Growing a Winter Garden

Mother Nature has thrown us yet another curve ball with warmer than normal fall temperatures here in New England, but as a gardener you can use this to your advantage to start a winter garden. 

I have come to appreciate walking out into may garden to pick fresh kale, lettuce and other salad greens all summer as opposed to the tasteless and often bitter greens you often get from the grocery store, and just because summer is over it doesn't mean that supply of fresh greens has to end.

There is nothing like going out to your garden in the middle of January to harvest fresh lettuce, greens, radishes, and carrots for a salad. The cold tolerant veggies are easier to grow in late fall and winter because you don't have to water as much, the problem of pests is virtually eliminated, and the veggies taste even sweeter because of the colder temperatures! 

Winter growing is extremely easy to do, and is quite possible even here in the North East with cold winter temperatures and an abundance of snow. To be successful you need to do a little planning which I have written about in Planning a Fall Garden. You need to choose cold hardy varieties of arugula, celery, endive, leeks, lettuce, parsley, radish, scallions, spinach, swiss chard, carrots, kohlrabi, mache, radicchio and kale and start them early enough to be established before the cold weather hits. As soon as it starts getting colder, the plants growth will continue, but at a much slower rate. You will also need to protect your plants from frost and snow by using row covers, hoop houses or cold-frames (mini-greenhouses).

I have written several posts about growing a winter garden using min-greenhouses.

Mini-greenhouse are practical, inexpensive and are perfect for those who don't have the room for a greenhouse. They are easy to build, portable and have many uses throughout the year. They can be used for starting seedlings in the spring, starting early tomatoes & peppers, protecting tender plants from wind and harsh weather, hardening off seedlings before planting in the garden, moved to the garden to extend the growing season, and of course to grow a winter garden.

Free downloadable plans to build the mini-greenhouse are available on my Project Plans page.

 I have had such an overwhelming response to my step-by-step greenhouse plans that I have decide to also make available step-by-step plans to build the mini-greenhouses as well. 

The plans include complete step by step instructions as well as materials list, cut lists and templates to build both the 4' x 4' and 4' x 8' mini-greenhouse. They also include plans to build the raised bed system which can be used as the base for the mini-greenhouse.

They are available in my ETSY store in PDF form and will also be available soon as a printed and bound booklet.

Happy Gardening!

~Rob~

Planning a fall garden

Even though the gardens are just now starting to produce a bountiful harvest, it is time to start thinking about planting a fall, and winter, garden.

 
One of my goals is to have my gardens producing year round. I have been successful growing greens through the winter using my cold frames, but I also want to get better at succession planting and have a steady supply of certain vegetables like lettuce and carrots.

There are several great resources to help you plan a fall garden and help you can find information on what cold hardy varieties to plant and when to plant your seeds.

Johnny's Selected Seeds website will help you choose varieties to plant now and even has a Fall Planting Calculator that you can download to help you plan the correct time to plant. 

Four Season Harvest and The Winter Harvest Handbook, by Eliot Coleman, are very useful books that will help you plan fall and winter gardens. These two are part of my library.

 
I just started reading The Year Round Vegetable Gardener, by Niki Jabbour. This book gives a lot of useful information on year round planting, growing in cold frames and using row covers and cloches to protect plants. The chapter I am reading now talks about how to determine when to start seeds so plants will be ready for harvest before your first average frost.

Here's how Niki tells you to figure it out:

You first need to know the average first frost date for your area. If you don't know this you can find it by going to the National Climate Data Center.

Next you need to look at the maturity dates for your cold hardy varieties. Niki recommends adding 1 to 2 weeks to the maturity date because the plants growth will slow as the temperatures get colder.

Average Frost Date (for my area) : October 19th
Days to maturity: (for Nutri-Bud Broccoli) - 60 days
Add 12 days for colder temps - 72 days
Now count the days back from October 19th and you end up with August 8th for the date you need to transplant your plants into the garden.

If you follow the Johnny's Fall Planting Calculator, they tell you to add another 4 weeks to plants that need to be started indoor from seed - so that would be July 11th (today!!).

Calculating seed starting dates and planting at the correct times has always been challenging for me.  I created a garden journal database where I keep all my seed inventory information including maturity dates, germination dates and all of my growing information so I can easily write formulas to automatically calculate planting dates and generate a planting schedule. It is still a work in progress, but so far it has worked out well.

Hope this information helps you plan your fall and winter garden!

Our friends at 1840 Farm and Let This Mind Be In You have also written post about planting a fall garden, so be sure to check them out as well.

I am also excited to tell you that I have teamed up with both of these bloggers to participate in a giveaway for some exciting prizes so be sure to enter!

~Rob~

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