Keep Your Garden Growing with Fall and Winter Edibles

 

Don’t put those gardens to bed quite yet. With our mild fall and winter weather you can keep your garden yielding nutritious and delicious crops through the New Year. As you remove your well harvested spring-summer crops, think about replacing with flavorful fall-winter crops. There are many vegetable bulbs, seeds and starts that can be planted now that will supply you will fresh garden flavors through the fall and into next spring with less effort from you and more help from our rains and cooler temperatures.

 

The key to successful gardening is to know the average date of the first killing frost (32F°) is in your region. This is typically in late October in the Pacific Northwest.  Fall-winter crops need to be planted early enough to allow them to become hardier and more mature before that first killing frost.  After doing the math, if you missed the date of a vegetable you had your heart set on - don’t fret.  You can use aids like Season Extender (aka Wall-of-Waters), or Harvest Protectors to protect them as the nights get cooler. 

 

Whether you are planting in a new bed or one you used this spring you will want to incorporate a soil amendment, like aged compost. This will help rejuvenation your soil and give you plants a healthy start. Northwest Best Soil Builder and Top Dressing is a great option. Also, make sure that where you plant has good drainage. If you don’t have good drainage your vegetables might drown in pools of mud from our heavy rains.

 

Seeds will take the longest to germinate. If you are interested in beginning by seed, start your plantings immediately. There are quite a few fall-winter vegetable seed options, like Arugula, Beets, Carrots, Kale, Radishes, and many varieties of Lettuce.

 

Growing vegetables by starts or transplants will give you a better head start on the vegetables that take longer to mature.   Some of these vegetable starts are also known as cole crops or cold crops, like Broccoli, Cabbage and Cauliflower. Cole crops not only add flavor to your fall diet, but will also add a little beauty to a garden with their color and structure. One of our favorites, ‘Bright Lights’ Swiss Chard, will add a rainbow of color to your garden and to your plate. 

 

Spring flowering bulbs like tulips and daffodils need to be planted in the fall. So goes for your edible bulbs like Garlic. Garlic needs several months to mature into a flavorful bulb. By planting the garlic cloves now, (these are the individual pieces that make up the garlic,) you’ll have a harvest in June or July.  Stop watering the garlic plants once you see the green, onion-like tops begin to die back. Once their tops have completely died, gently dig the bulbs up and let dry inside your house or shed.

 

Onions and shallot bulbs can also be planted in the fall for a spring harvest. Plant and care for them in the same way you will the garlic. Even though the mature onion won’t be ready until spring, you can pick a few of your onions throughout the growing processes as “green onions” or “spring onions.” 

 

Shallots are milder in taste than onions. When you harvest the shallots in the spring you notice that the base of the shallot is composed of about twelve onions lightly attached to each other, almost like a bulb of garlic with the cloves on the outside. 

Growing herbs during the fall and winter will not only keep your soups and main dishes filled with flavor, but there are lots of evergreen herbs that are beautiful. They add nice color and shape to your outdoor containers and flowerbeds. Evergreen herbs, like Rosemary, Thyme, Sage and Lavender can be planted anytime this fall to be used immediately in your cooking.

 

By testing out a few of these edible season extenders you’ll find a fall-winter garden will keep your kitchen filled with lots of fresh favorites with very little effort on your part.