The Winter Garden

The temperatures plunged into the teens this weekend and the highs during the day didn't get out of the upper 30s. That's pretty unusual for our area, even though cold weather is not. Although the Farmer's Almanac and the local weather people said we'd have a mild, wet winter, it just hasn't happened. We'll see how our little winter garden fares after a few days sub-freezing weather.

The winter garden is our experiment, which so far has proved itself quite successful. Since our winters are oh so mild as compared to Western New York we decided to put the raised bed garden to use despite the cold weather. Choosing the more cold hardy of vegetables, we planted lettuces, beets, chard, and carrots back in October. We've been enjoying greens and lettuce since late November. We're still waiting for the carrots since they require more time. There's nothing like fresh picked lettuce for salads or sweet beet greens with all those wonderful antioxidants. It's also fun to walk past the bags of salad greens in the store and know that my lettuce at home is way better and much cheaper.

So as the mercury drops, the little garden is bundled up in straw and draped with old sheets to ward off what they're calling killer temperatures. We'll see what survives. Sure glad we had some beet greens and a salad this week because I'm not confident there will be any to enjoy tomorrow morning. But I sure hope it makes it because some more greens would be nice, and it would be a shame to lose those carrots that are starting to get some size. It'll be a mystery until tomorrow morning.

The Summer Garden

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The Summer Garden

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