Fall Gardening

It is hard for me to plan too far ahead but July and August is time to start planing and begin sowing fall & winter gardens.  Once the cooler weather of fall arrives growth slows down.   Last winter I harvested spinach from 24 plants and a few dozen leeks all winter and continued to harvest those plants until June when they finally bolted.  This winter I will be growing more spinach, kale, carrots, leeks.   On this side of the mountains having a lite frost frost blanket and poly cover removes much of the stress that out in the open growing puts on the plants.  The wind and cold rains seem to be hard on plants.  I have lots to learn about fall and winter gardening but during the winter I have time to enjoy my garden in my high tunnel.

Winter letting up some

I was out in the garden today and found my first garlic breaking the ground. It is a variety called Siberian. It is the earliest this season. This is in a bed with a plastic cover to keep snow off bed and warm the soil. The other garlic bed still has 5 inches of snow cover. I also checked out the cabbage bed. I found one small red cabbage that was still firm. I harvested it and we will enjoy it tonight for dinner. :) When the snow melts some more I will look for a savoy cabbage and see if any of them survived the winter. I also have quite a few leeks from last year in another covered bed. Sunday I will go out and sow a few more seedlings in the greenhouse in 68 cell flats. I have a few leeks up now in flats. I will move them out to the hot bed in 3 weeks or so. The cost of heating the hot bed is high so I will keep them in the heated greenhouse as long as possible. By the time the snow is melted off I expect to have many seedlings going ready for transplanting to the garden after the last killing frost.