Winter growth slow down

Outdoor potted lettuce

Saturday, November 10, 2018

If you have noticed that plants stop growing in the winter, whether indoors or out, you would be right.  It is not just the temperatures that affect this slow down.  It is the amount of sunlight!  

Basically, plants go dormant when receiving less than 10 hours of daylight.  For my latitude, this is from November 17-January 24.  You can look on the weather channel to see when your daylight hits 10 hours.

When planting in the fall for winter crops, you need to plan that they are at full, harvestable size by November 17th (I add 14 days to be on the safe side for the cooler temps and less daylight than in spring).  They will remain basically this size until the end of January, when they begin regrowing.  If growing in a greenhouse, the warmer temperatures will help plants grow, but at a much slower rate than during longer daylight times.  

The same techniques for protecting spring crops work for your fall and winter gardens.  
Protect your new plants from a late frost
Preparing for a hard freeze

Lettuce and greens in January under a portable green house

Growth starts back up at the end of January, for indoor and outdoor plants.  The lettuce, chard, sorrel, cabbage, kale, celery, and herbs that have overwintered will start growing with vigor again after this time with clear days and warmer temperatures.

Covering plants with row covers or portable greenhouses can help your plants grow; warmth does make a difference.  Just don’t expect significant growth until we get back to at least 10 hours of sunlight.

November 2018 Edible Garden Planner

Fall garden

Sunday, October 28, 2018

November is a beautiful time of year as Mother Nature is getting prepared for the cold, wintry days ahead.  Late fall chores should include cleaning up your garden beds, reflecting on the gardening season completed, and preparing for the first freeze.

Garden bed clean up

To prepare your garden for its winter slumber, remove gardening debris from your beds.  For any diseased vegetation or seeds, be sure to throw these away and not compost.  You don't want to propagate and spread any diseases to other parts of the garden.  A really hot compost pile will kill them but it isn't work the risk going into winter. 

This is a good time to decide if you would like to make your own compost.  Compost is referred to by gardeners as “black gold.”  It provides nutrients, beneficial microbes, fertilizer and overall improves your soil’s condition.  Composting is possible in small spaces or even indoors  Outdoor compost piles go slowly in the fall and winter, but speed up as temps rise in the spring.

I have used an electric composter called NatureMill that we kept in the garage by the door.  It is easy to keep an odor free bucket made just for this purpose in the kitchen to collect fruit and vegetable scraps and empty weekly into the composter.  The small indoor buckets are called compost keepers or bins and come in a variety of decorative styles.  You get finished compost in a couple of weeks.  You can store the compost you are making in a trash bag to use when preparing your spring beds and to revitalize potting soils.  Re-energize your potting soil!  It is great for flowers and vegetables.

I went to an outdoor insulated composter made by Jora.  It was designed in Sweden.  It works year round but much better in the summer.  It is important to keep the greens and browns in the right ratio to keep the compost cooking in the winter.  Unfortunately, it leaked when it rained and rusted.  I switched to an all plastic type with dual bins.  Here are some tips if your composter/compost pile starts having issues  Troubleshooting your compost pile

After your garden clean up, look to give your garden a nutritional boost for the winter months.  Doing a nice layer of compost and fertilizer, topped with mulch, will allow the nutrients to seep into the garden soil, ready to give your spring plants a boost.  The mulch will keep the soil more temperate during the winter months for your winter edibles and keep weed seeds from sprouting. 

Reflection on the past garden season

While the past gardening season is still fresh in your mind, now is a great time to jot down some notes on what went well, what didn’t, and what you would like to research over the winter.  Make a list of the varieties that did great that you want to replant, which plants you want to be sure to have more of next year.  Also make note of how many plants make sense to plant for next year.  Here are my reflections last fall for the edible garden.  Reflecting back on the 2017 edible garden  I'll do one for this season in the next couple of weeks.   

Keep track of what you eat over the winter to give you a good idea of what and how much to plant come spring.  How much to plant?

Fall is a fabulous time to make new garden beds.  It is super easy, too.  Just use a hose to outline your new bed, fertilize, put down a layer of cardboard (earthworms love cardboard!), a layer of compost, and cover with mulch.  By spring, the new garden bed will be ready for planting.  Easy ways to make a new vegetable garden bed

Gardening after the first frost

For northern Kentucky, the average first frost date is mid-October.  We have had 2 frosts in the last week or so but the temps are back up and forecasted to stay that way for the next 2 weeks.  You can cover your veggies with a portable green house or row cover to extend the season for many cool season crops.  Frost forecasted? Here’s your to-do list  With a portable green house, we have kept lettuce, kale, mustard greens, sorrel, and celery all the way through winter.  You can garden year round in small space

If you are using pots, putting the pots on the south side, in a sunny local and close to the house will keep them from getting frost bit into November or even December for cold season crops.  It seems to extend the season for 2-4 weeks.

You can also divide a piece off your herbs, put them in a pot, and bring indoors on a sunny window to have fresh herbs readily available.  Chives, thyme, rosemary, savory, tarragon, salad burnet, and oregano can also be harvested into December from the outdoor garden.  Growing herbs indoors for winter

Surprisingly, we found that peppers and eggplants are great candidates from bringing in for the winter.  Our Jalapenos and Cayennes continued to fruit for weeks indoors and when put back out in the spring, we had peppers a month earlier than when using new plants.  Tomatoes are also contenders for overwintering indoors.  All are tender perennials.  I bring in only the ones that did really well that I want to get a head start on next season.

Be sure to use insecticidal soap on any plants you intend to bring indoors a couple weeks prior so you don’t bring in unintended guests.  Just remember that insecticides kill the good bugs like bees as well as the bad bugs so be careful when you spray.  Natural, organic pest strategies and how to make your own bug sprays

I keep my plants out as long as possible to minimize their stay indoors.  There is nothing like sunshine and fresh air for a plant.  Last year, I overwintered all my tropicals and edibles in the unheated garage with a hanging fluorescent light fixture with daylight bulbs.  They all did well except for the eggplants.  Eggplants are spotty, but worth the try if you had a great one.  Be sure to save seed so you can keep the plants going that do well in your garden. Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver    You can save seeds even from heirlooms you buy in the store to try in your garden.  I have a few that have become standbys in our garden that came from the grocery store and farmers market.

Late November potted lettuce

For the herbs you cut back earlier in the season to dry, November is a great time to now strip the stems of the harvested leaves, dry and put into jars for winter cooking.  You can make your own “Herbes De Provence”.  Thyme, oregano, rosemary, savory, basil, tarragon and lavender are common herbs used in this famous French seasoning.  I mix them up in about equal amounts and store in a sealed Mason jar.  It is great to add to just about anything-sauces, chicken, fish, potatoes, garlic bread.  Makes wonderful Christmas presents, too.  Make your own "Herbes de Provence".

For those that keep on going into the winter, I would prune back the plants by about two thirds and strip the leaves from the cut stems.  Do so when there are warm temps forecasted for a few days to allow the plants cut ends to heal.  Otherwise a cold snap can kill the plant.

Use your herbs for your Thanksgiving meal Use your own herbs for your Thanksgiving dinner  More than likely you will have some edibles still growing in the garden.  Take a look and plan around them for your meal.  Some winter hardy edibles include kale, cabbage, chives, sage, thyme, corn salad, sorrel, plantain greens, celery, mustards, even some hardy lettuces.

Make your own apple cider vinegar

Saturday, October 20, 2018

It is the end of apple season.  It is a great time to get local apples to make your own apple cider vinegar.  All you need are glass jars, water, apples and sugar to make this healthy brew.  

Here is the recipe that I am using for a gallon of apple cider vinegar:

*3 pounds of a variety of apples (more variety gives a fuller flavor.  )

*8 cups of spring water (do not use tap water as chlorine kills the yeast that makes the cider)

*1/2 cup of sugar

Directions:

*Slice the apples into quarters

*Let the apples brown on the counter

*After browning, place into a wide mouth glass gallon jar

*Fill with water, add sugar, and a weight to keep the apples under the water to keep flies from landing on the apples or mold from growing on them

*Cover with a cheese cloth with a rubber band to keep any fruit flies out

Let the apples ferment in a dark, warm location for at least 4 weeks.  The fermentation goes faster in warm weather and slower in cooler temperatures.  White scum will form on the top.  This is normal.  Bubbling is also normal as it ferments into cider.  Mold is not.

After at least 4 weeks, strain out the apples and put the liquid back into the jar and cover with cheesecloth.  During this time, yeast will eat the sugar to transform your apple water into apple cider.  

After you have apple cider, it is ready to transform into acetic acid and vinegar.  You can add some finished raw apple cider vinegar or mother into your strained liquid to give it a boost.  It should take another 4 weeks to turn into vinegar.  Allow to continue fermenting until it reaches the appropriate tartness.  

You will see a thin rubbery substance on the top of your jar.  This is the "mother" that converts the cider into vinegar.  

When the taste is the way you like it, you can now put a regular lid on your gallon jar or pour into smaller jars to make room for another apple cider vinegar batch!  The mother can be kept in the jar or stored separately.

Tips:  

*Use organic apples if possible.  If not, be sure to remove any wax coating and then soak in baking soda water for 15 minutes to remove all pesticides.

*You can use apple scraps as well.  Make sure that any scraps are well cleaned as above.  Peels and cores are great adds.  You can keep scraps in the freezer until you have enough to start a batch of vinegar.

*Use a combo of apple types.  50% sweet like Golden Delicious, Fuji, Gala, Red Delicious.  35% sharp like McIntosh, Liberty, Winesap, Northern Spy, Gravenstein, Granny Smith.  15% bitter like Dolgo crabapples, Newtown, Foxwhelp, Porter's Perfection, Cortland.

*If you don't have access to spring water, you can use filtered, reverse osmosis water or distilled water.

What's happening in the early October edible garden

Saturday, October 6, 2018

This is a time of year that most summer vegetables are winding down and cold crops are growing strong.  With frost, many summer vegetables will die and cold season crops will get sweeter.  The biggest difference between spring and fall is that the days are getting shorter instead of longer.  For planting in the fall, add 2 weeks to the "Days to harvest" on seed packets to compensate.

We continue to fertilize our vegetables monthly.  Fertilizer stimulates new growth so don't fertilize the plants that are "tender"/susceptible to frost.  This is also a great time to re-mulch the garden beds to give an added blanket of protection to prolong the season.  The mulch will break down over the winter, providing additional organic matter.

Be sure that you are saving seeds from your best producers for next year's garden.  Seeds from plants that do well in your garden are the best to save as they are proven to like your garden conditions.  Always save seed from the best tasting, best sized veggies.  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

Our zucchini and cucumbers have slowed in the last few weeks.  It is a good idea to replant some zucchini seeds in August to keep zucchinis on hand in the garden.  It is not a bad idea to replant tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini in early August each year to keep these plants at top producing vigor until frost.

Our tomatoes and eggplant are still producing well this year.  For tomatoes, be sure to take all the tomatoes off the vine before it frosts.  You can either wrap the green tomatoes in newspaper and store in a cool place to ripen, make them into relish, or eat them as fried.  For fried green tomatoes, we use Andy’s Cajun batter.  Gives them a nice, spicy flavor.  A late fall tradition-fried green tomatoes!

Any plant that has a disease, do not compost!  Throw away in the trash.  Composting may not kill all spores and you could be spreading the disease next season wherever you use the compost.  Composting is possible in small spaces or even indoors

Peppers love this time of year.  They are native to the mountains so they love this weather.  They will continue to produce even after frost.  To prolong the season, I put the pots up against the house.  You can also bring them indoors and they will produce for weeks inside.  When spring comes and you put them back outside, they will get a jump start on producing next year.  Peppers a Plenty in September

I have two Ancho Anaheim peppers that are ready to harvest.  I did not get very many off the plant, but they were nice sized and enough for the chili powder I’ll use for making chili this winter.  The Pimento Elite I planted this year produced many peppers but they just wouldn’t turn red.  Peppers get sweeter when they ripen, but are good to eat even when green.  The jalapeños were the same, many peppers but stayed green.  The cayennes were prolific and slow to ripen.

For the sweet peppers, the rabbits kept them ate back to the stems for most of the year.  I finally put a wire cage around them and they are leaving back out, but likely too late for any peppers.  The one pepper they didn’t eat was the Sweet Red Banana.  I got a few off this plant.  The taste was very nice.

Peppers are for every taste and garden

I harvested the basil and made pesto in mid-September. The basil plants are quickly regenerating.  I should be able to get another harvest from them before frost hits.  These are very tender annuals and will turn black with the first frost.  You can dig them up and bring them in for the winter.  Place them in a full sun spot.  You can put them back outside again in the spring after all danger of frost has passed.  Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil

I planted some chard, spinach, kale, lettuce,  seeds in Earthboxes and pots in mid-September.   All are doing well.  Many lettuce seeds have sprouted.  My potted sprouting broccoli, celery, arugula, corn salad and parsley is still producing and will continue through the winter.  Plant lettuce seed now for fall and winter harvest...

Cabbage, kale, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, chard, onions, arugula and other cold crops get sweeter with cool weather and a nice frost.  If the taste of these are too strong for your palate right now, give them another chance after frost.  Our Egyptian walking onions are lush and green.  The bulbs are filling out nicely.  Egyptian walking onions

This is also the perfect time of year to reseed your lawn or transplant perennials.  I separated flowers and herbs to take to our lake retirement house.  I had two really pretty Italian dandelions in the Earthbox.  I took the smaller one and replanted at the retirement house.  Dandelions are perennials and very healthy to eat.  The Italian and French types have been bred to have large leaves.  Great to make salads.    

Many herbs are perennials-garlic, sprouting onions, lavender, oregano, chives, sage, tarragon, thyme, savory, salad burnet, and rosemary.  Bay laurel is a perennial at our Zone 7 retirement house, but not in Zone 6.  I have kept it in a pot for years, but will be planting it at the lake.  It will actually become a tree when planted in the ground.  The rosemary I planted last year at the lake is quickly becoming a very large bush.  I give as many branches as possible away!  Perennial veggies in the Midwest garden

Fall is a great time to cut back your herbs.  Save the stems, place loosely in a paper bag, put in a dry location, and in about a month you will have all the dried herbs you and many family members will need for the next year!  Make your own "Herbes de Provence"

Fall is a bountiful time for gardening.  I have planted many winter hardy varieties of lettuce, kale, collards, mustards, and cabbage to keep the garden producing into December and hopefully beyond.  With the portable greenhouse, we will have greens all winter.  How to extend the garden season

October 2018 Edible Garden Planner

Sunday, September 30, 2018

The October garden is very productive.  The summer vegetables like tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, basil and cucumbers continue to produce at a reduced pace.  These crops are very prolific right now.  The cool season crops like lettuce, carrots, radishes, peas, cabbage, beets, broccoli and cauliflower are coming into maturity throughout October and into November.  Flowers, bees and butterflies are abundant in the fall garden.

Now is the time to save seeds from your favorite fruits and veggie plants from the season if you haven't done so already.  The plants still producing well this time of year are great ones to make sure you have some seeds to plant again next year.  The varieties that do well in your garden conditions are ones you want to invite back!  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

Basil will turn black when it gets close to 35 degrees.  I pull all the leaves when it is forecasted to get close to freezing or any chance of frost.  You can chop basil, put in an ice cube tray and cover with water to then use any time your recipe calls for fresh basil.  It stores best when frozen in water.  I also dry some to add to my "Herbes de Provence" seasoning mix.  You can also make into pesto and place in freezer bags with just enough for a meal.  Gives a whole new meaning to “fast food.”  Pesto is great over pasta, fish, or as a condiment on sandwiches.  Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil...

Bee on zinnia with purple and white basil flowers

I have plenty of pesto from last year so this year I am letting the basil flower.  The bees just love it!  Bees favorite flowers are those with the small flowers like basil.  The purple holy basil flowers mixed with the white sweet basil flowers are quite pretty, too.

Other herbs will do just fine through frosts like parsley, rosemary, thyme, chives, savory, and sage.  It takes good snow cover to stop these herbs.  Many winters you can harvest these herbs the entire season for cooking.  Cut back the extra now, dry and make into seasoning mixes which you can give to the whole family at Christmas.   Make your own "Herbes de Provence" 

I will wait until it gets below 32 degrees before I strip off the eggplant, peppers and tomatoes.  You can freeze or dry these veggies.  Tomatoes are a high acid fruit so you can also easily can sauce from them without using a pressure canner, a stockpot is all that is needed.   Preserving the tomato harvest  Be sure to follow any canning recipes exactly so your canned goods don’t spoil.  For more on preserving your extras for year round use, see Preservation garden

Peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants are tropical perennials that can be brought in to overwinter.  If you have a favorite plant you would love to have in your garden next season, bring it in to an attached garage or even your living room.  I have overwintered peppers and eggplants.  You get a serious jump start on the season in the spring.  I am bringing in my tiny hot pepper plant Chipetlin to overwinter.

Make sure you pull the tomatoes from the vine before the vine dies.  Wondering what to do with the green tomatoes?  You have a couple of options.  You can make fried green tomatoes-yum!  Just use some fish fry seasoning; we like Andy’s Cajun Seasoning.  A late fall tradition-fried green tomatoes!  You can also wrap green tomatoes in newspaper and store in a cool, dark location and many will ripen.  Check about weekly to cull any that spoil.  They won’t taste as good as fresh off the vine, but are better than store bought.

October and November is garlic planting month for the Zone 7 garden!  Plant in the waning cycle of the moon.  Garlic loves loose, well-fertilized soil.  Loosen the soil down to about 6 inches, mix in a couple of inches of compost, and plant your garlic cloves about 2-3” deep.  Time to plant garlic! With growing tips......  Garlic leaves are one of the first greens you will see in spring.

Chard in the forefront with morning glories in the background

Now is also a great time to divide any perennials you have, whether they be herbs, edibles or ornamentals.  This will give them all fall and winter to put down strong roots.  Perennial greens (like chard, sorrel, cultivated dandelions, salad burnet) are always the first up in the spring.  This is the perfect time to plant any perennial plant.  The fall and winter allows the plants roots to grow deep, preparing it for a fast start in the spring.  Perennial veggies in the Midwest garden

It is still not too late in early October to transplant fall crops like cold hardy types of lettuce, cabbage, chard, pak choi, broccoli, kale, parsley or perennial herbs.  You can check your neighborhood nurseries for bedding plants.  I use my Aerogarden to start from seed cold hardy crops I want in my fall and winter garden.  Starting them indoors gets them going quicker.  With less sun and cooler temps outdoors, plants grow much more slowly so getting bedding plants or starting indoors gets your fall veggies to full size quicker.  Add about 2 weeks to the "Days to Harvest" timing for fall planted edibles.

To extend the season, you can order a mini greenhouse to cover your pots or a part of the garden you have planted your cold hardy greens you want to harvest all winter.  You can also purchase row covers that cover plants and provides protection from frosts, but not hard freezes.  Preparing the garden for frost

Portable greenhouse with potted salad greens inside for winter growing

Winter hardy kale, spinach, Austrian peas, carrots and winter onions don’t need to be covered and can be harvested all winter (as long as the ground isn’t too frozen) and into spring.  I grew Austrian peas last winter and they provided greens for salad all winter long.  They have very pretty flowers, too.  Come spring I had lots of early peas too.

I’ll put our portable, plastic mini greenhouse over the greens in my Earthboxes sometime this month or next.  One watchout with green houses-they get very, very hot in sunny weather so be sure to open them to allow circulation in fall and early winter.  They will need to be closed up when winter really sets in December sometime.

Plant your transplants for fall and winter harvest

Late fall edible garden

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Now is the time to put out your transplants for your winter garden.  Winter producing varieties are the really hardy cold crops that thrive in the cool temperatures of spring, fall and winter. To get the longest harvest possible, look for varieties that say “cold hardy”, “early winter”, “overwintering”, “winter-hardy”, “cold tolerant”, “bred for winter production.”  

With cover, the following will allow you to harvest all winter: arugula, beets, chicory, corn salad, lettuce, mustard greens, parsley root, radicchio, radishes, spinach, and swiss chard.

The following don’t require covering: brussels sprouts, winter harvest cabbage, carrots, collards, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, bunching onions or Egyptian onions, parsnips, rutabagas, turnips, salad burnet.

Any perennial greens can also be planted now.  Your perennial greens and overwintering varieties are the first up in the spring.

If you didn’t start seeds, big box stores, local nurseries and even mail order nurseries have begun to have fall planting veggies so you can still get transplants to plant in time for fall, winter, and spring harvests.  Our local Ace Hardware store has cabbage, broccoli, kale, lettuce, chives, collards, spinach, and mustard greens.

*Asparagus (planted now for spring)

*Sprouting broccoli and broccoli (will come back in the spring, too)

*Cabbage (at this point, look for ones with the shortest days to maturity)

*Carrots (can be pulled all winter)

*Chard (will survive winters if placed in a sheltered area and mulched or in the greenhouse)

*Collard Greens (a southern favorite)

*Corn salad (also called Mache)

*Egyptian walking onions (harvest all winter in a pot or ground)

*Garlic, shallots, leeks (can be planted into November)

*Kale (will survive all winter into spring in a greenhouse)

*Lettuce (can germinate at temps as low as 40 degrees F)

*Mustard greens (love Giant Red and Ruby Streaks)

*Bunching onions (depending on type, ready to harvest Oct-Dec)

*Overwintering onions (all onions can be left in the ground in Zone 6/7)

*Overwintering peas

*Radishes (can be pulled all through winter)

*Rutabaga

*Salad burnet (a perennial has a fresh cucumber/cilantro taste)

*Sorrel (a perennial that has a tart taste kind of like Granny Smith apples)

*Spinach (will survive the winter to mature in early spring in the greenhouse)

Your transplants will grow quickest in the earliest part of fall, slowing down as daylight hours decrease.  From November to mid-January, there will be minimal growth.

Fall and winter harvested veggies are at their crispest and sweetest after a light frost.  The cold temps concentrate the sugars, making them extra yummy!

Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies

Saturday, September 22, 2018

Love Vidalia onions, but are bummed that the season to buy them is so short?  Love zucchini, but by mid-summer have them coming out your ears?  Wondering what to do with all those luscious sun ripened tomatoes?  Dehydrating or sun drying is a great option!

There are many options for purchasing an electric dehydrator in any price range.  You can also use screen material to dehydrate your extra veggies in the sun.  For things like herbs, just putting on a cookie sheet in the sun does the trick.  For the juicy veggies, be sure to cover them so flies can’t get to them.

There are also DIY sun dehydrators that you can build fairly inexpensively that speeds up the drying process.  I've seen plans for one on Mother Earth News.  How to Build a Food Dehydrator - DIY - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

For dehydrating, just slice your veggies in even widths and place on your tray.  Set to the recommended temperature (135-155 degrees F) and let the dehydrator do its thing.  In a day or two, you will have dried veggies that you can store in pretty containers for display on shelves or in canning jars.

You can also use your oven if the temperature will go low enough.  Mine goes down to 170 degrees F.  You can dry veggies at temps as high as 200 but you will have to keep a close eye on them to make sure they don't brown versus dry.  You can crack your oven open to help keep your veggies from burning, but that can get pretty toasty in the summer kitchen!

For onions and peppers, I like them really dry so I can make them into powder.  I dry Pablanos and Anchos for chili powder.  Two pepper plants give us enough dried peppers that we never have to buy chili powder from the store!  My husband loves Vidalia onions so we buy them up and dry them so we can use them on burgers year round.  10 pounds of fresh onions provides all we need for the year dried.

We love to bake our potatoes on the grill.  We slice them, add butter, salt and dried onions, wrap in aluminum foil and place on the grill.

Drying concentrates the sugars in your vegetables so you will get an intensity of flavor using the dried veggie in recipes.  You can also re-hydrate your veggies to use in recipes throughout the winter.

Dried onions

The really cool thing about dried veggies is that no refrigeration is needed!  Just store in a cool dark place until you are ready to use them.  If you want to rehydrate your veggie, just place in a bowl of cool water for 30-60 minutes.  The water will have lots of nutrients in it so use in your next recipe, to make stock or in your next smoothie.  Don't let any of all that goodness go to waste!

You can dry extra zucchini to rehydrate and grill this winter, we dry onions and sprinkle them on our burger and steak, dried tomatoes are great in salads.  The list goes on!