You can enjoy a successful gardening season all year round in your area by following this advice from a professional about choosing plants and varieties, preparing for winter with cold-hardy plants, and implementing methods to extend the season, including using cold frames or row covers to shield crops from freezing.
No matter if you live in a cold, short-season area or enjoy a mild climate, you, too, are able to break through the barriers of gardening for seasonal harvests of fresh, seasonal produce throughout the through the year.
Enjoy year-round gardening success in your region by following this expert guidance on choosing the right vegetables to grow throughout the year with a wide variety of selections as well as overwintering cold-hardy veggies and implementing techniques for extending the season like using cold frames or row covers to protect the plants against frost.
It doesn’t need to mean the end of fresh garden eating. By selecting the best crops and varieties, and using some seasonal extension strategies You can push the boundaries of seasonality even further than you think possible. In reality, gardeners in every region in the United States can enjoy vegetables that are available all year round to enjoy fresh produce in the garden each season.
Year-Round Gardening in the Pacific Coast
1. Salt Spring Island, British Columbia (Zone 8 ). Linda Gilkeson, entomologist and the author of Backyard Bounty, overwinters frost-tolerant varieties such as beets, kale and leeks, as well as the purple sprouting broccoli as well as cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and numerous other healthy greens. “They’re all still going full-tilt come March,” she declares.
From February to May, cold-hardy kale (‘Aalsmeer,”Galleon,” and “Purple Cape’) and broccoli (‘Cardinal,’ Red Spear’ and ‘WhiteStar’)’) produce crops from seeds that are sown from late June and into early July the year before.
“Celeriac is grown to cultivate its delicious leaves, makes a winter delight. Leave this in your backyard with a good mulch,” Gilkeson advises. The same can be done with beets and carrots. For the leafy greens you should keep a sheet of heavy plastic in your pantry that you can set high above your beds using stakes or low hoops to offer protection against Arctic blasts.
Carol Deppe, plant breeder and the author of The Resilient Gardener and The Tao of Vegetable Gardening and overwinters many vegetables, such as kale, beets the purple sprouting broccoli edible podded peas. However, her preferred method of enjoy the garden all year round is to stock her pantry with dependable storage crops including homegrown grains, and dried beans, and winter squash. For cornbread and polenta, Deppe loves ‘Cascade Gold flint-corn, one of the early maturing cold-hardy variety that she invented. She suggests ‘Magic Manna’ flour corn for pancakes, cakes sweet breads, and parching. A good blender or coffee grinder can grind corn flour into a fine, fine flour that is like grain flour with a similar texture. Deppe’s top dry beans for her region are the ‘Gaucho’ bush (an Argentine heirloom) and Black Coco. She suggests arranging the plantings to allow the pods to dry on mature plants by the end of August, prior to the fall rains.
Her top winter squash that is native to the Northwest is Sweet Meatthe – Oregon Homestead, that yields delicious, dry, sweet fruits that weigh up 25 pounds. She also cultivates and stores Candystick Dessert Delicata as well as Delicata Zeppelin as well as ‘Honey Boat winter squash. All of them produce tiny, striped fruits that have delicately grained dry, sweet flesh and can be stored until late December. The fruit of ‘Candystick Delicata’ Delicata’ may be as heavy as 3 pounds and are stuffed with the flesh is thick, and has a taste that is similar to Medjool dates. Winter squash typically have large fruit that last well and improve when stored. “Let them rest while you’re enjoying your autumn veggies Then, eat the long-keeping Cucurbita maxima, and the even longer-lasting C. moschata varieties,” Deppe says.
Image from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co.’Chioggia Beets’ are a bit of a treat to look at. They have an interesting aesthetic appeal and can be grown as a winter and fall crop.
Similar to what certain Native American tribes did, she slics and dries summer squash for use in winter also. After extensive research she discovered that ‘Costata Romanesco as well as any other gold zucchini to be the best for dried and fresh consumption. Cut 3/8-inch slices from 1-to-3-pound fruit with tender skins as well as tiny, unripe seeds. Even though she dried squash in a rack that is modeled by the racks that indigenous tribes had, you could use a food dehydrator that is with a temperature range of 125 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The dried slices are reconstituted into soup when cooked for 45 minutes. cut the dried slices to allow for quicker cooking.
In her garden on the coast, Rosalind Creasy, author of Edible Landscaping as well as a variety of other books, plants onions, peas, scallions the kale, lettuce and radishes, as well as cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, Asian and mustard greens Chard, beets carrots, parsnips as well as fava beans and wheat throughout winter. Beets and chard that are planted in late October offer an added benefit of avoiding the leaf miners that typically cause problems for these crops in the summer months. Cooler temperatures are perfect for cilantro. “Most people try to plant cilantro in summer, but it bolts,” she states. “If you plant it in September, it will produce through winter and flower in March, attracting beneficial insects to the garden.”
She doesn’t need rows or cloches for protection from frost. “To ensure the safety of my citrus trees, I put up old-fashioned white Christmas lights around the trees. They release just enough heat to keep them from freezing, and also appear very beautiful.”
