manual labor so any kind of construction project s or builds that you want to do now is generally the time to do it because once the late spring rolls around and you get in the gardening mood

You’re going to be very happy that the hard work is done when the sweaty weather comes so in order to Garden in the summer we have five enormous challenges that we have to overcome to be successful but in the winter time we only have one Challenge and that is the

Cold weather if we can just overcome that we can grow food and luckily with our big human brains and a little bit of engenuity we can do that now now first off if you live in zone 8 like I do or warmer maybe even mild Zone sevens you

Can grow out in the open mostly unprotected throughout the entire growing season so if you live in a climate like mine there’s really no excuse why you can’t grow something in your garden all year long now for those of you that are in zone sixes and sevens

That are a little bit colder maybe even some milder Zone fives all you really need to do to grow yearr round is to build yourself some type of structure over your raised beds or row covers in your garden in order to provide protection against the hard frosts and

Freezes so just because you may not be able to grow things out in the open unprotected in your garden don’t let that be an excuse as to why you don’t grow anything during the winter all you need is a cheap little PVC hoop structure like this and some

Agricultural Fabric and that can have you growing things like carrots and beets and kale and collared greens and mustard greens and cabbage and broccoli and other Frost tolerant cold hearty greens all winter long don’t forget about things like lettuce and radishes and turnips and brussel sprouts and

Things like that as well these PVC hoop structures take less than an hour to build they’re really cheap I have lots of tutorials on how to build them I will make sure to drop a link down in the video description to a playlist that shows how I build all of these different

Structures but what about the folks out there that live in cold Zone fives or zones that are even colder where even with some type of hoop house structure like this this it’s not enough to grow things all winter long well folks I’m here to tell you that if you really love

This gardening thing it’s really something that you like doing and it’s therapy for you I just have to tell you you have to invest in some type of greenhouse you have to get a greenhouse or a high tunnel or something like that in your backyard it doesn’t have to be

Anything serious it doesn’t have to be something really expensive you can get kits for a few hundred you can get large commercial kits for a few thousand and I know that that is an expense and money is tight right now but if you’re choosing to live in a location where

Gardening is not possible during the winter you really need to consider this for yourself not only will it be tremendous for your mental health to get outside in a really cold winter climate where there isn’t a whole lot to do and get some sun exposure and fresh air and

Exercise but it will be better for your physical health as well because you’ll be moving more you’ll be getting more vitamin D from the Sun and you will be eating Superior fresher healthier vegetables overall so so I really think that if you live in a climate like that

You need to look at a greenhouse in your backyard just like you need to look at it like a heating system in your house it needs to be an essential thing that is for your survival you don’t have to be fancy with anything you just need to

Get your fix in and if all you can grow are collards and kale and broccoli and carrots and turnips and things like that well hey that’s something that is really rewarding and my guess is you’re going to have so much success doing it that you’re going to think of all different

Typ of things find more cold hearty things that I don’t even know about that you will be able to grow and let me tell you it’s going to do so much for you mentally and physically you’ll wonder why you didn’t invest in something like that sooner somebody needs to tell you

That if you really love gardening go out and make it possible because you can no matter where you live we need to lead a revolution in this country we have to stop thinking that summertime is the only gardening season there is it’s actually the most difficult gardening season gardening season is year round

And wintertime is the easy gardening season there’s the least amount of problems in our way all we need to do is find generally easy ways to protect our plants and again I’ll link to another playlist down in the video description that shows all of my tips that will show

You how to add a little bit of warmth and protection to your plants I mean it’s the end of December and I still have some tomatoes that are hanging on for deer life in North Carolina if I can keep Tomatoes alive until Christmas you can keep cold hearty greens alive all

Winter long so everybody I sure hope you you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button subscribe to the channel and please ring that notification Bell so you’re notified when I release more videos like these again if you’re curious about any

Of the builds and cold protection methods that I use I’ll link to all those playlists down in my video description as well as a link to my Amazon storefront which shows you everything I use in real life to Garden year round and while you’re there check

Out my spread shop for custom merch if you want to support the channel thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video well here here I am cutting a steak and I have a handsome young lad

That’s looking to get some off of me boy oh boy you’re lucky that your daddy knows how to cook a steak M perfectly medium rare let’s see I have a little piece for Dale now you be gentle Dale control yourself gent gentle very good buddy oh he’s drooling

On the floor look at that oil slick all right I’ll give you one more little piece ah my finger silly boy all right boy get on your bed buddy and I’ll give you one more get on your bed come on Dale on your bed all right buddy here’s the last

Piece no more after this okay we’re going to put you on a diet oh I dropped it ah get it get it get it slippery good boy Dale always cleaning up my mess