Urban Farm Hub

By guest writer, Rae Steinbach

While winter might not be the busiest period of time for a farmer, it’s a season that can be tough on a farm. The freezing temperatures, snow, sleet, and ice can put a lot of stress on the land and outbuildings, and it can also be tough on livestock. 

If you are facing a long winter on your farm, you need to do what you can to make sure the land, the animals, and the buildings are ready. The following are a few tips to help farmers prepare for winter.

Provide Shelter for Livestock 

Most farm animals can deal with the cold well; the real problem is when they get wet or windblown in cold weather. If you want to help your animals make it through winter healthy, you need to build them some shelter. 

A barn obviously works well for providing animals with shelter, but you may also want to consider windbreaks for any areas where the animals may spend time. Consider using an electric chainsaw or multi-tool fitted with oscillating saw blades to build a winter shelter. You should also stock up on straw for bedding.

Plant Cover Crops

Planting cover crops can be a good way to maintain the soil for the next growing season. The winter can be hard on soil, and without live plants there, the soil can lose nutrients and moisture. Along with that, the land can also experience problems with soil erosion. By planting some cover crops before winter, you can combat these effects. Furthermore, some of the cover crops can provide additional food to your livestock.

Feed Animals Late in the Day

When the temperature drops to extreme cold, livestock animals need all the help they can get staying warm. Shelter is obviously one way to help them stay warm, but you could also feed them late in the day to help the animals produce more heat once the sun goes down.

Prevent Freezing Water

Livestock animals need a lot of water in winter, and this can be one of the toughest challenges when the temperature drops below freezing. Fortunately, there are several winter watering systems that can help you prevent tanks from freezing. There are devices you can buy and install and there are even some DIY watering solutions. If electricity is an issue, you could also try insulating the tanks to prevent freezing.

Provide Exercise

In the same way that humans need exercise to stay healthy, so do your livestock animals. One issue in winter is that animals tend to spend more time in shelters or huddled near windbreaks. This means they are getting less exercise. 

If you want to keep your animals healthy, you need to provide them with some exercise. Even if you are just letting them out on an open piece of land, it will do a lot to help maintain their health and overall wellbeing.

Keep Pests Out of Feed

Beyond being a tough season for your livestock, winter is also a hard season for rodents. When the temperatures drop and natural food sources become scarce, pests are much more likely to come looking for an easy meal. Make sure to protect your feed supply by storing everything in rodent-proof bins.

Maintain Your Home

With all of the time spent preparing your animals and land, you can’t forget to take care of your own home. Develop a winter home maintenance checklist to make sure your house is ready for the cold temperatures and rough weather conditions. Common steps for maintaining the home include caulking around windows, checking the weather stripping around doors and windows, and maintaining your heater.

Winter can be tough on a farm, but being proactive and taking necessary steps before the weather turns will help ensure your livestock, land, and family come through unscathed.

Guest post by Ali Clarke

Winter is coming – to the Pacific Northwest, that is. The weather may feel mild, but urban farmers still need to perform basic garden maintenance in order to ensure that produce can continue growing through the year’s nippier months. With fifteen percent of the world’s food production coming from agricultural plots in some of the busiest cities, planning winter grows in advance promotes a social and environmental awareness that benefits communities through education as much as through the food, itself. With that in mind, prepare to do some maintenance when securing an urban garden for the winter.

Choose A Garden’s Crops Wisely

First thing’s first: if a garden isn’t planted with crops that are hearty enough to survive the colder months of the year, then there won’t be any need for garden maintenance. A wintering urban garden needs to be planted with crops that will last beyond the first cold snap. Lettuce, lamb’s quarter, and a number of winter squashes are some of the vegetables best suited to endure the damp and cold of the Pacific Northwest’s winter. Cover crops will also absorb some of the additional precipitation that might otherwise overwhelm edible vegetables. Radish seeds, vetch, and clover all keep the soil of an urban garden active, and the plants can stand up against the colder nights.

Crop Protection

If the crops in a winter garden are planted too late in the season, then garden maintenance may include a few extra steps in order to keep the produce safe from the cooler weather. Moving more fragile plants inside will allow for continued produce production. Transplant these crops into reasonably sized pots, though, or else their root systems won’t have enough room to grow. If the weather forecast predicts unusually large amounts of snow and rain, guards keep debris out of a building’s gutters so that snow and rain don’t flood a close-to-home garden. Cold frames, too, help brace crops from strong, brisk winds.

Deciding When to Harvest

Any plants that have been brought inside from the garden should be harvested as they would be during their normal growing cycle. Cold weather root vegetables, though, like carrots, can be left in the ground until the weather starts to warm again. The cool soil will preserve these root vegetables and ensure that they remain pest-free. They may even taste better after spending time in the frosty outdoors. Do take care, though – one or two unseasonably warm days may spell disaster for these left-alone plants, so keep an eye on the thermometer and move quickly, should a heat wave roll in.