Winter Garden and Spring Seeds

 

We decided to have a winter garden this year and we sure picked a great year to do so. The temperature got down to 9 degrees for a couple of days and that was a real test for the in ground garden and the Veggie Pod. I always look forward to January when all the seed catalogs come in the mail. I love looking through the catalogs and marking all the seeds that I would love to have. There are several steps that I take before I can really order the seed. 

The Winter Garden

We had a really bad drought last summer that knocked out a lot of our production. We made a decision to plant a winter garden and so far it has gone pretty well. We planted in mid September so that most of the plants were up and had a good root hold before cold weather arrived. I especially have enjoyed our Veggie Pod this past year. I really made a nice little green house out of it. 

The Kale still looks great even after the cold temperatures. I actually made a great salad out of this Purple Kale.

Roasted Butternut, Pears and Kale 

With Honey Wine Dressing

This was the first winter for the Veggie Pod and 

it has come through very well to this point.

We have have wonderful greens for salad all through the season.

We have some cabbage, kale and beets that will be 

really good to eat later this winter.

Spring Seeds

The first thing I do when getting ready for the spring garden is look at last years production. I have a chart that I keep, with the name of the product, the date it was planted, the date it was harvested and last how much of the product was harvested. Next I look at the canning and preserving of the product, how many pint's or quarts were canned or frozen.

We had great cucumber production last season, 

and we canned over 100 pints of Mustard Seed Pickles!

Mustard Seed Pickle Recipe

Next I will work on a garden plot to plot out the

 rows and know exactly where the rows will go

 and what product will be planted there.

This was my garden plot from 2022 and I will use it to

 formulate the plot for 2023.

I already know that I will plant more 

Beets and Green Beans for next season. After I finish my plot, 

then I will know exactly how many seed I will need

 for each product and it will be ordering time!

Now comes the fun part of ordering the seed and 

waiting at the mail box for the first order to arrive.

Let the 2023 garden season begin!  

Thanks so much for stopping by to enjoy some of the garden at the cottage today. It's hard to think that we will be planting onions in just two weeks from now and then the new cycle of the garden begins again. Hope you have a great week and come back to see us real soon!

Peace and Joy

Miz Helen

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