divaqs's Blog
divaqs's posts about: winter garden
Jun 19, 2007 | 9:06 PM PST
Tag: winter garden
You are probably wondering what in the world I am talking about. It is summer with berries and fruit waiting to be picked, why would I have any interest in thinking about winter?
For about 5 years now I have been growing a winter garden. The first year was mainly by accident when some of my garden was planted late and survived into the winter. I like to think that each year I get a little better at it. With a little knowledge, planning, and using resources available I feel I have made progress each year. One thing that I’ve come to realize is that most things are best planted in about July for winter gardens, which means I need to be planning what I want to grow and ordering seed now. In some years I have made the mistake of not thinking about my winter garden until about fall, when my summer garden is on the decline, which by then is too late to do much.
For winter gardening I love the Territorial Seed Company winter catalog, which when it comes in the mail is an obvious indicator to me that it is time to start planning. In it they have selected various salad greens and vegetables that can be planted for a winter garden. I like that they are based in Oregon, since that is a part of the Pacific Northwest, so I figure that the seeds are more acclimated to my maritime region than something coming from the Tropics, South, or Midwest. I also love the winter garden planting chart that they include in their catalog, which I haven’t been able to find anywhere else. It has been a tool I use every year, and has been very helpful letting me know if there is still hope of planting something else.
The selection of what can be planted in winter is much more limited than summer, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of options. One thing I should point out is that since growth pretty much stops during winter you do need to plant more of the things you want to use. The late summer and fall growth of those garden plants will be what will make up your garden through the cold months.
This year I plan on planting in my winter garden:
- Chinese Pink Garlic (Sept – Oct)
I save the best cloves each year from the past year and replant them for a late spring harvest. - Elephant Garlic (Sept – Oct)
Like the Chinese Pink Garlic I save the best cloves and replant them each year for a summer harvest the following year. - Broccoli (June – July)
I try to select varieties of broccoli that do well for either summer or winter gardens. Winter broccoli is sweeter than summer broccoli, which is true of any of the brassica family of plants, which adjust to cold by increasing sugars. - Carrots (May – July)
Winter carrots are sooooo good. - Radishes (Sept – Oct)
One of the last things I plant in the fall. - Swiss Chard (June – July)
I love the really colorful varities. They are showy enough that I sometimes plant them in my front yard and have had neighbors try to guess what the pretty plants are. - Lettuce (Aug – Sept)
A fresh salad in winter is an amazing thing. I try to get the mixes specific for winter growing since they seem to hold up the best through the cold. - Kale (June - July)
There are some really pretty Kale’s that do really well through winter. After a freeze they sweeten up more. - Endive (July – Aug)
I’ve been wanting to try endive for my winter salads - Corn Salad (Aug – Sept)
Funny name, great salad green - Fava Beans (Sept – Oct)
Another one of the last things I plant for the year. - Onions (July – Aug)
I have an established onion patch, so they replant themselves. - Spinach (July – Aug)
Another good thing for winter salads.
May 21, 2007 | 9:01 AM PST
Tags: Elephant Garlic , Allium Ampeloprasum , garlic , winter garden
As part of my attempts of doing year round gardening, I over-winter garlic and elephant garlic. Personally, I prefer elephant garlic (Allium Ampeloprasum) more than normal garlic. My reasons being that I find the elephant garlic’s milder and slightly sweeter taste and larger size of cloves to be better for roasting. Don’t get me wrong, I like garlic and use it all the time in my cooking, but when it comes to roasting garlic with some pot roast or a tinfoil dinner, a clove of elephant garlic is best. One of my single cloves of elephant garlic is often as big as or even bigger than a complete bulb of normal garlic.
Here is a picture from a couple of weeks ago of some I have growing in my garden.
This picture is a southern facing hill that I terraced into rows of garden beds. I use boards as movable walkways that I can change to different levels from year to year as part of my plant rotation.
Elephant garlic is actually not real garlic, but more closely related to leaks. I believe it gets its name from the size of the bulbs, which I would say are between a baseball and a softball in size in my garden, which look a lot like giant garlic bulbs and have a somewhat similar taste.
Three years ago I purchased elephant garlic from a seed catalog and for the first time planted it in my garden in the fall. Since then I have saved the best cloves and replanted in the fall from that summer’s cloves. Each year I have planted a little more. This year I think I might have more than I can use in a year.
I’ve read that some people use the young unopened flowering heads as a vegetable. I am considering trying this in a stir-fry and seeing how my kids react.
The plant, if left alone, will spread into a clump with many flowering heads. These can be left in flower gardens to discourage pests, though the plants have always looked kind of like corn stalks to me, which I’ve never thought very ornamental.
In this picture you can get a sense of the difference of size of normal garlic plants to elephant garlic plants.
The sad looking plants in the foreground are an early variant of garlic called Chinese pink garlic, which are full size and will be ready to harvest soon. My dog has been laying among them, which resulted in the sad condition you see them in.
The next row up is my elephant garlic. They are starting to form flower heads and put on the last of their height. I’ve seen these plants get as much as 4 feet in height.
Behind my elephant garlic is asparagus, which is beginning to show its natural fern form.
May 15, 2007 | 2:44 PM PST
Tags: fava , fava beans , winter garden , Aquadulce
One of the things I grow in my winter garden is Fava beans. Fava beans can be over wintered in zone 6 and above, which includes the Seattle region that I live in. I like keeping my garden as productive as I can year round, and growing fava beans has the advantage of helping me do that by leaving less area unused over the winter. They also have the advantage of being a nitrogen fixing plant, reducing later need for fertilizer. So I like over-wintering fava beans where I know I am going to have heavy feeding plants like corn grow the next summer.
My favorite fava bean is the Aquadulce variety. These make for a good dried bean that is comparable to Lima beans. These are also open pollinated, so I’ve been able to save the best of my beans and replant them the next fall, further improving my seed to my particular micro-climate from year to year. I am now on to the 3rd year of doing this.
I bought my original seed from Territorial seed, which describes this variety as:
“An early, long-podded fava, cultivated in Europe since the 19th century. Introduced by Territorial as perhaps the best tasting, big seeded fava. Dark green 6 inch pods are filled with 6-8 light green, slightly flattened, beans that turn a buff brown when dried. Substitute these in any dish calling for lima beans. Suitable for spring or fall sowing; plants grow to 30 inches.”
The disadvantage of over-wintering fava beans is that after planting them in about October, they take at least 6 months for them to be ready to harvest, so I find that the space isn’t freed up for planting until about June. This is fine for me for plants like corn that I can’t plant until that time, or for things I have been holding off on planting like late summer salad greens.
I’ve heard of some people being allergic to fava beans, so it is best to try a little first, but I’ve never personally encountered anyone who has been allergic, at least that I know of.
In the below picture you can see one of my smaller fava bean plants interplanted with some garlic that I also over-wintered.
My daughter’s cat is trying to get my attention and some love.
May 13, 2007 | 5:00 PM PST
Tags: salad , lettuce , winter garden , leaf lettuce , slugs , baby greens , spinach
One of the things I love about where I live, in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, is that the seasons are relatively mild. I figure that this is due to the many cloudy days we have in Seattle, which keep temperatures more even.
As a gardener, what this means is that I can have a year round salad garden. The trick to it is planting the right amounts at the right time. For example, in summer things grow quick, so I plant less and more often. In late summer and fall I turn a majority of my garden over to growing my winter and spring salad garden. In winter, things pretty much stop growing, so whatever I was able to plant and grow in fall is what I will have to last me through the winter. In spring, is when things start to grow again, so the smaller salad plants I planted in the fall start to get some growth on them again.
A couple of weeks ago I planted a small section of my garden with my first summer salad items. I am still harvesting lettuce and spinach that I planted last fall, while I wait for my summer lettuce and spinach to grow. In other words, the pictures below are of different kinds of lettuce that I planted last year, which either survived the winter or grew early this spring from seed still in the ground.
I’ve found that I like variety in my salad. I learned this the hard way. Two years ago I tried to feed myself and my family salads made from a single type of lettuce. Boring salads quickly grow unappetizing.
So, I now tend to buy lettuce mixes that are season or theme based.
Overall, I prefer leaf lettuce, since it is easy to cut back just a part of it and let the plant grow back, allowing me multiple harvests.
Being an edible landscaper, I try to incorporate aesthetics in my salad gardens by intermingling my salad plants with other companion plants. I avoid planting in rows, unless that is the shape of the area I am planting in. This makes for a much more natural and organic look to my garden, which I find much more pleasing to look at.
I tend to over plant, then thin out the plants as baby greens for salad. The salads made out of baby greens are really good, though it takes more time washing the smaller greens.
I prefer growing my salad greens in my raised garden beds, which are formed out of treated lumber. The treatment process is based on a copper compound, which seems to detract the slugs more. It doesn't totally eliminate the slugs getting to my lettuce, but I do see a lot less slug damage.
Apr 19, 2007 | 8:27 AM PST
Tags: onions , compantion planting , treated wood , slugs , winter garden
I've been working on creating a permanent onion patch, with the idea of the patch getting large enough that I can rely on it for all my onion needs.
Last spring I ordered and planted yellow multiplier onions, described as;
"These winter-hardy bulbs have yellow skins and white flesh tinged with purple. With proper nutrition and good conditions, you can expect a cluster of 10-12 or more mild and sweet-flavored bulbs to form from a single bulb. Multiplier onions keep for 8-12 months in good storage conditions. Plants can be used as green bunching onions if pulled in the spring."
I wasn't sure how to incorporate this into a landscape design, so I started it in a 4 foot by 8 foot garden box I built a couple of years ago.
In the above picture, you are seeing the remnants of the salad greens I over-wintered, intermingled with onions. I have a lot of miner's lettuce seedlings, which are volunteer seedlings from my experiment in trying it out last year and it re-seeding itself.
I found the flavor of miner's lettuce to be pretty uninspiring, so I will probably only let one or two of the seedlings reach full size, which can be a few feet in height.
The onions definitely multiplied, forming bunches of onions, which I spread out more evenly in the garden box during February, with the exception of one large bunch I left in the middle to see how it would fare. I figure that by next year I will have reached the point of having so many onions that I won't have to worry about running out if I use them in an unrestrained manner in my cooking.
The onions are smaller in size then the typical walla walla size onions I see in the store, so it might take more to cook with. I probably won't need a lot, since I use chives from my yard as well, as an onion substitute.
Once I get a feel for how they would look in a landscape setting, I might try intermingling some in other parts of my yard and herb beds.
I used pressure treated wood for the planter box, after I did some research to verify that the chemical treatment had been changed from the previous cancer causing compounds that include chromium and arsenic, to one based on copper. The EPA did a bunch of research on the treatment process, which prompted the change. Copper has a nice side affect of discouraging slugs, since it reacts in a way with their slime, which they seem to avoid. I haven't seen many slugs getting into this garden bed, which is a nice side benefit, and one of the reasons I have salad greens companion planted with the onions.
For most of my garden I try to use companion planting, since it seems to decrease problems with pests and disease, but for an edible landscaper like me, more importantly adds more visual appeal. I worry less about visual appeal in my garden boxes, but still try to use some of the concepts. Onions can be a great companion plant since many pests avoid them.
