Category Archives: Winter gardening

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″]

December carrots

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Under protective covers I still have a few squares of carrots left. I should’ve planned on more but didn’t. Tonight we had vegetable lasagna and I was able to use not only winter carrots but also garlic, which is sweeter and milder than what you would expect from the supermarket.

Though almost all garden planting is finished at this time in zone 6, there are still some things that can be done. If you haven’t taken advantage of some online tools from different sources about what to do and when to do it, check this out. This is an excellent informational source that can help you to know what you should be planting at any time of the season. I’ve found them to be very valuable, and in my case, it’s reminding me that I can still plant garlic bulbs outside. There’s many of these available and I’m not sure if some are better than others. </[ois skin=”1″]

Prepping the garden for winter

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I prep my gardens now for the best possible soil in the spring. It’s a little bit of work but I think its well worth the effort. I’ve done this for 15 years with excellent results. It all started many years ago when I noticed how many bags of leaves my yard produced. I saw all the plastic bags lining the streets that were ready to be picked up by the city for the dump. I decided to save my bagged leaves to be used for a couple of different things.

The first is for a conditioner. I remove a few inches of soil, add a fair amount of leaves, and then replace it. The leaves will be gone by the time I’m ready to plant in springtime. Leaves are a great addition to your soil. Click here to learn some of the benefits of leaves and for some other helpful tips. I also use leaves to cover things in the garden for winter for extra protection such as carrots. The remainder of my leaves are used as a brown source ingredient for my compost bin. I know I”ll need 7-8 bags to carry me through the growing season until the next fall arrives. The remainder of leaves are used to sell to folks who attend spring square foot gardening classes at my home. At that time all the leaves are gone and folks need a good brown source for composting.

The message? Don’t throw your leaves away! Save them to be used for your soil and for a great compost ingredient.[ois skin=”1″]

Over-wintered carrots

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For those here locally, if you had the chance to come out to one of my fall classes last year you’d be harvesting these right now! I’ve got about 150 of them back there ready to pull, and I was able to use many during the winter months.

The name of this variety is Negovia. They are delicious! I’ve normally grown Mokum and Napoli for winter storage but came across this variety with a special that Johnny’s was running last year. This may be my new go-to winter carrot. Chop off the tops and shoulders, cut off the bottom roots and dip in salad dressing! I gave some of these to a neighbor and who wanted to know what variety it was. She apparently put some in her daughters lunch the next day and when the daughter came home from school, she said: “mom, where did you get those carrots? They tasted better than any others carrot you’ve ever given me.”

While your here, check out a few classes I have coming up in the area. One on composting and one on growing your own microgreens at home. And also, check out my newest ebook! It might seem like a long way off, but you’ll want to be buying your lettuce seeds right now for the summer season before all the right varieties are gone for the year. Don’t let the summer pass you buy-learn how to grow the best tasting lettuces right though the warmest months of the year[ois skin=”3″]

How does your cold frame grow?

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Here’s something fun to see. First picture(top)is October 15, 2016, second is 1/1/17, last one is 2/21/17. A simple sun box, not a cold frame, can do this for you as well. Nothing wrong with the cold frame, its just more work, more expensive, and fairly permanent. I’ve taken off the top sun box level for the last picture so you can see whats happened over the winter. Now I’ll begin to harvest whats in it. Good eating tonight!

I encourage everyone to grow their own food, even those in harsher climates that experience snow, below zero temperatures, wind chill, etc. It’s a rewarding feeling to come out after a hard winter, pull back the top and see whats underneath. I just began watering this box last week-thats 3 full months of no work! those wanting to see how easy a sun box is to assemble(and take apart), see my earlier post. So easy, and all made with wood material thats laying around the house.
Crops in this box are spinach, chard,and the lettuces of sweet repeat, allstar, and black seeded simpson.

One of the keys to growing is the soil. As I’ve said before, if the soil isn’t right, nothing else will really matter. If you live in the area and are interested in learning how to have really rich, fertile soil, I’ll be teaching class this upcoming Saturday. Composting is the answer. Once you learn the proper way to do it, you’ll ask yourself why you haven’t been doing it all along[ois skin=”3″]