How To Heel In Your Organic Vegetable Garden

Heeling in your organic vegetable garden is a method that allows you to store vegetables in your garden after you have had a plentiful harvest, and you do not have room for any more in your home. This method will stop your plants from growing and stimulate their growing conditions at the same time.

If you do not heel in your garden, then your plants will die off during the winter. Heeling in allows the gardener to salvage some of the plants for the spring.

Follow these steps to heel in your garden:

1. Cut off any dry leaves or tops of your plants.

2. Dig a V shaped trench in a clean spot in the garden that is sheltered.

3. Break up any big clumps in the soil that you dig.

4. Lay the plants in the trench very close together. You want the root in the bottom of the trench with the tops upward.

5. Cover the plants with the lose soil. Only cover the roots and half way up the steam.

6. Place straw over the plants to prevent a hard freeze.

7. Dig up plants as you need them.

Plants that should be heeled in:

1. Celery root: Take the celery when it is the size you prefer for eating, cut off the tops, and store in the trench.

2. Leeks: Leeks do well being heeled in. Leeks can keep for up to 3 months once they have been heeled in.

Plants that do not need to be heeled:

1. Parsnips: Parsnips flourish in the cold, so there is no point to heel them.

Heeling in your organic vegetable garden crops is a great way to prevent wasting your food. This way also prevents having to use excess electricity to run another freezer or refrigerator to store the produce in.