Gardening: Year Round

I try to garden year-round. I am blessed with a temperate climate and am working on having enough varieties that are specific to my climate and needs. My beds are usually mixed with a variety of vegies since I am planting for only two. I also try not to let there be any bare spaces for long and always have something else in back-up to go into the garden.

Major hinderances are slugs, and leaf-miners in some vegies, especially chard and wintering spinach. Also we occasionally (every few years) have a really cold blast come out of Canada that will foil my gardening plans and I find out what is truly winter hardy.

Right now my small garden space is full and am prepping soil with compost where I have harvested and am putting in seeds and starts for late fall, winter and even spring harvests.

Full beds: brussel sprouts, fennel squash kale corn beans cauliflower tomato ( photo / image / picture from Jewell2009's Garden )

I just finished havesting a couple of heads of cabbage and some lettuce from this bed so mixed in some composted manure and put in my starts of all-season cauliflower and beetberry. This rainy weather and the break from the heat made it perfect planting time.

Winter gardening fill-ins all-season cauliflower and beetberry ( photo / image / picture from Jewell2009's Garden )

I try not to plant the same things in the same places but this year my rotations have not been as good as I would like. The spinach did not do well here because of the weather being so hot, so am trying again after more compost mixed into the soil. Also a few more all season cauliflower since I had a few too many starts, also a mesclun salad blends.

Winter gardening for spinach, beetberry and all-season cauliflower ( photo / image / picture from Jewell2009's Garden )

Since my gardening is all seasons I am looking
forward to having some fennel for salads this summer/fall with goat cheese and cranberries (my hubby makes the best turkey dressing with fennel also Very Happy

) and grilling up some summer squash.

fennel startin to bulb up ( photo / image / picture from Jewell2009's Garden )

Got to get these little babies on the grill tonight before they get any bigger ( photo / image / picture from Jewell2009's Garden )

The slugs ate all of my spring planted corn, but after reading in the forums I decided to plant my short season Hooker's corn in mid-July. Of course I had already planted some "sale" brussel sprouts so just went ahead and filled up the bed. The corn is starting to tassel so we will get some corn Smile

Hooker's corn I planted in mid July - it is starting to tassel Smile

( photo / image / picture from Jewell2009's Garden )

The tomato vines are going "great guns" and there are quite a few tomatoes. The big surprise were my Sweet 100s planted behind these. They are over six feet (much too much shade) but producing much getter than I have ever experienced.

Tomato vines going crazy, but starting to producing lots ( photo / image / picture from Jewell2009's Garden )

My order of Aquadulce Claudia broad beans arrived yesterday. They are being started in pots outside and will be planted to winter out in all the places that the squash, corn and tomatoes currently are. I will wait to put the broad bean in until after the frost has knocked the tender plants down or I have harvested them.

I will get a couple of other broad bean varieties into the garden early, early in the spring.

Garden area looking west ( photo / image / picture from Jewell2009's Garden )

Seeds that I forgot to buy for fall planting and will have next year are radicchio and maybe the purple sprouting broccoli.

I haven't mentioned onions or potatoes. Both are very cheap in the grocery store so we buy them. I can't grow the Walla Walla Sweets we love and a 20 pound sack is only a couple of dollars. I do have the Red Welsh onion and Egyptian walking onion for out of season eating in another part of the yard.

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_________________
~Jewell
If a you have but two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one to sustain your life, and a flower with the other to give you a reason to live. ~Chinese Proverb

Thank you all for your kind comments. Years ago I started some variations on year round gardening in Idaho (Zone 4). More things were buried in the snow like root crops and kale and later harvested from one end of the row to another on sunny days. When we moved to such a mild, cool climate it was fun to see how far I could stretch the growing seasons. (Of course I had to forget about melons, and tomatoes and peppers are a maybe most years) At that time there were still a lot of "heirloom" variety of seed sources available that were specific to this local. I feel blessed to be able to go out into the garden and pick dinner whatever the time of year Very Happy

It is kind of like having the pantry full without the work of canning (which I am terrible at Twisted Evil

).

_________________
~Jewell
If a you have but two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one to sustain your life, and a flower with the other to give you a reason to live. ~Chinese Proverb