Tag Archives: claytonia

Preparing for spring

A little hard to believe-tomorrow we begin the first day of 10 hours of sunlight. This means we’ve come out of the Persephone period and plants will now begin to grow. It will be slow at first but will pick up as spring approaches. There’s still a lot of winter weather to deal with but the garden is ready to be warmed up. Some of the garden has been over-wintered and looks very good.

I usually begin covering my garden with plastic the first week of February so the soil will be ready to plant by February 17th. This year I’ll wait until the first week of March. The reason? I don’t seem to get ahead by the earlier starting date but it does add to my workload.

The next couple of weeks I’ll be selecting and ordering seeds. If you’ve been on my site much, you’ll already know my favorite places to buy. Johhny’s, Burpee, Jungs, and Territorial Seed. There’s a local place I like to buy from-Mountain Valley Seeds.

Crops I’ll be planting will be my regular early spring crops: several varieties of lettuce, spinach, claytonia, beet greens, tokyo bekana, corn salad, chard, bok choi, and maybe radicchio. My cool weather herbs have always been cilantro and chives[ois skin=”3″]

My square foot winter garden is here

snow covered winter gardenCan you believe there’s a garden back there? That’s thirteen inches of snow my low tunnel endured! Wow! We had more snow yesterday than we did all of last year. I had several low tunnel/winter gardening classes at my home this fall. Several of the participants doubted that the hoops would be strong enough to withstand a serious snow storm. I assured them that it would and here’s the proof that it does.

Often times in northern Utah after a snow storm we get very cold night temperatures with the clear skies. I like to keep the snow on the hoops as an insulator for a couple of days until it warms up a bit. To do that I use a broom to sweep the snow off the top. Another thing about the snow is that it seals the tunnel completely along the base of the garden. Thats perfect for me because I don’t bury any of my coverings. I keep the material taut and then weigh everything down with 5 gallon bucket filled with water-which are now ice. These are certainly heavy enough to hold things in place. And this winter we’ve had 2 days of 50 and 70 MPH winds.

Tomorrow I’ll broom a portion of the snow off and lift the top up to harvest enough salad greens to last us for a few days. It’s easy to do because the protective covers have been pulled tight along the length of the hoops. Lettuce, spinach, mizuna, and carrots will be the choice this week. Spinach, claytonia, and chard next week. A different lettuce, minutina, beet greens, and tokyo bekana the week after. I wish I could tell you how fun it is to eat seasonally like this.[ois skin=”1″]

Square foot garden-low tunnel class coming up

square foot garden low tunnel for the winter monthsYou northern Utah gardeners-if you’re wanting to learn how to have a winter garden or one that gets going 6-8 weeks earlier in the spring, this class is for you. You bring the number of 1/2″ EMT pieces and I’ll bend them for you while you’re here.

These structures are rock solid, mobile, and are much less expensive than traditional greenhouses. You won’t have to worry about some of the problems with permanent greenhouses either-like excessive salt build up-because they’ll be taken down in the spring time. These are sun driven systems only. You won’t be needing any fancy heating or water systems.

If you are interested in attending please contact me. We will begin promptly at 10:00 A.M. and end at 10:30 A.M. No Utah time arrivals please!

Although you will see what my square foot gardens look like, there will be no SFG instruction at this class. Its specifically how to construct a low tunnel only. You can learn more about the class here.

Square foot gardening-Winter planning

arugulaWith day length shortening, temperatures beginning to cool, and precipitation shortly to follow now is the perfect time to plan your winter garden. It’s a lot easier if you live in zones 8 and higher, but for zone 6 and below, we have some thinking to do.

The first step that I like to take is to simply list the items I want to grow. There’s information floating around on the internet that show 30+ different crops that can be grown in our zones and lower during winter. I’ve tried virtually all of them over that past 5 years and have had a great experience. But I’ve also found that many of those crops were things we didn’t enjoy eating. Maybe I should say we didn’t enjoy eating them as much as other tested and tried things. It’s a thrill to know that you’re able to go out and harvest minutina, but it didn’t do much for out taste buds.

Here’s a short list of things that I’ll be getting ready very soon. Spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, mache, beet greens, radishes, tatsoi, carrots, claytonia, and mizuna. We love simple salads just harvested in January from the garden. There’s other items that I may grow if I decide I want to stir-fry a few dishes. Things like bok choi, mustards, turnips, and leeks would be good choices.

I came across a really fun blog a year ago. I’m not a subscriber but I check in every once in a while to see what she’s doing. And, she’s doing the same thing as I am! But she’s much better at showing it. Take a look at her winter garden-you can find it here.  I love what she does.  You’ll also notice that’s she’s kept a record of the amount of produce and veggies harvested during the winter months.  Think about that quantity.  Although there’s a lot of money to be saved-for sure-the real reason to winter garden is the taste!  And with virtually no work, it’s the most enjoyable of all gardening season.  Or, at least it can be.

Fall garden heading into winter

91414 fall gardenThe gardens have been spectacular this year! It’s certainly slowing down but it’s starting to transition to the full winter garden. The main 4X16′ bed will be all I do this winter. Last year I also winter gardened in the 2X16′ next to it. I’ll be using that bed to overwinter 4 or 5 different things to get a quick jump on spring. To date I’ve planted kale, tatsoi, beets, scallions, leeks, spinach, claytonia, cilantro, lettuce, chard, mache, minutina, and turnips for the winter harvest. I’ll be doing a repeat planting of many of those next week. Arugula, mizuna, and radishes will finish off the planting season and will be completed by October 20th. It’s going to be a great winter.[ois skin=”below post”]