One thing you begin to realize the longer you garden is what little control you have over certain things, like the weather. Here in the Northeast, Spring has finally arrived, after a colder than normal March. This has set my planting schedule back a few weeks, just one of the many adjustments you learn to make during the gardening season.
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Depending on your location and planting schedule, it may soon be time to start thinking about starting those seeds indoors. If you are considering trying this for the first time, here is a simple stand that you can build quickly to get things started.
Even with snow on the ground our winter garden is still surviving. With the shorter days not much is really growing this time of year, but everything is still alive.
Throughout December we had several really nice harvests of lettuce, green onions, carrots, swiss chard and radishes. It was really nice having some fresh greens on a cold day. Continue reading
Even though we are still four weeks away from winter I am still considering our winter garden a success. As you can see in the photos, we have a lot of great vegetables still growing in the garden, even as we near the end of November. Continue reading
Despite the fact that the days are getting shorter and the weather is getting colder, our garden is doing really well. We have been harvesting carrots, radishes, lettuce, swiss chard, kale, arugula, and spinach. It’s a great time of year for greens.
One of the biggest challenges in having a winter garden is protecting it from the weather. Most people do not live in regions where the weather is perfect all year-round. So, in order to have a winter garden, most gardeners need some level of protection for their crops.
There are so many ways to protect your crops from the winter weather: greenhouses, high tunnels, low tunnels, cold frames, or a simple cover over wires. Each one of these options has its advantages and disadvantages, along with a wide range of expenses.
Yesterday, my wife and I attended The 6th Annual Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello, in Charlottesville, VA. This event was put on by Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. The focus of the event was heirloom gardening, but there was so much more to see and do.
Over the last few weeks we have been busy planting a few rows a week, in preparation for our winter garden. While our thoughts are on a winter garden a majority of our time has been spent harvesting and maintaining our current garden plots.
With the exception of our lettuce crop and one bad tomato plant, our gardens have been doing great this year. As you can see in the picture above, our green beans we planted at the end of July have really grown, we just started harvesting beans this week.
Refrigerator pickles are quite possibly the easiest pickle to make.They are, as the name suggests, pickles you keep in the refrigerator. I received the recipe from a family friend a few years ago and we have been making them each year since. Our children love them!
Even though it is still summer, its time to start thinking about the winter garden. Gardening in the winter is a little different from gardening in other seasons. The winter garden is more about harvesting then growing. For a winter garden you need to have all of your crops close to full size by the time the days start getting shorter and the weather starts getting colder.
The Year Round Harvest 
