Category Archives: Winter gardening

Herbs-parsley

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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

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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

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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!

Reds onions in the square foot garden

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Its been another really fun year. I’ve been able to begin growing and selling some of my crops to local restaurants who appreciate organic growing. It’s seasonal, which they know about in advance. This is a nice picture of 9 red onions. They’re very sweet and taste much better than anything you’ll find in the market. They are planted 9 to a square and I’ve got 3 full squares right now. Twenty seven fresh red onions to take me through the winter. Or, sell to a restaurant. 

 

My site will be undergoing some significant changes in the near future. I’m sure it will be much improved. The new items included will be videos, an easy to find class events calendar, available ebooks, and recipes. There will also be a place to enter your email address in order to receive season updates on square foot gardening,  or what I may be doing during any particular time of year. 

Winter garden makes it through

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This will be a short post about the tasks I’m doing now. Really, its all just preparation. This is the time to order seeds and to warm up your soil. We can still count on some snow and freezing temperatures but spring time is a couple weeks away.

For our climate, there is little advantage in planting before April 1st. I’ve done the experiments of planting on January and February 1st, Presidents day weekend, and the first week or two in March. When I compare that to what I plant the first week of April, it’s obvious that the extra work doesn’t get you much. Many of the crops don’t make it, and the ones planted in March easily catch up to those planted earlier.

I like to plant, spinach, chard, radish, bok choi, and some different kinds of Asian greens such as tatsoi and tokyo bekana. These are easy to grow and are direct seeded. April 1st marks the time for me to begin the summer crops: tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, and peppers.

The picture you see is the winter garden. I planted that in late summer, covered it, and did virtually no work. I don’t think I even looked underneath the cover for 2 months! Its loaded with claytonia, corn salad, green onions, rosemary, spinach, lettuces, etc. I’ll post this later in the summer time for those who want to learn how to do it, the timing, and the crops to grow successfully[ois skin=”1″]