Four Season Gardening

Keeping Track of Your Seeds

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hands holding seeds Bet there are some of you out there who are seed freaks like me.  Can’t wait for the next seed catalog, find yourself trolling through seed websites, seeming to always be looking for the next thing you want to grow.

Then what do you do when you do order your seeds, and don’t use the whole packet?  Do they go in a drawer, or bag in a big jumble?  Oh, then sometime later, you find some other seeds you just have to confused woman get, and those packets get put, well, on the kitchen table, a pocket in your garden bag, in a jar – somewhere!

It is time to plant and you were absolutely sure you got that variety, but darn it, can’t find it, quick buy more.  A month later, oh there are those seeds I knew I bought, darn, I double bought and now have more than I need.

I confess to have done all the above!

The answer is coming up with a seed inventory system that works for you.  It can be simple or complex, depending on how many seeds you have, and what your personal style is.  Make it something that works for you.

I have allot of seeds, I run a seed swap, save seeds, partner with seed companies and did plants sales for years, so having a system became critical to business. You don’t have to be in business to need to organize your seeds.

Here are some tips to create a seed organization system that works for you:

  • Create a spreadsheet, chart, list on your phone, or a notebook to jot down seed orders when they come in.
  • Have one place to put seeds that have not made it onto your inventory yet.
  • Have one place where you store your seeds after they are on your inventory.
  • Create a way to know when you have used up your seeds. I fold my seed packets in half for example.
  • Have a trigger in your system that lets you know when you need to buy more of that variety.
  • And a trigger if you grew something and you don’t want to grow that variety again.
Seed Catalogs
Seed Catalogs

Review your inventory at least once a year.  I like to do it over the winter, and if you have a system in place, it takes much less time, so you can get back to important things, like looking at more seed catalogs and websites 🙂

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Great Garden Soil

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Hi folks,

a raised bed is one choice for your veggie garden
Building awesome living soil in a raised veggie bed

I’ve had several clients and new students ask about garden soil.  It seems many folks that have tried to garden have wanted to quit because their garden didn’t do well.  Most times it turns out it was their soil that was at issue.

Soil is the foundation of our garden and can grow our plants for us.  I have put together a 5 Day Free email course on soil, so you can transform your understanding of good garden soil, to begin to transform your garden.

 

Yes – I want the Free Email Soil Course

Easy Gardening – Why Fall & Winter is the Best

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grow lettuce Got a text last week from a wonderful lady, who inspired this post.  I suspect the heavy bug pressure she in her garden this summer, is what has had she and her husband decide not to garden this fall and winter.  I see this allot, people are going into the fall, having had some difficulty gardening, whether it be bug pressure, drought, or life circumstances, get garden burn-out and stop, right when it becomes the easiest time of year to garden.

Here are 3 reasons for you to reconsider and get that fall and winter garden going:

  1. Lack of bugs – As cooler weather approaches, there are not only less bugs eating your food, but less bugs wanting to eat you. Once there is a freeze, you don’t have to worry about bug pressure until it gets warm again next spring.  A major relief.
  2. Pleasant Weather – The cooler weather is also much more pleasant to be out in your garden than the brutal heat of summer. Your garden can be a welcome haven of outdoor time when it is enjoyable to be outside. Taking an afternoon day-trip to your garden is less expensive and time consuming and still allow you to get away from work and other concerns.
  3. You get food all year! Most everyone loves their homegrown summer tomatoes. Think about how much better your homegrown tomatoes are than the ones you buy in the supermarket. Ok, translate that into your salads, green smoothies, and winter root veggie soups.  Yes, homegrown produce of any variety is going to be fresher, more satisfying  and better tasting then store bought.

You still have time, the end of September is the time in US Zone 7 to get those fall and winter transplants in the ground.

I hope all of you out there who are bailing on your garden this fall, reconsider.

Kale, raised beds and hoop house uncovered on a sunny fall day

What Gardeners Do in Winter

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“Oh, you’re a gardener, so what do you do in the winter?  You don’t grow food right?” 

I love this question because there are so many cool things gardeners do in the cold months.

Awesome October harvest
Awesome October harvest

November means cooking up yummy dishes from soups to pies from autumn’s harvest. The more you store in your root cellar, garage, basement and fridge from the year’s bounty, the more bang for the buck you get from your garden. If you get into fermenting and canning, your benefits go up even more.

If you planted a mid-summer crop of potatoes, December is a great time to harvest them. How cool is it to have friends over for dinner for the holidays and servethem fresh potatoes you harvest last week! So cool.

ferment your harvest
Home make kimchee from early winter harvest

December also brings opportunity to share your bounty. You can gift those you love with home grown and dried herbs or fruits.  One year we gave everyone popcorn we grew.  Another year, it was kimchee we made from fall grown cabbage.

December also brings the first of the seed catalogs and these are one of the best things to read while sipping a cup of hot tea/coffee/coco on a cold wintry day in January and February.  This is the time to dream about what you will grow next year .. oh, but wait .. we also do our seed inventory and reflect on what worked and what didn’t during the year with things like:

  • Did we use up seed of our favorite tomato variety?
  • Did anything new we tried do great or horrid, or just so-so?
  • Was there a whole crop fail? This is the time we chat with each other to see if everyone in our community had a bad year with that, or if we need advice on what might have happened in our garden.
Seed Catalogs
Catalogs from some of our recommended companies.

Reading seed catalogs lets us dream of warmer days in spring and plan what we want to do next year in the garden. They also provide useful information and are great resources.

A creative winter garden project is designing the next phase of our garden.  Whether it be the next phase of our long range garden plan (this is the year I put in blueberries and asparagus!) or so a new garden follow-on layout from spring and summer.  Maybe you expand it into fall and winter if you have not yet ventured into four season gardening.

collards are sweeter after frost
Winter collards harvest during snowmageddon

Likely the most rewarding is the continued harvest.  My favorite winter harvest story is from a few years ago during a winter storm dubbed ‘snowmageddon’. It was the biggest snowfall I’d ever been in.  We dug a path to the collards, buried deep in the snow to harvest some for dinner, and honestly they were the sweetest collards I’ve ever eaten.

Harvesting in winter can be less dramatic, simply have a few things in a simple hoop house or cold frame that could be harvestable in winter and certainly when they get a warm day or two to grow a bit and provide more food offerings.

grow food from seed
Young seedlings under lights in winter

Winter is also the time to start early spring and some summer crops.  Your brassicas can be started indoors to be hardened off and planted our as soon as the ground softens up.  Some summer crops like basil and peppers that take a long time to germinate and get growing also benefit from being started in late winter.

I’m also in mid-swing with teaching The Foundations of Organic Gardening Course, which empowers people to be successful gardeners.

Winter is a great time study, dream, muse, plan, order seeds, start seedlings and chat with other gardeners.

Container Garden your Way to Yummy Food

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grow great tomatoes at home
Container Grown Gold Roma Tomatoes

Happy Spring!

Tis the season we starting dreaming of gardening – what don’t have much time or space to garden?

No problem – Container garden.

Container gardening is a great place to start gardening and easy to add if you are an experienced gardener.

For the new gardener, it allows you to learn on a small scale. It is often where I recommend people start gardening, especially those who feel overwhelmed by gardening for the first time.

Experienced gardeners (and all of us really) can enjoy the convenience a container garden can provide, consider…

… 5 Reasons why container gardening is a great idea:

  1. It doesn’t take much space
  2. You can move the containers to where the sun and rain are
  3. You don’t have a big area to maintain
  4. You can grow loads of food
  5. You can grow food year round

Lets take a peek at each of these 5 reasons.

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Grow lots of food in a containerContainer gardens can be a various sizes and shapes and tucked into or onto most any place, making they great for small space gardening. Even if you have a large yard, growing food on your deck is convenient.

Live in a townhouse where the sun is limited. You can move your container garden around from place to place to follow the sun, getting more or less light depending on what you are growing. You can move them under the eves in a big rain storm, or under the sky if they need watering.

Many people seem to not have much time these days, so having a smaller area to maintain fits with many people’s lifestyles and still allows them to eat some food from their own place.

You can get a huge yield from a well planted container garden. Amazing really how much bounty you can haul in. You can grow pretty much anything you would grow in the ground in a container.

All those crops that grow in fall and winter can grow in containers too, so you can four season garden !

Get Great Organic Garden Tips & a Free Workbook

3 Plants to Have in Your Garden Each Month of the Year

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There are many other plants in our gardens, but here is a quick list of some ideas for four season gardening:

January

  1. Cabbage, overwintered from last summer
  2. Kale, overwintered from last summer
  3. Collards, overwintered from last summer

February

  1. Carrots overwintered from last summer
  2. Hellebores – planted the previous year, perennial provides bees an early source of food
  3. Overwintered leaf crops, cabbage, kale, collards

March

  1. Lettuce, direct seed spring varieties
  2. Spinach, direct seed to harvest by June
  3. Radish, succession plant every two weeks for continuous harvest

April

  1. Peas, seed by early April for June harvest
  2. Carrots, seed different types to compare what you like
  3. Beets, seed different colors for rainbow beet salads

May

  1. Tomatoes, transplant seedlings or direct seed
  2. Peppers, transplant seedlings or direct seed
  3. Cucumbers, transplant seedlings or direct seed

June

  1. Corn, direct seed
  2. Sunflowers, direct seed
  3. Beans, direct seed

July

  1. Lettuce, under the shade of summer plants
  2. Parsnips, to be harvested for fall dishes
  3. All the plants you planted in May and June

August

  1. Cabbage, planted for fall and overwintering
  2. Kale, planted for fall and overwintering
  3. Collards, planted for fall and overwintering

September

  1. Lettuce, direct seed for fall harvest
  2. Spinach, direct seed for fall harvest
  3. Carrots, direct seed for fall harvest

October

  1. Garlic, plant cloves for harvest next September/October
  2. Broccoli, overwintering types
  3. Kohlrabi, to enjoy in December

November

  1. Turnips, seeded in late summer
  2. Rutabagas, seeded in late summer
  3. Chard, seeded in late summer

December

  1. Overwintered leaf crops, cabbage, kale, collards
  2. Overwintered carrots
  3. Spinach, overwintered in a hoop house