Winter Garden

Yes, that is correct…I am experimenting with my very first winter garden.  I just learned about it past fall from a friend of mine who is an avid gardener.  Apparently, because of the mild winters in Maryland, it is possible to grow some of the ‘cold crops’ and thus enjoy gardening even during winter.

Now, if you have read some of my past posts about my attempts of gardening, you know that I am still pretty new to growing my own vegetables and you also know that ‘harvest time’ has not always been very bountiful for me.  Well, I am not ready to give up yet.  I love to garden, and even though it has mostly been flowers, I am willing to keep learning how to win the battle against the ‘hard to grow anything in  - clay soil’ in Maryland.

So once I found that I could grow some things in the winter, I right away decided to try it out.  So my dear sweet hubby, who is always willing to help me out with my outdoorsy activities regardless of his allergies, bought the stuff needed to built me my first raised bed and all the soil and fertilizer that was needed to fill it.  I also used another raised bed by the shed in which I had sunflowers growing through the summer and was now empty.  We got some stakes from our friends to hold up the plastic covers, planted some seeds, watered it and watched the miracle of God’s Creation unfold.

The garden consisted of radishes, beets, spinach and broccoli.  The radishes were the first ones up and done…and they were delicious.  Next year we are definitely going plant more of them…they were a success .

Once they were harvested I planted some elephant garlic in their place.

Elephant Garlic – must be the most delicious garlic I have ever tasted.  It has such a great flavour and a sweet taste once you cook it. It is doing very well and I do hope that by the time it is ready to harvest it will be as big as an elephant .

The beets…hmmm….well to be honest with you, I am not sure how they are doing.  I planted the seeds sometime in the beginning of November (as the rest of the garden).  They came up nice with lushes looking leaves at first, but I am sure that some of them have shrunk and died off since then.  I do not see any actual beets forming anywhere under the soil…so it may be that they are NOT doing well….or maybe it is still too early for them?  If you are an experienced gardener and know how to grow beets, you may be able to look at the photos and tell if they are doing well (or not) and give me some tips for future.  Feel free to comment  :).

In the photo below..the garlic is on the left and the beets are on the right.  What do you think?  Are the beets too small??

Spinach is doing good, so at least it looks as if it is.  I am not sure if by now I should have much more abundant heads of spinach or not, but the leaves do seems to be healthy looking and continue to grow bigger.  Does anyone know when I should harvest?  Should I let them get a certain size?  Right now – the largest leaves are about 3-4 inches.

The photo below has the spinach on the left (next to the broccoli).  Compare to to the overly leafy broccoli the spinach looks puny…is it?

And then there is the broccoli…my very first winter garden, my very first many things…including my very first broccoli.  And I am so excited to see the first few flowers appearing.  :)

This has been a very rewarding and exciting experience.  Of course we have had extremely mild winter, even for Maryland, so I am not sure how well my garden would do if it was colder.  It is only the end of January, so the cold may still come and then I will see what will happen with my little crop, but I sure hope to be able to taste some of it.

For now…we are all enjoying the weather…including the ‘spring bulb flowers’.