3 Exceptional Winter Growing Ideas to Spruce Up a Green Building

The shift towards sustainable buildings has surged at a record pace. There were only 296 green buildings in 2006, but that figure has increased to over 67,000 in 2018. Unfortunately, although green buildings are becoming more popular, many institutions don’t understand the concept behind them.

There are a number of important facets of operating a sustainable building. Most people focus on the importance of green elements in the design process. However, there are a lot of other issues that green building managers should pay attention to.

Green buildings should also grow plants regularly. Plants can make green buildings more sustainable in a number of ways, such as regulating heat and oxygen levels without machinery.

Tips to Grow Plants to Improve Green Buildings

You can grow a lot of plants outside and then transplant them to your pots inside your green building. However, this can be challenging (but not impossible) during the winter).

Snow can be good for the soil, because it insulates the soil against abrupt temperature changes and also provides it with a steady inflow of moisture, winter gardening is actually not for the faint-hearted. The cold front leaves you with much less fertile ground, with microorganisms, worms, and other life-supporting biological factors retreating as far away from the surface as they can.

However, many simple planting hacks can help you keep a backyard garden going full-bloom all through the frosty season. In this piece, we’ll talk about the best plants and gardening tips that can keep your garden brimming with life through the thin and thick of the frosty season. This can help create a great eco-friendly garden.

Cultivate the Best Winter Plants

Some veggies can grow almost without any human intervention during the cold season. In particular, vegetables that don’t produce fruit like leek, Jerusalem artichokes, Chinese cabbage, chard, and winter lettuces do not need a lot of warmth and other growth factors to strive and are therefore more suitable for winter gardening. Kale, broccoli, and Brussels sprout are some of the toughest winter crops.

Roots are generally also winter season crops. In fact, roots like winter potatoes, turnips, and parsnips, and carrot actually taste better when grown in winter because then, the plants redirect more energy and nutrients to grow the roots for better frost protection.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry as much about controlling pests in the winter. This makes it easier to maintain your eco-friendly garden for your green building.

Effective Winter Gardening Tips

You should begin making serious preparations for winter gardening well ahead of time. Mulch your garden with fall leaves before and even after the cold season sets in to insulate the soil against extreme temperature drops. During the cold season, you can add snow layers over the mulching to further protect the soil against abrupt temperature changes.

The best way to grow your garden during winter is by using greenhouses or polytunnels filled with covered pallet collar beds. The greenhouse or polytunnel shields the plants against the harsh cold winds, snow, and while the bedding provides better growth conditions than the ground. You can further improve the growth conditions in your greenhouse or polytunnel by venting it properly to prevent excess condensation. Excess moisture in the mulching and soil layers can lead to grey mold infestation, which can be dangerous to your crops. 

Stay on Top of Temperature Changes

The winter crops mentioned above can thrive even in sub-zero temperatures. However, they’re aversive to abrupt temperature changes. They may begin to wilt and eventually rot when their environmental temperature changes too drastically.

As noted earlier, mulching is one of the best insulation techniques for protecting the soil during winter, but the strong cold winds can make it quite challenging to gather the leaves in one place. That’s why it’s advisable to mulch ahead of winter so the leaves can have time to settle in and congeal into a thick layer of protection. You can use row covers if the winter winds are getting the better of your mulching efforts. But you need to apply them again and again from time to time since they work only for a limited time.

Still feeling overwhelmed about winter gardening? Our steep winter gardening expertise can help make things much easier for you. Reach out to us today for highly expedient winter gardening tips.

Growing Plants Can Be Great for Maintaining a Green Building

There are a lot of great reasons to grow plants. They can go a long way towards maintaining a sustainable building.