It is winter here in the Northern Hemisphere. Some people have no chance of a garden to grow anything this time of year. Others are able to grow some things with the help of green houses or row covers. In some areas people have gardens that are flourishing and growing strong in the winter.
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I (Sincerely, Emily) am thrilled to have a growing season in the winter. Our winter garden is flourishing and the farmers markets have an abundance of winter veggies to sell.
I look forward to the winter planting of lettuce, kale, chard and spinach because it is the only time of year that is will grow here. It is just too hot in the summer. I am picking broccoli and onions. Soon to be picking cabbage. Green is a lovely winter color in my garden.
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I (Xan) feel like we’ve barely even had winter this year. Far less than an accumlated 10 inches of snow (maybe less than 5), and very few days below the freezing mark, and here it is February already. The most amazing success of my winter garden this year has been the canna rhizomes that I potted, never believing they would actually grow. But here’s my canna “forest!”
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Northern or Southern Hemisphere – What are you growing right now or What are you buying?
Not Dabbling In Normal 
Nothing here yet, but gearing up for it. Loading the garden with massive amounts of Goat & Chicken Poo! Still to cold yet to break ground for this gal. My greenhouse is supposed to be going up today (I am really hoping) so I will be starting seeds real soon! What do you use Emily to grow in the winter?
Hi Michelle, oooh goat and chicken poo for your garden. Your veggies must have nice side smiles from that. For the most part we have mild winters here in So. TX. so my garden stays out in the open in my regular raised beds. I put up some hoops to cover in plastic when the temps drop – and they do. We had several nights at 20F this winter and my broccoli was too tall to cover so it got his real bad, but has bounced back quite a bit. I will have to make some taller hoops for that next year.
The broccoli here has spent itself so I’m rationing the old plants to the chickens to give them some greens until the grass gets going, but the cabbage is getting close to harvesting. Been harvesting arugala and some other lettuce all winter from the cold frame also and bok choy. Getting ready to start seeds today for the spring garden!
Hi Annie – I bet your chickens are thrilled with the broccoli greens. It is too hot here in the summer to grow greens, so in the winter I am happily overwhelmed with lettuce, chard, spinach and kale. That is great you have some lettuce and bok choy going in your cold frames. What a treat throughout the winter months.
I might be teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here but did you know that you can eat canna lily bulbs? I plan on infesting Serendipity Farm with these hardy drought tolerant babies AND harvesting them :). I am going to donate a few stubborn areas to both cannas and jerusalem artichokes and who cares if they take over…that’s the idea! Their lovely flowers will be both delightful and heralding of their tasty tubers beneath…what’s not to love! 🙂 Congrats on your winter garden. It’s mild enough here to grow beetroot year round and aside from it being too cold to ripen late tomatoes (I fixed THAT problem by only putting in cherry and medium sized tomatoes…”fool me once” and all…) My kale (that I stupidly planted in summer…a newbie veggie grower zonk…) has managed to survive the possum enslaught (tough stuff that kale!) and is starting to go off like gangbusters. Love the broccoli shot! I love broccoli. I remember trying it for the very first time when I was about 12, back when broccoli was an extreme exotic here in Australia and mum worked in a market garden run by an American couple who imported it and were growing it experimentally. We all sat around the plate staring at this marvellous veggie and mum served it simply steamed with butter, pepper and salt and it was glorious! No broccoli shunning by our humble little circle of 4, we scoffed the lot! :).
I had not heard that about canna bulbs. I know lily flowers are edible, but hadn’t heard about canna lily bulbs. This past Oct I did transplant some J. artichoke from my mom’s garden. Too small to harvest so I left them in the ground and will keep an eye on them this summer. Love your story about broccoli. Will you plant a winter garden this year for the cooler weather veggies like kale and broccoli, etc?
Xan – your canna’s look beautiful! What fun!