Growing Greens Indoors in Winter

In the polar vortex regions, gardeners are often looking for the magic formula to have healthy greens during the winter. There's always extending the season under cold frames, polytunnels and by bringing vegetables into a cellar or processing them to eat later by canning, freezing and drying but what about growing? Growing is so much fun. Some people have had enough of a break by January that they want to get their hands dirty again. Well, let me enable you with these four techniques:

1. Sprouting roots


Photo from a previous post where I also explore fridge sprouting and a great book on Salad Greens.

In my experience, this is by far the easiest. It can be done with roots you grew yourself and stored in a cellar* OR you can do it with the roots from your C.S.A. delivery OR the Organic Farmer's Market OR really any root you get from the grocery store.

Simply, get a vegetable that produces both edible greens and roots such as a beet and plant it so that it starts sending that stored rooty energy into making delicious fresh greeny goodness for you. Try it with:

• Onions: after all they are always sprouting in your drawer right?
• Garlic: this can even be done with crowded cloves in a dish of water
• Leek, Green Onions: Even after you cut off the greens to eat, just leave a portion with the roots
• Beets: Beet greens are yummy (you can do this with Swiss Chard too if you have taken in your own roots or happen to find some with roots at you veg. supplier)
• Carrots: I don't find these thrilling greens but it can be done.
• Dandelions: For milder greens, grow without light
• Chicory, all sorts: Particular types are used to produce Belgium Endive by forcing the roots in the dark
• Celery, celeriac
• Parsley
• Sweet Potatoes: Yes, these have edible greens too. 
• Turnips
• And more, just make sure the greens are edible (as not all tubers produce edible greens)

Celery and walking onion growing on my window sill.

2. Sprouting seeds

Second up comes seed sprouting. There is no lack of internet-searchability on this subject but it's essentially germinating the seed and eating them at the baby plant stage. Make sure that you use seeds and seedlings that are safe to eat. Good candidates from your own garden are mustards, broccoli, dill and other plants that produce an abundance of seed. You can go quite sophisticated with specialized tailor made equipment or as simple as a glass jar. All sorts of grains, herb seeds and vegetable seeds are used though it is suggested that some of them are eaten cooked. For ideas, you could go to one of the commercial sites to gander at their extensive lists.

3. Microgreens and cut and come again salads


Growing pea shoots in winter.

The older siblings of sprouts, microgreens are allowed to grow a touch bigger. I'm a fan of pea shoots that are easy to grow on a windowsill in winter. They can be grown in a shallow dish of water or in soil. If allowed to get big enough to cut down in bunches, you get the holy grail of indoor salads, the cut and come again.** Succession sow a new tray every few weeks as they may peter out quickly in crowded, less than ideal growing conditions.

4. Aquaponics!

Okay, so the reason I was inspired to write this post was because fellow blogger at Whistling Girls and Crowing Hens has ventured into the fascinating world of clay balls, fish tubs, and worms to grow her winter salads. For those of you with an empty basement corner looking for a fun project, this might be your solution. Instead of stumbling through my own description, I'll let her take you on an aquaponic adventure.

* There are lots of cellar designs, including ones build into a corner of your basement, but roots will also store a long time in the fridge (and eventually sprout there).
** The holy grail is probably the indoor tomato but that would deserve its own post.

Edible Gardening Workshop

Because I love going on and on about edible gardening, I gave a workshop for the Ottawa Homeschoolers. As they gave me the mandate of 'talk about gardening from seed starting to seed saving,' it ended up being borderline for T.M.G.I. or Too Much Gardening Information! So here is a synopsis of my endless stream of words, with links.

Where can I grow edibles?

Do you have clean dirt? No, then you can grow in pots. Otherwise, these are things you do NOT need to grow edibles:

1. Full Sun - Lots of edibles, including traditional vegetables do just fine in 4-6 hours of sun, even in 2-4 hours of sun or dabbled shade. I write lots of about shade crops here.
2. Well drained soil - the soil texture you have will effect how plants grow but choosing wisely will allow you to grow edibles practically anywhere.
* Dry soil - xeriscaping edibles from this blog.
* Wet soil edibles from Plants for a Future
* Mother Earth News on Shade Vegetables


When do you start seeds?

All year round! Other than this link to Seed Starting, An Irreverant Primer where there is lots of info and a link to a spreadsheet created by I Wet My Plants, here are some other things we talked about.

1. Wintersowing - the technique of using crafty mini-greenhouses to start plants outside
2. Half winter sowing or indoor/outdoor growing - fun way to start tomatoes
3. Fall Gardens - why give up on the garden after summer? Grow snow to snow! If you are feeling especially adventurous, season extension in a cold frame may even allow you to harvest most of the year.
4. In situ fall sowing - Lots of hard to germinate plants such as some edibles (sweet cicely, turnip rooted chevril), wildflowers and fruit trees need a period of moist stratification. This can be done inside but is super easy to do by enlisting nature's help. Just sow in fall in a marked bed. Tada! If sowing something tasty to rodents such as fruit pits, you'll want to use small gage chicken wire to exclude them. I use a pot filled with sand that I bury to germinate fruit seeds.
5. ... and not everything is a tomato - How the other vegetables are grown.

Books
The four season harvest (or anything else) by Coleman. Keep in mind that he is an intensive market grower but he has lots to say to the backyard organic veggie gardener too.


What should I grow?

We didn't go into as much detail on this as I would have liked so I will expand. When choosing what vegetables to grow, especially when you have a small plot, there are (at least) three options.

1. Grow vegetables that are easily contaminated by deathicides, are expensive bought and taste significantly better when homegrown. Funnily enough, these are often the same ones as thin skinned fruits meet all three criterea. A good example: raspberries. Tomatoes too are fantastic homegrown.

2. Calorie crops is an option for someone that really wants to grow their own. It focuses on using legumes and easy to thresh grains along with starchy vegetables such as potatoes. Some literature about 'calorie crops' talks about intensive gardening/farming which may or may not be feasible depending on your access to resources. Some techniques also tends to rely on double digging and intensive water use which may be short sighted in the long term.

3. Favor perennials or self sowing annuals whenever possible. Why not try a food forest? This is a technique that combines useful trees, bushes and plants into a layered system. It can be resistant to diseases and pests because of its diverse nature, can be very attractive and has a good productivity when plants are chosen wisely compared to work required after the initial set up.

Books

* Gaia's Garden by Hemenway - intro book to permaculture techniques
* Edible Forest Gardens by Jacke and Toensmeier - never read but looks good
* Perennial Vegables by Toensmeier - fun!
* The New Food Garden by Tozer - excellent!!
* Unusual Fruits for Every Garden by Reich - enlightening.
* HomeGrown Whole Grains by Pitzer - good resource
- how to process Amaranth (for C.)
* The Resilant Gardener by Deppe (about self sustainability and calorie crops. She's a great author and I'm sure it is full of useful information. I have not had the opportunity to read this highly rated book but she's made excellent contributions to gardening literature before so I'm going to recommend it anyway.)
* Culinary Herbs by Small

Sources for Fruit & Nut Trees
- I don't have these down yet in a convenient list so this is my next post, swear.

Websites:

Plants for a Future - perennial edible and useful plant resource, double check info as it is European skewed and remember that there is almost always conflicting info so it's best to get more than one independent source.
Urban Farmer - permaculture design resource


Soil Secrets

Good dirt is a symbiotic creation of numerous organisms including invertebrates, fungi and plants. Without plants, in fact, you would not have the sort of 'soil' that supports the growth of complex systems such as forests. This is why when you expose dirt, you get the germination of weeds. It is not because there is a problem with your soil. It is a function of the metacreature/ecosystem 'soil' to repair the scar that has developed across its surface with more growth. Without a cover of plants or mulch, the humus is exposed to the elements speeding up its breakdown, as well as being subjecting to erosion by soil and water. This is why overtilling degrades the soil. Over digging will also breakup good soil structure that allows for water and root penetration.

Sometimes, such as when starting or improving poor soils, you dig. Some people also insist that they have to expose heavy soils to early spring sunshine or they won't warm sufficiently fast enough for certain crops to grow well. Also, certain difficult weeds need to be removed or smothered if there is any hope of an easy to care for garden. Otherwise, normal digging such as when a plant is removed or tubers are harvested is all the digging that should be required. I also recommend edging gardens to keep out invading sod/grass twice a year.

When starting a garden, it is easiest to use no-dig methods such as Lasagna Gardening or Sheet Mulching or the Stout Method. Raised garden beds to will solve a multitude of problems.

So if you want an easy to care for garden, remember to leave no soil bare for long because nature will fix that problem for you rather quickly by filling in the gaps using its soil seed bank. By the way, you can change the balance of the soil seed bank by allowing desireable plants go to seed. That way, when you disturb the soil, you'll get a high percentage of plants you would like to see growing, along with the weeds. I've seen this develop in my old garden. What a pleasant surprise. Otherwise, mulch and plant. Work with the metacreature: soil.


Weeds

There are lots of reasons to love weeds, especially those that are relatively easily controlled. Beyond keeping the soil covered and protected, they can act to improve it.

1. Green Manure: If you pull weeds before flowering and they aren't the kind that easily reroot or set seed anyhow - such as purslane but then again it is edible - just throw them back on the soil surface. You'll be working with nature by covering the soil but also adding those nutrients back.

2. They provide a habitat for lots of beneficial insects and creatures (along with the occasional pest). Reseacher Hida Manns writes about the benefits of leaving strips of naturally occuring plants between her vegetable rows. She manages these by cutting them back so they don't compete for light with her vegetables. She also uses a version of sheet mulching to build gardens. If you thought the other methods of sheet mulching were easy, you should see what she does. As she said, several of her babies were born at the beginning of the growing season so low care gardens were a priority.

3. Many weeds are edible. Purslane, lamb's quarters, wild amaranth, dandelion etc... are among the most common garden weeds are all edible!


Pests and Diseases

When it comes to having a healthy garden, think good soil (remember the metacreature I'm going to call ploilsant - sounds exotic right?) and diversity. Plant lots of different plants together to break up sight, scent and other signals of pests, rotate where annual plants are grown but keep in mind that diseases sometimes stay in the soil much longer than the often quoted 4 year cycle. Here's more the difficulty of using rotation in a small gardening situation.

Before freaking about a new pest, use the three year rule. First year, identify the pest and do your best to exclude it from your plants or remove it using hand picking. Second year, use the methods of exclusion, inclusion, rotation and removal,* along with observing the pest. If it is still a problem in the third year, strategize about how to live with it. You may need to keep certain weeds or habitats out of your garden which are allowing the pest to overwinter. You may need to use row covers, trap crops or you may choose to stop growing the plant all together in favour of something easier. In a heatlhy, diverse garden, I've noticed, that most pests are not plagues every year but fade in and out depending on conditions.

* Exclusion, inclusion, rotation and removal? Exclude the bug using barriers like cutworm collars and floating row cover, include lots of habitat for beneficials and mix up plants, rotate plant groups including growing types (roots versus heavy feeders for example), and remove pests when you see them.

Links:

Keeping Bugs out or is that in?


Hot Season and Cool Season Crops

Read more about how to heat up your soil to grow sweet potatoes or peppers successfully here. On the other hand, if you can never get a descent broccoli, go here. And lastly, think fall gardening for lots of cool season crops that bolt in the dog days of summer.

Season Extension

Books

Anything by Coleman or other books on 12 month/four season gardening
Sweet Potatoes for the Home Garden by Allan


Seed Saving and Plant Breeding

We didn't manage to go into too much detail on this very interesting subject but to recap, I think everyone should save seeds. It's fun and it's pretty easy! The common obstacles to overcome are knowing what plant you're growing. Does it self fertilize or need others of its kind to make seeds? Does it need bugs to move pollen around or will wind work? Will it cross with another vegetable and do I care? How many plants do I need to produce healthy offspring? Here I go on about seed saving, the rules and breaking them.

Another useful thing about letting plants go to seed, beyond the fact that many volunteer and create semi-feral populations like kale and orach, is that many provide food or habitat for useful insects.

Books:

Seed to Seed by Ashcroft - authorative
How to Breed your own Vegetable Varities by Deppe - great and fun

***

Looking for someone to talk on any of these subjects or on my favourite subject, ornamental edible gardening, feel free to contact me at Ottawa Gardener at live dot com, no spaces.

Happy Summer Solstice Harvest Day

This harvest sun medley includes Evans sweet/sour cherry, Red Lake current, a garlic scape, the first zuke of the year, some mint, a couple gooseberries, a josta berry and Long Red cayenne pepper.

Happy longest day of the year everyone!

My harvest today consists of lots of berries which is surprising if you know that my children are nicknamed 'Worse than the Birds.' Thankfully, my hubby asked them not to eat ALL the cherries before I returned from my trip, anticipating that I'd like to capture the moment. The strawberries were not so lucky or perhaps I should say are adding their antioxidant goodness to my children's bodies. Currants and gooseberries are going as fast as they ripen. Actually, they go a smidgen before they are completely ripe which is perhaps why the birds miss out.

The Cayenne peppers are mostly from last winter's flowers but there were a couple fruits that started in early spring. This plant, I am happy to report, is 5 years old! It is not large but it keeps pumping out the peppers like a trooper.

Summer Solstice Sowing

Just as there is a tradition of wintersowing on the winter solstice, you can make do a little sowing on the longest day of the year too. It is a good time to start long season fall garden crops like Brussel Sprouts, fall cabbage, cauliflower and some peas. You may want to start your brassicas in pots or a nursery bed to avoid slug leveling. Some roots such as carrots and beets can also be started now for a sizeable crop to cellar. As for greens, kale, chard, even quick maturing leeks and other biennials can go in the ground now but I would avoid annuals that bolt in hot weather until later in the season. Some of you may be removing your spring greens or peas if you are not waiting for the seeds, so replace those crops with something that matures best in the cool weather of fall.

Unlike spring, the temperatures may be soaring and the ground drier, so make sure to keep the ground moist. Some tricks include, planting seeds in the shade of another plant such as in polycropping*, using a germination board, or planting in hollows or furrows. Consider a sunken seed bed and mulch well when the seedlings are up and growing.

The ideal time for planting your fall garden depends on the plant with some needing to go in the ground around the beginning of June and some not until near the end of August. Take the amount of time that the crop generally takes to mature in your garden and add a couple weeks to compensate for lowered amount of sun and cooler weather. Then remember that every year is a series of weather surprises so don't take schedules too seriously except as I say when it comes to the longest maturing crops and bolting annuals. Experiment, have fun, sow seeds.



* There weren't any straight forward links to the definition of polycropping but it is quite simply the opposite of moncropping - ie, planting more than one crop together. For example, I have read of interplanting beets, beans and corn - a variation on the three sisters. The plants are given adequate space that they can all thrive with beans climbing the corn and the slightly shaded beets poking out between.

***

For more info on when I usually plant vegetables

Mother Earth News on Grow Your Best Fall Garden

Animation of Summer Solstice

Harvest Monday - Forcing Roots

Tips of hamburg rooted parsley show their greens.

-- edited to include a new link - check it out.--

If you don't want to set a coldframe or polytunnel to winter greens, you can set up a cellar. Still sound like work? Okay, lots of roots store for quite some time at the back of the fridge. When you are ready to eat some fresh leaves, take out these roots, put them in a pot of moist sand and stick them some place warm. You can even eat part of the root and still get a harvest. These 'carrot' rooted parsley sprouts are coming out of about a quarter inch of crown at the top of the root that is placed in a shallow dish of water. That's enough parsley for most recipes - not tabouleh; I would have had to save a couple inches more root for that.

Greens of certain plants are bitter such as chicory. To make sweeter, more tender shoots, force in darkness. Chicons, sold in supermarkets as Belgian Endive are made from varieties of chicory such as Witloof de Brussels.

Here some roots to force for edible greens:

1. Beets
2. Hamburg Parsley
3. Celariac - strongly flavoured, try dark forcing or use sparingly

4. Carrot - never tried them though there are many references to eating the greens*.

5. Dandelion - I like dark forcing this one

6. Chicory - dark forcing produces tender, pale shoots that are less bitter

7. Scorzonera and probably Salsify

8. Turnip

9. Raddish

10. Horseradish - young shoots have a strong, interesting flavour.

11. Sweet Potatoes** (Ipomoea batatas)- tips of shoots are edible, store cured roots in a warm location.

12. Onions and garlic

Other good candidates may be found in plants with edible greens / shoots that have roots that can be lifted and stored with relative ease. If you have a suggestion, add it in the comments. I'd love to try it.

* My research leads me to believe that eating carrot greens is good for you but they are a bit fiborous so there are various mentions of 'juicing' them. With new or marginal food, always do lots of triple checking and start with a small amount first.
** Don't eat regular potato Solanum tuberosum greens as they contain poisonous alkaloids which is why your mom always told you to cut the green parts off.

***
Harvest Day Roots of Fall

Eliot Coleman author of books about season extension and organic market gardening. Most libraries carry various titles.

High Desert Garden has a lovely post with great pictures of growing garlic shoots.

Fun in Arnprior and a little name dropping

Yesterday I went to give a talk to the good folks of the Arnprior Garden Club and had a fantastic time. Not only were they welcoming but interspersed my droning on about the technicalities of Season Extension, Seed Saving and Permanent Vegetables (thanks Stephen for this term) with lively commentary.


BTW: I am not in this picture and it is not of the talk. It does however capture their good times. This is a picture of a recent hypertufa planter demonstration.

If you are gardening obsessed and live in or around Arnprior, why not attend one of their meetings held at the local library so you can meet this friendly group for yourself!

***

And now for the Name Dropping

During the discussion, above and beyond the resource list, I rattled off various garden guru's names. For those of you that didn't have the benefit of a pencil, or the general readership (sounds gradiose doesn't it?) is interested, here goes*:

The Extreme Gardener (not to be confused with merely Extreme Gardener)- She's a permaculturelist blogger in Vermont with lots of knowledge who (unlike this blogger) appears to carefully write and edit her posts. Well worth a look if you like growing your own edibles. I mentioned her technique of heavily mulching sugarhat chicory to extend the harvest.

Tim Peters - One of the many plant breeder extraordinaires who has flag shipped and participated in many breeding projects including the effort to create perennial grain crops. I'll sneakily use this to also reintroduce you to the most excellent and political blogger, Bifucated Carrot to give you more of the scoop. Peters Seed and Research

Tom Wagner - A plant breeder who I know as the 'potato man' because of his interest in breeding disease resistant tubers as well as distributing TPS (true potato seed). Impressive picture of his disease resistant potato stock growing alongside blighted ones. Pay close attention to the pictures shown on the bottom of this page 2 thread. Right now, he's on tour giving talks in Europe with Michelle aka The Seed Man.

Dan Jason from Salt Spring Seeds - A member mentioned that he let his wilted tomatoes grow back. Beyond his Seed Site, he also has a Seed Sanctuary which is well worth the look.

Wild Gardens seeds - Just drumming up support for orach again. Here's a good listing of varieties but you are also welcome to contact me about my seed offer in the post below this one.

The Edible Hosta Project - A regular Homegrown Goodness contributor has put together a project to rate the palatibility of different hostas which are... drumroll... edible. He calls the tasty spring shoots hostons and prepares them much in the same way as spinach. He is also the origin of my use of the term 'Permanent Vegetable' which are vegetables that have annual / biennial life habits but so dependably self seed in your garden as to be considered permanent residents. I admit to extending this definition a bit to include perrenials as well on occasion. (sorry)

Frank's Cool Site - This is on the resource list but I don't think I have made mention of it yet on this blog which is a terrible oversite of mine so if you thought you could name a goodly proportion of vegetables, then cross check with his expansive list.

*Yes, I admit that was unreasonably link heavy but remember the initial buzz of the term hyperlinked when we thought we all wanted to play labryrinth with internet pages? I just thought I'd bring some of that back to you.

What no fall garden plans?

Quick, pull those garlic bulbs and throw down some brassica seeds - you know chinese lettuce, kale, turnips. Or maybe clear out that spent pea patch and toss in some heat tolerant loose leaf lettuce or some carrots. It's time for the fall garden preparation.


Lettuce and mustard, both prefer growing in cooler weather.

I know what your thinking. You started the season off with a gusto. The garden edges were neat, the beds weedless but now your a bit more relaxed as you sit in the garden with your choose of cool beverage watching the tomatoes ripen. So what if there are a couple dandelions in bloom around the edges. You like dandelions. Besides, your back is still aching from all that shovelling in the spring.

So you'll be happy when I tell you that planting a fall garden is as easy as 1.2.3

1. Look for some quick growing, cold/frost tolerant plant seeds at the bottom of your seed box. Think cabbage family members, greens and root crops. Don't forget plants that tend to bolt when the hot weather hits like florence fennel.

2. Go outside and find a bare patch of ground or clear away some plant debris from old flowers or vegetables. Toss those seeds down.

3. Make sure you water frequently, especially in the heat of summer.

Done.

Now, if you remember, do some weeding and thinning for optimun growth but if you don't, you might next year after you see the results. Some time in September, your tomatoes will feel the sting of frost. Beans and pumpkins vines will be shrivelled brown revealing behind them a sea of green. Radicchio will be forming crisp red heads. Lettuce will splay out in fans and tightly coiled buds of broccoli will be raising on the ends of thick stalks.

The season will not be over for you. Using a coldframe or some simple plastic tents (I'll elaborate another time but google season extension), you can keep out the bitter winds and those first dustsings of snow too extending your harvest even longer.

So what are you still doing sucking back that cold one? Go find some arugula seeds and sow!

N.S.D. approaches

That's right, No Snow Day approaches, revealing the sights of evergreen and brown leaves, the sounds of birds returned, the feel of soft mud under foot and the smells... well the smells of all that stuff and more thawing.


Winter sown lettuce seeds - Red Iceberg Lettuce (not pink, I stand corrected if not correctly) growing stronger.

Shoots are shooting and bulbs are blooming though today's rain prevented me from snapping an open crocus, here's a closed one.


Snow drops, snow crocus, anything with snow in the title is a welcome sight after the long Ottawa winter. Anything except just snow.

It's time to assess what survived in the now open coldframes and that includes bietina (thin stemmed swiss chard also known as perpetual beet), earth chestnut, sperling top bunching onion, varigated chicory (don't remember the variety right now, sorry folks), scorzonera, parsley and corn salad.


Salad medley in the coldframe by their fallen brethen. It was a hard winter for the under glass class.

In the garden proper, the overwintered edibles like top setting onion (also known walking / egyptian onion), rhubarb and garlic are early entries in greening up.


I like these strange yellow red eggs that will be delicious rhubarb desserts in a couple months.

I think I might go back to that coldframe and make me a salad. Ah spring.

Coldframe roll call

Snow on the spiral garden (and everywhere else for that matter).


This year has been a real winter. It has been the kind of winter that old timers say is how 'it was when I was a kid.' We're not just talking a lot of snow either but bone shattering, teeth clattering, skin freezing cold. The wind chills have been dipping below - 35.



Commercial 'coldframes' made of aluminum and plastic covered by a low tunnel.


Today is relatively mild so I was willing to go outside and do a little coldframe roll call. Will anything be alive in there? Wilted leaves and the smell of rotting vegetation greeted me along with a bit of green.


Mache / Corn Salad



Corn salad has the small spoon like leaves.


Normally, corn salad laughs at the cold and is edible all winter. The fact that the outer leaves are frost bitten, I think is testament to how cold it has been.


Bietina / Perpetual Spinach





A form of Swiss Chard with thin petioles and green leaves, it has proven hardy enough to have survived. It may have helped that the deadened outer leaves sheltered the growing heart in the middle. The regular swiss chard 'Forkhook' was not so lucky.


Radicchio and Bunching Onion






Both were still alive though the outer leaves of the radicchio were frost bitten.


Scorzonera





After hearing tales of the tasty spring leaves of scorzonera as a substitute for lettuce, I was very excited to try them. They seem to be alive and well so far.


Earth chestnut





A bit of an experiment, I decided to try the perennial Bunium bulbocastaneum which has edible tubers. The seeds can also be used as a cumin substitute and the leaves are similar to parsley. It is proving to be quite hardy.


Parsley





I may have mentioned before that my nickname for italian flat leaf parsley is 'polar bear.' Seriously, this herb is a survivor. Not only does shrug off heat but cold as well. It also self seeds reliably in my garden. One year, I was soft hearted in my thinning and had so much parsley that I was giving it away to my neighbours.


Tatsoi and broccoli





This tatsoi is one of the few survivors. It was located in the middle of the coldframe so it was more insulated from the unrelenting cold. The broccoli plants still seem to be alive as well though their leaves are frost singed. We'll see if they start regrowing now that the light levels are increasing.


The weeds





And finally, here is a weed whose name is escaping me. Anyone? It, along with ox-eye daisy meerily growing away.


What did not make it?


The kale and mustard seedlings were eaten by slugs, I think. Rapini bit the dust with the first really cold weather as did the florence fennel. I think I'll have to try heavy mulch for the florence fennel next year. It survived at least until -15 celcius I think in the coldframe, just repeated bouts of -25 were too much for it!

Time to start sowing seeds - wintersown

Sunny Snow Sprinkles
Feel free to suggest a better name but check it out, if you look close you will see that it is snowing and sunny at the same time.



Wintersown
I ran into this idea a few years back. A creative gardener decided to try her hand at sowing seeds outdoors in the middle of winter in mini-greenhouses using recycled material. Not only is this the ideal method for anything that requires some sort of stratification or that naturally sows itself in your area, it is used on tomatoes (etc) too! I have never tried the latter so I'll give it a whirl this year.

I highly recommend you check out this innovative and creative technique:

http://www.wintersown.org/wseo1/index.html

My old blog's adventures in making the pop bottle type.

***

Hey I logged on for Harvest Monday? Well today I am harvesting from my root cellar, freezer, and indoor counter tops. I'll brave the coldframe next week.

Harvest Day - colder snap, chard reborn

Swiss Chard in double wrapped coldframe.

Two weeks now of -20 and lower have meant that the coldframe has gone into deep freeze. The florence fennel is definitely frozen from the bulb up but I have hopes for the taproot. The rabe is toast, the broccoli is shivering, the tatsoi is popping back to life and I think the slugs have made off with the mustard seedlings. My kale is covered in at least a foot and a half of snow (the ones in the coldframe were slug food. )The beautiful calendula that was in bloom has collapsed but it taught me the value of flowers in the coldframe if just to lift the spirit and I think I"ll add some pansies or violas next year. Onions looking bleek but I know they are far from dead and the minutina and corn salad are hanging in there. Radicchio is still alive by the looks of it, cilantro?, and the parsley is a polar bear, ie. bring on the cold! As for the chard and its friend bietina, they died back but the crowns are sprouting again as you can see in the above picture.

Harvest Day - cold snap and the coldframe

We have had a cold snap for the last couple weeks bringing temperatures significantly below freezing, even reaching the double digits at times and that's not even counting the biting windchills during the day which I saw as low as minus 16C. These plummeting temperatures have frozen the top layer of soil and killed off many of the cold hardy vegetables that remain in the garden, though some of the kales are still holding on. Tonight it has started to snow and by tomorrow we are expecting around 15cm.

Here is the ground in the garden today:


Pea shoots, mustard greens and kale in the frozen garden.

My polytunnel is usually a peaked structure that I can stand in but some changes meant that it is temporarily a low tunnel covered in vapour plastic over commercial coldframes. Next year, my hubby and I will be designing and building a more interesting and insulated greenhouse and I look forward to it!

Meanwhile, how are the plants inside?


Calendula in flower, coriander, bunching onion and a radicchio I think, along with others.

Alive!

The florence fennel which some suspicious, though published, print sources say is hardy to zone 4 (I think the other quote of zone 7 is probably more on the money but we'll see) has broken tops and minimum cold damage and the chard, along with some other plants, have fainted but I know the chard for one will recover quickly. All in all, things look not too bad. This week the temps will be closer to normals for this time of year, hovering around 0C, which might allow for some recovery.

I'll be cleaning off snow tomorrow.

And another thing... season extension - edited

Edited: couldn't live with the typos and wanted to interject a great point from Bishop's homegrown.

Just thought of some other great ideas for season extension that I forgot in my previous post.


Garden 2007, I think. See the tree in the photograph - read the third paragraph to find out its important.

Site of garden

If you haven't already comitted to a place for your veggie patch then look for a place that gets at least 6 hours of sun (normally on the south / souteast corner). If you have a wind break on the north and west side then you'll create a sunny, sheltered microclimate. Evergreens make great wind breaks but some productive bushes work too. Another thing you could do is to add a stone or brick wall on the north side (this will be south facing as you put your back against it and face south) of your garden to catch heat. If you are lucky enough to have a brick walled house with a south facing wall then you could build a lean-to greenhouse against it and I will be very envious of you.

Other important aspects of citing your garden are that the soil is close to neutral pH and is well drained and fertile. A well drained area where the grass grows most lush often will work well, assuming that it has adequate sun. Of course if you have only poorly drained, partially shaded ground or concrete, edibles can still be grown. I'll write a post soon.

Raised beds

These will heat up faster in the spring. Also if you slant your beds so they create a slight south facing hill, you'll also increase the warmth and growing season.

Plant near a polite** tree

Okay, let me be contraversial for a moment. I have a garden that is on the north-eastern side of my yard with a giant oak tree due north, partially overhanging so you know that oak roots traverse the whole of the veggie patch. Produce grows with heady abandon in this garden nonetheless and the tree helps. Hey? Didn't they teach you that you shouldn't place a vegetable patch near a tree. Well, take heart urban gardeners who have no choose but to grow their food with loaming shadows of nearby trees, it can be done. My tree casts little shadow because it's on the north side and it isn't one of the greediest rooted trees, but best of all, its root system warms up the soil early in the season and keeps mild frosts at bay late in the season. Seriously, I have seen ground frost everywhere but around the root system of this oak. I guess it acts a little bit like a heating cable once the sap gets running in the spring and before the tree is dormant in the fall. Crazy cool eh?

It also drops an abundant mulch of oak leaves for my pathes. I have yet to notice problems with soil acidity though I do add add compost and manure so maybe it evens out. And if that wasn't enough, according to Roots Demystified, the tree can even help water the garden - but you'll have to read that book to find out the details. It's available at the Ottawa Library.

** Bishop's Homegrown made a great point and is one of my favourite reasons for comments - to improve and expand the web of information. Polite tree means one that does not exude growth restricting hormones such as black walnut and is not a greedy feeder so that very little has the luck to grow beneath it. If grass, perennials or other plants grow well 6 feet out from the trunk (right beneath the tree will be pretty shaded) then it'll probably be fine to plant a veggie patch nearby. Remeber, that if it is to the north, it won't cast as much shade.

***

paper on wind breaks

Fall Garden and Season Extension - a question

A fellow member of plantcycle recently came round to my house to pick up some tubers of Jeruselum Artichoke and Chinese Artichoke and to ask me about the techniques I use for season extension. I ended up showering her with seeds as is my way and thought that her question was worthy of a post.


Fall crops overflowing the soon to be covered coldframe.

Growing Season - frost to frost?

Gardeners often describe their growing season as lasting from the last frost to the first frost but another way to look at it is from when the ground is workable until it is frozen in the fall. The frost to frost season in Ottawa is 4-5 months long but the workable season is around 7-8 months long. That's a heck of a lot more time to grow stuff. If you add some simple season extension devices like coldframes, tunnels, row covers and plastic mulch, you can add another month or two to that season bringing the possible amount of growing season in Ottawa to 9 months of the year!


Tomato - the gateway vegetable

When it comes to growing your own, tomatoes rank high in my list of gateway vegetables. As people often start their veggie patch on things like pumpkins, tomatoes and cucumbers, they make a habit of not planting or seeding until after the last spring frost date which in Ottawa happens sometime in mid-May (occasionally as late as early June and as early as late April). As the snow hangs around in Ottawa sometimes into April, it may mean that the ground isn't really diggable until the beginning of April anyhow so people just wait until the magic long May weekend to seed their carrots and lettuce as well.

By the time those tomatoes are killed off by the first frosts near the end of Sept, the lettuce has long gone to seed and those cabbage starts bought at a garden centre in those first warm spring days have been eaten up. The leaves fall and the season seems well and truly finished but it does not have to be that way.


Coldframe with a healthy crop of parsley inside.

Some like it hot, many take it not

Members of the tomato family which such as potatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries etc... take no frost so transplants are placed out after the last frost date. Most vining crops such as pumpkins, squash, and beans are the same so they are also seeded when temperatures exceed 4C at night.

However, there are some vegetable families that will take it a lot cooler and these include most of the brassica family (mustards, cabbages, kale, rocket), spinach/goosefoot family (orach, spinach, swiss chard, beets), and the composite family (chop suey greens, chicory, lettuce). Many other root crops can be started a few weeks before last frost and several varities of legumes can be planted as soon as the ground is workable such as peas. The allium family has lots of examples of cool weather lovers from garlic, leeks to wild and perennial onions.

Cabbage started transplanted early with cutworm collars (those toilet paper rolls and cups) and pop bottles filled with water to help catch some heat for release at night (crossed fingers) to help moderate the temperatures. On really cold nights, I cover with a row cover or frost blanket.

Most good gardening books will have a calendar in the back which tells you when you place crops in the ground but here are some rules of thumb that I use.

1. Peas and parsnips as soon as the ground can be worked
2. Cool weather greens like spinach seeded under cover (coldframe and greenhouse) when soil is no longer frozen which can be as early as March 1
3. Plants that can take it cold like broccoli or leeks but will bolt if exposed to temperatures that are too cold planted very early but under cover
4. Fall gardens are planted mid-summer and include brussel sprouts, short season cabbage, kale, mustard, rocket, endive, lettuce, root crops, chicories like radicchio, mache, claytonia, florence fennel etc... I don't plant all of these out July 1 but plant according to how long it takes to mature a crop either outdoors or in a coldframe if that's where they are going. I also tend to start the cool weather loves in the light shade of a taller plant so that they are not exposed to full force of the summer sun. Some of the very fast baby leaf greens are started in August or even September.
5. Some plants started way in the spring can be left in the ground until very hard frosts or heavy snow threatening such as long season cabbage, parsnips and celariac.
6. I leave roots like carrots and jeruselum artichokes in the ground until frozen ground is on its way. You can also heavily mulch the ground over carrots, and beets etc... so that the ground is diggable later into the season. I use autumn leaves for mulch but eventually I bring in all my roots so I don't have to uncover them in the freezing cold outside. They are kept in a cellar under our stairs.

A list of cold hardy plants can be found in The Four Season Harvest by Coleman.

Polytunnel, Ottawa Gardener style - it will be changed into something all together different next year. Notice that it has a peaked roof. That's to prevent it flattening under our sometimes really heavy snow falls. A gothic roof is supposed to work too.

Under Cover

Some days it looks like I am growing plastic in the garden what with the polytunnel, cloches and row covers covering everything. I use coldframes and low tunnels to grow salad greens earlier and later into the season. A coldframe is a box of some sort made of wood or even straw bales with a top that is called a light and is made of any material that can let in sunlight such as an old storm window or plexiglass. My current coldframes are aluminum frames stretched with a kind of clear tent material. A low tunnel is nearly the same as a high tunnel except for - surprise surprise - the low one isn't as tall. They are both simple greenhouse structures that are made by stretching clear plastic (I use vapour barrier) over a frames - normally a hoop shape. Most years, I build a polytunnel / hoophouse / high tunnel overtop of my coldframes to increase the warmth inside. This is a technique I first read about in The Four Season Harvest by Coleman. Depending on your climate, you can just use a polytunnel to protect your winter crops from inclement weather and to increase the warmth for hot season crops like melons.

In the spring, I mulch the ground with clear plastic to warm the soil for some crops that are marginal for Ottawa including melons, and sweet potatoes (old blog). This also greatly improves the growth of peppers, eggplants and tomatoes as well. Ken Allan, from which I learned about this technique, also uses it for basil.

Black tire was covered with plastic to start melons (plastic mulch next picture).

As I often try to push the envelope and plant out my tomatoes in mid-May or even earlier, I put up a simple low tunnel frame around the bed so I can toss on some plastic if a late frost threatens.

I also use row covers to exclude insects and to improve growing conditions of early crops of leeks and brassicas like broccoli. A row cover is a light floating poly spun material. It can either be laid loosely ontop of the crop, with the edges secured or be laid over a frame. It will offer a couple degrees of frost protection. For cabbage, lettuce and sometimes vining crop transplants, I have used large water bottles, or just pop bottles, that people toss in two ways. With the bottoms cut out they make great cloches which are essentially mini coldframes and with filled with water and placed around plants or in the polytunnel the water inside gathers the day's heat and releases it at night. I have also used frost blankets (the kind used to wrap evergreens) to throw over my coldframes on extremely coldnights as insulation. Speaking of which, if you have solid insulation laying about, you can also put this over a coldframe when the mecury drops to ridiculously low levels.

Plastic mulched ground, low tunnel and bricks to catch heat.

A list of frost hardy plants that have worked for me

1. Mache / corn salad - amazing! It will last through the coldest weather in a coldframe and in mid-summer, it will reseed itself to start next winter's crop.

2. Claytonia

3. Beets and beet greens. I find these will last until the true winter cold hits but then the root starts to become mush.

4. Swiss chard - under double cover (coldframe plus high tunnel), this has survived extremely low temperatures.

5. Kale - dies back in the middle of winter but resprouts in the spring. In the garden, I have had several kinds overwinter under the snow.

6. Brussel Sprouts - survived and cropped under the high tunnel

7. Cabbage - I have never tried to overwinter a cabbage with a full head but those that have been cut and are reheading will survive under snow cover fairly well. In the polytunnel, I have had them do well until I pulled them mid-January.

8. Chinese cabbage will live until the really cold weather

9. Bok choy types grew well when seeded early in the coldframes

10. Tat soi types seem to take snow and freezing

11. Collards lasted most of last winter outside until the -20s with depleted snow cover.

12. Turnips - grow fast and crop well in the fall / early winter in coldframes but can't survive extreme cold.

13. Kholrabi - grew well but froze solid and was unusable in the height of winter. Can be seeded early in a coldframe.

14. Egyptian onion / green onions - do well in a polytunnel / high tunnel

15. Leek transplants survive extreme temperatures in my high tunnel as baby plants and later in the early spring garden under a row cover. I didn't have any bolting which sometimes happens when exposed to long periods of cold.

16. Broccoli - cropped a pop bottle cloche and coldframe while there was still some snow outside.

Pop bottle cloche.

17. Cabbage - does well if planted while still a threat of snow but ground is thawed under a pop bottle cloche.

18. Spinach - does very well seeded early in the coldframe or in the garden

19. Peas - can be started very early in the high tunnel or garden. I grow a late crop for pea shoots in the fall.

20. Carrots - about 3/4? overwinter if given half the chance. They are often useable once the ground has thawed in the spring.

21. Parsnips - cold hardy is their middle name

22. Chicory - Green leaf types seem to overwinter in my garden - I'll write more after some more experimentation ;-)

23. Lettuce - Can be seeded early in the coldframe but grows slower than spinach. Good to transplant with long season cabbage as they are harvested while the cabbage are still small.

24. Rocket - handles the cold.

25. Parsley - Only had to plant this once and it has maintained a very cold hardy troop in my garden ever since, reseeding itself.

26. Mizuna - In Ottawa this crop is ideal as it seems to take the modestly warm summers we get and extreme cold under the coldframes

27. Dandelions - If you enjoy these, they will survive quite nicely in the coldframe.

28. Minituna - related to plaintain - perennial, self seeding (I haven't seen that yet), cold hardy and good in salad. I also use it as a pot herb.

I'll add more as I think of it.

Fall planted garlic beats the weed competition by starting growing again very early in the spring. I replace this early.