As I write this, there’s an ongoing recall and investigation as to how a half-billion eggs came to be contaminated with salmonella that has sickened more than a thousand people. (If you’ve seen the movie FRESH, you already know how it happened.) If ever there was a timely example as to why we need to know where our food comes from and how it’s been handled, this is it. It certainly reinforces my motivation for growing a garden and why I now buy so much of my other food – including eggs – locally, from sources I trust. It also explains why I’m working on a cold frame that will extend my harvest season into the depths of December and beyond. Simple living means being able to trust that the food you eat won’t make you sick – or kill you.
So with the cold frame base constructed and filled with soil, on the 13th of August, I planted approximately 2/3 of the bed with the first of the cold-hardy vegetables that will carry me through the fall and into early winter:
Arugula (regular)
Arugula (‘Sylvetta’)
Beets (‘Bull’s blood’)
Carrots (‘Napoli’)
Swiss chard (rhubarb)
Lettuce (‘Black Seeded Simpson’ and ‘Rouge d’hiver’)
Mizuna (an Asian green)
Radish (‘Charette’)
Scallions
Spinach (‘Space’)
As I learned with last year’s inaugural attempt, timing is everything with the winter vegetable garden because day length controls growth rate. If things are planted late, they won’t grow to harvestable size before the short days halt their growth completely. So I’m being extra careful to protect my plantings from four-legged and winged eating machines; a later replanting isn’t an option because I won’t get a harvest when I need it.
As soon as the seed was in the ground, I watered carefully (so as not to wash the seed away) and covered the bed with row cover. This is a very lightweight spun material that lets in light and moisture, yet protects the seedlings a bit from the still-hot August sun and slows evaporation. When most everything was up (on the 19th), I then used galvanized 9 gauge wire cut into 76″ lengths to make “hoops” (actually half-circles) to hold up the row cover. The row cover is actually light enough that the plants could push it up themselves, but since it blows around easily it has to be weighted on the edges. So I felt it would be best to hold the row cover off the plants while still fastening it securely against the wind. The wire should be available at any hardware-type of store (I got mine at Lowe’s) and the row cover can be found at any gardening center.
Making the hoops took a bit of time and some muscle (cutting the wire) but now that they’re done, I have them forever. I watered thoroughly and recovered the bed, fastening the cover to the hoops with clothes pins to keep it in place. In the photo you can see the as yet un-planted end has no hoops and I’ve used scrap 2 x 4′s as weights.
Cold frame with hoops under the row cover. The near end is, as yet, unplanted. More cold-hardy crops will go here around the first of September.
Around the first of September, I will add mache, claytonia, minutina and more spinach to my plantings. These are the most cold-hardy greens and should be harvestable right through until spring. The first three germinate best in somewhat cooler weather so their planting gets delayed just a bit until early September.
If you look closely you can see happy baby plants snuggled under their row cover shelter.
Also to keep the munching bunny herds at bay, I have rigged up a very easy (if not beautiful) fence of 1″ poultry netting held in place with bamboo stakes woven down through the fence and pushed into the ground. The base of the fence is tacked in place with landscape fabric “pins”, which are U-shaped. You position them over the fence wire on the ground and then pound in with a hammer. While rabbits can do some burrowing I’ve found they don’t generally bother when the fence is tight to the ground. They also could jump over the 24″ fence, but again they seem to think that such efforts aren’t worth the trouble while food is abundant. They might be more persistent in the winter, but by then the cold frame will be covered and it won’t be a problem. In fact, once the cold frame is covered I will open up the fenced area so that I can access it easily while there’s snow on the ground.
The beauty of this sort of temporary fence is that it’s very easy to install and can be quickly removed with minimal effort. Fences don’t always have to be daunting projects involving post hole diggers and prying out rocks!
So that’s where the winter garden stands now. Updates will continue whenever I have progress to report!
(Read Winter garden cold frame redux, part II and part I)
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