The Modern Victory Garden

In the northern hemisphere, the growing season is coming to a close.   I pulled the last of the zucchini and cucumber plants Sunday and one of the Japanese Maples in front of our house is putting on it’s brilliant late fall display.   Soon the other two will be glowing just as vibrantly and ultimately all of them will drop their leaves, which I will then rake up, and compost.              

The fall equinox marks the mid-point between the summer solstice and the winter solstice.   This year the fall equinox occurred on September 22nd.   What this means is that we have completed the first major descent into the winter season and are on the last big roller coaster drop down to the final darkest point of the year – winter solstice (December 21st).   While the day length and sun strength have been on the decrease ever since June 22nd, we have reached the tipping point now where plant growth essentially starts grinding to a halt.   The fall/winter harvest crops generally need to be not only in place, but mature enough for harvest, because for the next several months growth will be minimal to non-existent for even the hardiest of items.   This is especially true for those of us that have trees or buildings near enough to the garden area such that when the sun arcs lower on the horizon during winter – it effectively restricts what sunshine there is available.   Personally, I have found on my property that I hit a real growing lull for a period of approximately four months – November through February.   In order to rely on the garden for all our vegetable needs, we have to go into this period with a good reserve of preserved items (canned, frozen, dried, cool storage), have mature crops of cold hardy items in the garden that are protected if needed and are ready for harvest, and that a few young cold hardy crops are started and well enough along - such that they are waiting to leap immediately to life as we round the corner and start making the ascent back out of the darkest days of winter.   My favorite crop for over wintering this way is spinach.   If you can get it germinated and well started before November, protect it during the coldest periods of the winter under a grow tunnel, and water and weed it as needed - it will absolutely spring to life in the very earliest days of spring when all the preserved items are running low, the fall/winter harvest crops are depleted, and the first spring plantings are just starting to be seeded and are still months away from being ready to harvest.   An overwintered crop of spinach really fills a gap in the lean season months of February, March, and April.   Regrettably, I lost my overwintered crop last year by not getting it covered timely before a severe cold snap hit.   I am determined not to let that happen again.         

It is now October 20th, and my 4’ by 8’ patch of young spinach to be overwintered is germinated and starting to set their first true leaves.   They are a little hard to see in the following photo but hopefully you get an idea of how far along they are.   

We are forecasted to have a series of rainstorms roll through over the next four or five days and I plan to let this patch benefit from the soaking rains before I put a clear plastic sheet over it for winter protection.                      

I recently posted about a gift I received of tree kale/collard starts. They have been sitting like sticks in the mud (literally) for two weeks now in the protection of the unheated greenhouse.   This evening when I did my evening garden “walkabout” I noticed some new beginnings happening there also.   The following picture is not the clearest image – but I drew some circles on the photo of a couple of the new leaf sprouts and I hope you can see them despite the fuzzy picture quality.           

Each of the cuttings looks like they are coming to life with leaf nodules emerging.   I did not have any rooting hormone on hand when I potted these starts up and so I am quite happy to see them apparently getting a fast start despite that.           

Fall brings with it many endings, but in a four-season harvest garden, there is always something just beginning too.            

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener