Winterizine the Garden

written by Tom

 If nothing else, the seasons will teach you. That's what they did to us this past week. A ridiculously harsh Arctic blast came through, sending temperatures into the 'teens and the plants into freeze mode. We were lucky to have anything survive. Fortunately, so far everything has. There were nights scurrying about putting down the two frost cloths we have, but I hadn't made time to properly over-winter the garden. I remedied that this weekend with the help of our good neighbors who continue to spend hours sucking up their leaves and putting them into cinch-tied clear plastic bags for me on their curb.

I put the leaves down and dressed the top of EVERY thing in all the beds, save for one. I used two empty leaf bags as make-shift greenhouses for the sweet pea trellises. I secured the bags to the metal trellises with a few twisty-ties and added holes all over to allow for wind to pass through.

I decided to use our two frost cloths to cover just one bed. In that bed we will eat all winter long. It contains two different lettuce varieties, an amazing spread of collards, a spread of spinach, about 40 transplanted beets and a row of fresh flat-leaf parsley (yes, THAT parsley left over from summer ... we took care of it and it keeps coming back, hallelujah!). The past week of temps into the low 'teens took its toll on everything, but this bed fared the best of all. Lucky for us it's still putting out great food. The rest can overwinter under the cover of oak leaves until late winter/early spring.

Yes, everything, including the turnips have been covered. The turnips really took the BEST the 12-degree record-setting days could dish out. They hung on, but lost about half of their tops in the past week. Yes, it was time (PAST TIME) to prep the beds for winter with a lush coating of leaves. Forget the frost cloths. We'll use those for beds that we're still harvesting from in the winter. Everything else will be leaf-covered until spring says "hello" to an early bounty.

The forecast this week is for temps in the mid-30s and lows again in the teens. Fortunately the leaf-cover will spare everything the brutal touch of Jack Frost.

Turnip greens peek out from underneath the leaf cover (thanks, neighbors across the street!). We'll see if this plan actually works. Only time, and season, will tell. It's been an education all along, that's for sure!