My Winter Garden pt.1

I'm getting ready to start my winter garden! I think I like winter gardening better than summer gardening. Because I hate being hot and sweaty in the heat in the middle of the summer. Yuck. And I hate pulling weeds. Yuck x 2

I have had a few people ask about my winter garden boxes so I thought I might as well blog about them.

The book I use as my reference is called the Winter Harvest Handbook. It is by Eliot Coleman. He has a farmers market/Garden and Maine. For those who Garden, I think main is zone 4. I live in Ohio which is zone 6. I figure if he can get things to grow up there in Maine in the winter, I should be able to get things to grow here in Ohio in the winter!

Up there, they grow a diverse selection of produce in the winter that does not require a lot of electricity and heat, therefore not a lot of money to run. He has a lot more acreage, obviously, and therefore has room to have really awesome mobile cold houses and a super nifty setup of rotating covered garden boxes. I have found that best just to stick with two or three garden boxes and I only grow spinach, carrots, and maybe radishes & beets.

Kale.

Kale is pretty good for a winter garden box. But honestly no one of my house eats it. Except for that one time when we had a pet iguana. The Iguana loved kale!

This year we moved the garden boxes from the left side of the back porch over to the right side of the back porch, next to the  TARDIS. This is because my husband plans on extending the porch on the left side sometime this fall, winter, spring.

Monday we dug the dirt out of the garden boxes and move the garden boxes, then hold the dirt. Today I purchased some goodies to add to the dirt.

The first thing to note here is that I have one purple and one lime colored gardening glove. I used to have a pair that was purple and a pair that was lime. Thankfully I lost the proper glove of each so that I still have a pair.

( adding gardening gloves to my Christmas / birthday list)

I purchased sand and Perlite. Because carrots like loamy soil.  Which I guess just is a fancy word for "has good drainage". 

Loam

Does it rhyme with foam? Because although I have seen it written many times in many places, I do not think I've actually heard it said aloud. I guess it might rhyme with the word doom. 

I also got a small bag of worm castings to add a bit of fertilizer.

Sprinkled a little bit of each into the garden boxes.

* note: garden boxes probably are not required. I just find them to be a little bit easier. I have done carrots and radishes without garden boxes. But with tramping through the snow and lifting off the cover, I just find the garden boxes to work better.

I put on my purple gardening glove and then I grabbed my hand held dirt mixer thingy. Then I put on my lime green color to gardening glove. And then I mixed all of the good nutritional goodies into last year's dirt.

After they were all mixed thoroughly, I made three rows and a smaller box and planted the carrot seeds! 

They won't need to be covered with the hoops and plastic until November. So I have some time to make their hooped covers.

... stay tuned for the planting of... Something else later this week

January 1 Merry Christmas!

I am sitting at the kitchen table with a homemade chai latte and plate of cookies. I need to get all the cookies and Swedish Fish eaten by Monday, so I can get back to logging calories and nutrients.

We celebrated Christmas with my parents and brothers family yesterday. We did the same last year (different reason,though)
I think I like having Christmas spaced out like that. It's less overwhelming.
I had made sock puppets for my 2 yr old nephew. Whenever I watch him, we always wear socks on our hands and make them talk, so I thought he'd like some sock puppets.

And for his mom... A box with easy lid for storage of the puppets on his toy shelf.
In addition to hot glueing the embellishments, I tacked them in place with needle and thread. It seemed for "Toddler Friendly" that way.
Here is a quite visual guide:

I spent News Years Day (morning) charting out my revolving garden. Those parts of the garden I plant to rotate crops for a more year round harvest. I have 5 garden areas for this,  my 3 boxes to the left of the back porch, a box on the right side of the back porch, and a section in the ground I will rotate winter carrots and summer bell peppers. I have sowing dates for all 10 crops, along with dates to prep the soil between plantings. I put all pf the dates into my smartphone calendar with a reminder set for a few days before. 

I felt Quite Accomplished. Too bad I can't devote this much effort to cleaning the kitchen.

HEALTH NOTE: on the first day of the year, I took my vitamins, drank my 2L of water, and met my Fitbit goal! 

my 21 yr old son found an app for my smart phone called HABITRPG. I earn gold by meeting daily goals and tasks (that I list) and can go on quests and buy new armor and swords with my earned coins!

YES, I did!

Yes, I did pick spinach from my winter garden today!! Fresh picked spinach for BLTs!

Yes, I did plant carrots seeds in my back yard today on December 26 in Ohio! I hope my Winter Harvest book is right! The author plants carrots the last week of December at his commercial farm in Maine!
He then covers them in plastic. I will do that on Moday. We actually are in a warm pocket this weekend. It has been  in the high 40s to 50s the last two days.

The variety recommended for December planting is Nelson Carrots.

I received more year round gardening books! I got Winter Harvest (by Eliot Coleman) last week. Yesterday I got Four Season Harvest (by Eliot Coleman). Also a little handbook on cold frames.

Combine these with the book of herb growing from my brother earlier this year and I should have a wonderfully productive and yummy garden soon!

Mid December

Sunday Dec 21. 36 degrees F.

We have just returned from visiting family for a week. I check my winter garden boxes. Yay! The plants are still alive! 2 of my boxes are not doing much. But the Spinach Box seems to be thriving!

My son gave me a book. The Winter Harvest Handbook, by Eliot Coleman. I started my winter garden in November, without utilizing winter garden information. I now know my mistakes with the kale and lettuce box. (Should have started them the nd of August). The Gardner who writes this book plants carrots the end of December. So I prepared a small trial carrot bed today.

 I dug up an area of garden just off the porch (so I won't have to walk far to check it during these cold months). 

Then I filled a wheel barrow with peat moss, dead leaves, and some dirt from the bottom of my compost pile.

 (yes, I am standing in the compost pile. the top layer of compost is frozen solid)

 I mix the moss, leaves, and compost; then add it in the bottom of the dug out area. Cover with the dirt I just dug, smooth and mark with stones.)

 According the Winter Harvest book, they prepare their soil 3 weeks in advance with green manure (which has no animal feces. it is just oats plants and pea plants). They turn this under the existing soil about a foot, replace the top soil, let rest a few weeks, then plant their seeds. I do not have green manure or 3 weeks. 

hopefully, the moss. leaves. compost mixture will do this time. I covered the prepared soil with tarp. not sure it will do anything, but it seemed like a good idea. Planned Planting Date is Dec 31.