Winter gardens...not for the tender

So I decided to get off the over-hyped flu issue I addressed in earlier posts and go to something productive. My winter garden. This is my first winter garden and I'm looking forward to doing it well...hopefully. This is a great way to lessen the burden on your pocketbook, while at the same time making sure there aren't harmful chemicals in your food.

I used an area that had been used previously as a garden (we just moved here, so it wasn't ours) noted by the fact that we found a squash tag while hoe-ing it up. And found about 4 earthworms which is a good sign for the quality of soil we have to work with. I DID go out and purchase a bag of organic fertilizer that I can use every 2 months or so, just to make sure my plants are receiving all the nutrients they need. Also if you live in very cold climes (I live in the Puget Sound area so my winters-barring last- tend to be milder) you are going to want a cold frame, and most likely a mulch of some sort (hay or straw works really well!) A cold frame is something easily done on your own, but you can buy them as well. The easiest (and cheapest) way to build a cold frame is with some plastic sheeting (painter's plastic) and scrap lumber and build a short square frame over your plantings and staple your plastic sheeting around it as airtight as possible-then build a "lid" a square flat frame with painters plastic wrapped--you could even get fancy and put it on hinges, or you could do it like this blogger suggested.

I have started my seedlings inside (I started them last week, but it isn't too late) in some peat pots and will transplant them outside once they are about 5 weeks. Except for garlic-- you can actually buy a garlic bulb, separate the cloves, peel, and direct sow right into the soil. I found a fantastic hardneck variety at my Co-op that I am planting for spring harvest called "Korean Purple" 1 Bulb can yield about 10-12 bulbs in spring...yummy.

The plants I have decided to do besides the Korean Purple garlic are: Carrots, Broccoli, Salad Leaf Beets ( a two for one!), and Shallots

Other plants good for a Winter garden are Peppers, Cabbage, Chard, Mustard Greens, Collard Greens, Onions, and Leeks.

When you plant and grow in winter time, the plants go into a type of "survival mode" and store more sugar than in summer plantings, so you get much richer, sweeter flavors, than their summer counterparts.

After your seedlings are well established, you can plant them outdoors--make sure they get into the ground before it gets too hard, and put your mulch over them and then your cold frame atop that (or if you have already built your cold frame over your intended area, plant within and put the mulch atop your plantings and pop the lid closed)

Your plants will still need to be watered, which in VERY cold places can be tricky (for some areas a cold frame may not be enough-greenhouses may be a better bet.) but make sure you aren't putting too warm of water on your plants--too extreme differences in temperature can shock your plants. Most of these plants are pretty hardy, especially to be able to survive winters, and don't need too much looking after, about every other day should be good to test for soil dampness. You can use organic compost or organic fertilizer about every two months to ensure a healthier harvest, and then Viola! come January or February you have the makings for a hearty French Onion Soup...mmm yummy.

Victory Gardens...perhaps "Unemployment Gardens" more apt?

So there is a renewed interest in the 1940's Victory Garden. For those of you scratching your head going, "huh?" The Victory Garden was the Depression/Rebuilding's era idea of feeding yourselves to help the country. Looks like now that times are rough once again, people should seriously take a look at starting a garden..an odd post in October perhaps, but there are such things as greenhouses, and even better-you can start your own "grow room".

I know what you are thinking, a "grow room" seriously? Isn't that what marijuana grower's use to hide their illicit activities? Yes, but...

Since the advancement of growing technology, there are (relatively) inexpensive lighting and hydro- or aeroponic systems you can buy to start your year round harvest. Make your veggies and fruits perennials! There are LED lighting systems that use as much as 1/10th the power to grow your gardens and are similarly priced as the 1000W Metal Halide or Sodium lights. And they have anywhere from 50,000 to 80,000 hours before replacement becomes necessary. That is like 7 or 8 YEARS of full time use.

The best part is that you can increase that lifetime by only using them in the winter months and using plain ole' sunshine in the summer. A light that covers approx. 100 square feet (a 10X10 room)is only about a foot in diameter, $200 and most(if not all) are considered "plug and play" which is, you can hang them (with the included hanging chain) and them plug them in and they are ready to go. If you want to do year round growing in a much larger growhouse/greenhouse there is a 300W option that will run you about $750-1250 though some top of the line models run as high as $1800(totally inflated in my opinion).

These lights run very cool as compared to their fluorescent counterparts (and for the paranoid, are not hot enough to register on DEA IR flyby's), they do not contain mercury, are not made of glass and will not shatter, and use a much smaller portion of energy than the "old traditional" lights do. Seems very win-win to me! For the uber "green" you could set this up with a correct wattage solar panel or wind turbine for increased savings.

If you elected to use pots and potting soil you could decrease your initial monetary output (though your food harvest would be lower as well) but overall, if you used these full time, you would realize your savings in just under a year, especially with a hydro or aeroponic system. and even more especially if you used any surplus to sell to friends/family or for bartering. Most, if not all fruits and vegetables can be grown this way and well...with the possibility of famine around the corner(if some economists are to be believed), you just might want your food crop hidden...

Literally, food for thought.