So how do you get a fresh home-grown garden salad in December? The truth is that it's not hard...
1. Plan for it. In March, after I'd planted my early seeds, I made two piles with what was left, one for a late-spring/early summer planting and one for a late summer/early fall sowing. Crops that love heat were in the summer pile, and crops that tolerate cold well were in the fall pile. If you want to put out seeds late in the season, you must already have them in hand, as those pretty little seed packets are nowhere to be found for sale in August and September.
2. Re-sow your garden early and often. Have a hole where spinach didn't germinate? Pop in some onions, or toss in some marigold seeds. Harvest all your bush beans or radishes? Put in new seeds...preferably something from a different plant family so they will be sucking a different mix of nutrients from the soil. Crop rotation also helps keep the insect pests baffled. Don't forget to add compost when you re-plant. Leaving chunks of the garden empty doesn't make sense to me. If you want to give it a break and improve the soil, plant a cover crop that you'll chop back into the soil before it goes to seed.
3. Know how much time you have. If your expected first frost is October 31, and it's August 31, then whatever you plant needs to mature within 60 days, or you need to be able to eat it young and immature. It's also a good idea to plant cold-hardy vegetables. I've had success with kohl rabi, collards, arugula, mustard greens, radishes, swiss chard, carrots, lettuce, and celeriac.
4. Fool the frost. We've been very lucky here in Central Virginia this year with a mild winter. The first frost arrived on-time, but we've only had a couple heavy frosts. I think the coldest overnight low so far has been 26 degrees. If your forecast calls for a serious overnight cold spell, don't fret...just cover those plants. A clear plastic sheet, secured on either side of the row, does the trick for me.
Leaves piled over the live plants works too. Using both of those methods, you'll need to go uncover them the next morning. Other, more permanent ways to extend the season include hoop houses and cold frames. I haven't tried those, since the greenhouse meets most of my winter gardening needs. However, a great book about extending the harvest using those and other methods is The Year Round Vegetable Gardener by Niki Jabbour. I found it at my local library, and it's full of good tips and ideas. Niki's blog about gardening in Nova Scotia is a good read as well. Clearly, if she can have fresh salads during the snowy Canadian winter, mere mortals like me can pull it off in balmy Virginia.
Advice needed...I have a ton of is collard greens, and I need a new recipe. We've got the deep-south, cooked with smoky pig parts and vinegar style collard greens down pat. Anyone have another tasty way to cook collards?
