Category Archives: Winter gardening

Winter planting the square foot gardening

Winter gardening in northern Utah isn’t really gardening. It’s all harvesting. That means a little extra planning. The important point isn’t really the average first frost date but rather the first day we go under 10 hours of sunlight. For us, thats around November 14th. This is just one of my 4X4 SFG boxes planted for the winter. So far, the timing looks good. What’s in there? Lots. Three different kinds of lettuces, green onions, arugula, minutina, claytonia, spinach, turnips, mache, red pontiac potatoes, and tatsoi. They all love the cold and even freezing weather, except the lettuces. The baby leaf lettuces will easily make it right through the winter months. Get those gardens planted!!! 

Thinking about the winter square foot garden

Here it is-almost the second week into July and we’r already talking winter. Though lots of fun summer harvesting is still ahead, it’s time to think about what needs to go into the winter garden. In a few weeks it’ll be too late to think about crops such as leeks, and green onions. You certainly won’t be able to find them in the nurseries around here. And what ever happened to parsnips? Nobody grows them anymore! If you’ve not tried them you should. They are so good in the winter garden as the colder temperatures make them very sweet. I’ve always started these three crops this way. The reason? I’m not telling yet. But you’ll see when they are harvested. You can grow them better than anything you’ll find at the market.

I’ll have a few gardening classes coming up for those interested. The first couple will be the fall square foot gardening class. Immediately after that will be the square foot garden winter classes, complete with how to build protection, what crops do well here, and when to plant. These are both done at my home in a very comfortable setting where you learn how to do it. 

Come Labor day when most people start thinking it’s time to close the garden, yours will be up and producing a huge harvest. Stay tuned. 

Herbs-parsley

Its early but I’m putting out some of my parsley in grow bags. For those who have never used them, you might give them a try. They are made out of a soft fabric and will last for years. I now grow most of my herbs in these because I need the room in the regular garden for other crops.

The great thing(s) about these is they come in all sorts of sizes. This is a 5 gallon grow bag and thats all I need for my herbs. You can pick them up and move them around because they have handles, which is an advantage over the Smart Pot grow bags. You get healthy air-pruned plants that are easily contained. My favorites are from 247 Gardenmate. You can find them here. Mine are 5 years old and show no signs of wearing out.

Square foot garden-arugula

I was never a fan of arugula. Too spicy, to peppery for my taste. What I learned was that if you harvest it when smaller, grow it in cooler weather, and experiment with different varieties, you’ll find it looses much of the spicy edge. This particular variety is Astro, and it is milder when grown this way.

 

This was direct seeded about 12 days ago on a very wintery day. As you would expect, this would come up faster on a slightly warmer day, but I like to see how far I can push the limits in our 4 season climate.

Winterized square foot gardens

You cant tell what’s under there now but you’ll see it when winter gets here. I have 2 or 3 empty squares left to plant for the winter garden, which will be radishes and corn salad at this point. We’ve had 2 hard freezes, and that’s made the carrots very sugar-like. My brother was visiting from California-I gave him one to taste. His comment: “I don’t remember ever tasting a carrot like this.” Thats what the winter garden is all about. Starches turning to sugar in a protective manner, kind of like the plants antifreeze system.

 

There’s not really a lot of new things in this years winter garden. The one new item I’m really looking forward to harvesting is parsnips. That, along with turnips, will make an excellent soup. Snow coming this weekend!