Gardening in winter? Why, yes!
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| red or yellow onions |
Normally we let our garden go fallow for the winter.....at least most of the beds. But since last year we had such an unseasonably warm winter and could have practically grown veggies all year long, we decided to try our hands at growing some cold-tolerant crops, along with our annual planting of garlic and onions.
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| garlic growing strong (this is the bed where half of it was destroyed by the chickens) |
Just on a side note- we planted a couple beds full of garlic and onions, and one of them got completely torn up by the chickens :( They learned how to fly up on our back patio railing, and then down into the garden bed encapsulated with chicken wire to forage for bugs. SO FRUSTRATING!
Oh, and one of the beds that we had planned for broccoli and winter squash has now been claimed by the chickens as a dust bathing container....*sigh*......so much for that garden bed. One of these days I am going to learn which plants I can plant around the beds to discourage the buffet of plant sampling.
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| bed made of cut local bamboo (chickens have been dust bathing in it :( |
Anyway, enough of the chicken ramblings. This winter along with the garlic and onions we planted peas, more radishes, collards, kale, lettuce and other cold-hardy greens and root vegetables. We shall see if any of these actually do well (in the past they have not done so great). Our peas are not looking so good.
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| onions and turnips (I think?) in the background |
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| the sprouts of kale or collards (can't remember which) |
What usually happens with our root veggies is that the green tops grow nice and large, teasing us with what might be underneath, and then when they are pulled up the root is practically nothing! We add compost to the soil and everything. Anyone have tips for growing root vegetables in raised beds?
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| radishes |
It is almost time to sow our seeds indoors! I'm getting excited--planting in early spring or late winter is always so refreshing and a hopeful start to the year :)
