We move on to the second installment of the Seasonal Planner series! Here we focus on the Winter gardening jobs for the Southern Hemisphere, specifically South Africa, Gauteng!
Winter is a lull and this is mirrored in the garden and general animal (human and otherwise) activities. It is an ideal maintenance time as most things are dormant and a few changes and rearrangements can be made without disturbing the garden too much. These include:
- Physical changes to the garden
- Moving pot plants to new locations
- Putting up new trellises, replacing old ones and other structural renewal
- Reduce, reuse and recycle time
- Sort empty pots and planters, recycle broken ones and re-purpose or give-away unused ones
- Clean gardening tools, repair and replace broken tools
- Sharpen shears and cutting tools
- Frost preparations
- Protect tender plants from July/August frost with frost fleece
- Mulch bare or open soil to prevent hardening and to save water
- Tree pruning time
- Most fruit trees are pruned in mid-July to early-Spring
- Includes heavy and structural pruning
- Check pruning guides for your trees here (I am so not going to make my own when it comes to these!): The Basics PDF, Quick Step-by-Step, Detailed Step-by-Step and a Long-term Guide
- Remember to add some honey (store-bought will do) to those open pruned areas to assist with healing and minimize infection!
The only thing that can be planted throughout winter are Radishes and Leafy Veg.
That pretty much does it for the colder months you can start ‘entertaining the idea’ for your Spring garden, but don’t rush out to buy plants or sow seeds until you’ve seen the Spring planner! You can refer back to the Autumn, and Summer planners later as well! Also checkout the latest update on Seasonal Rainfall for 2020!
Until then!
TTFN
Ta-ta-for-now!
Whisker Flowers 
Do you do consultations? Or know of someone I can ask to assist me with planning to convert my garden into a food forest? I am based in Rivonia.
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Golly thanks, but unfortunately no – I am not trained to consult on something that impressive… however I may have a contact who specialized in native horticulture, especially wildlife friendly gardens. Let me check with my sources 😉 and I’ll post their details soonest!
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Hi! I made contact with the person I had in mind. Unfortunately, she does not do gardens anymore – however I am sure you can ask around the universities for a botany/horticultural student to help you out! They’ll surely appreciate the opportunity and you may get a bargain for the landscaping in the process 😉
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