The Winter Garden

Some of the items in my Winter garden thrived, this was a welcome change.  I had begun to doubt the entire project after the harsh summer we had; so much energy and effort put into the garden with such limited results.

The Swiss chard I planted grew very well.  I call it the gift that keeps on giving.  It is still producing more than enough of the yummy green leaves.  I love to sauté the leaves in garlic and olive oil and use the leaves and stems in soups.  It also freezes very well.  Swiss Chard is easy to grow.  I highly recommend it if you are just starting out.

The acorn squash I planted did well at first, but something started eating the leaves and squash before they had a chance to thrive.  I did have one plant that produced a single squash.  I watched it like a hawk and had Kepler on guard to keep it safe.  In the end, it looked too much like a ball and Kepler decided to harvest it for himself.

You can see the little squash in the photo  on the left.

The eight fava bean plants I had took a long and painful four months to produce beans.  I ended up with about a half of a cup of beans total from the eight plants.  These beans are my favorite and seem to be hard to find fresh or frozen so I will give it another go later this year.

The beets and turnips seemed to be doing really well.  There were lots of big leafy greens above ground.  Unfortunately, when I harvested them, the roots were very small.  The biggest was about the size of a golf ball.  I was disappointed, but the greens were good to eat.

I have yet to have any root crop do well.  I believe it is because my beds are too shallow.  I tried carrots, radishes, onions, garlic and shallots in addition to the beets and turnips.  It is the same result every time.  Looks great above ground, nothing going on underground.  If you decide you would like to grow root veggies, I suggest you make your beds deeper than eight inches.

I ended up with two small cabbage heads that I harvested to make into kimchi.  I hope it's tasty!