It's been a very long winter here in the northeast. The snows kept coming, the temperature stayed freezing, the winter wonderland turned into black ice, crusted 3' snow mounds and a desire to never see the color white again. There's still snow on the ground and another storm coming, but a good way to stave off the urge to throttle winter, is to plan for spring.

First, you need to decide what you want to grow this year. Take into consideration how much space you have, as well as how much room the plants you want to grow need. If you have one 8' x 4' bed and are thinking of growing squash, you might want to rethink that, unless that's all you want to grow! Most squash vines spread at least 10' and would smother other plants too close to them. Tomatoes need a foot of space on every side, pepper need 10" - 12" of space... You need to think about that when you decide what you want in your garden. Most seed packets but especially good seed catalogs will tell you that kind of information.

I use mostly Johnny's and Fedco. Both are great seed companies (both employee owned) and both catalogs will give you a wealth of information. Whether you should start indoors or direct seed, what soil and/or nutrients the plant needs, how long to germinate and harvest, what pests and diseases the plant is susceptible to... and lots more. These catalogs are a great resource guide, as most reputable and respected ones are.

It's always a good idea to use seed catalogs from the area you are in. All the info will pertain to the growing conditions in your particular area. Weather, typical soil, planting dates, pest and disease problems, all of these vary widely even with a single state. It's good to have information that's pertinent to the area you'll be growing in. Another benefit, most of the good catalogs either get seed from around their area or grow it themselves. This means the seeds are right for your climate, your area and will do better for you than seed from a different part of the country.

When ordering your seeds, keep in mind multiple crops. If you want to grow beets, lettuce, carrots and peas, but only have the space for 2 of those, remember beets only take 30-40 days to mature. Peas are out by mid/late June (least here in CT), that leaves plenty of time to put in other crops. This maximizes your growing potential, even in smaller spaces.

Next i'll post a couple of garden planners. It's useful to mark things down to refer to, so you can plan your garden all season long.

Have fun going through all those seed catalogs!

It's January 4th.. time to start looking at your garden catalogs and decide what you want to grow this year. In my next post i'll talk more about planning your garden. Now is the time to look at those garden catalogs and dream of all you want for this year's garden.

I always go through the seeds I have left, not only to see things i don't have to order this year, but see if the seeds are still viable. Tomato seeds can last 4 - 10 years, lettuce about 3 years. So it's a good idea to go through your seeds and toss the ones that are too old. If you have a lot of them and want to see what the germination rate is there's a simple way to do that. Take a few paper towels and wet them down, ring them out so they're damp not soaking wet. Put 10 seeds on one side and fold the paper towel over them. Put them in a warm place, like on top of the fridge. Spray the paper towel with water every few days so it doesn't dry out. After 1 - 2 weeks check them to see how many sprouted. If 5 out of the 10 sprouted, you have 50% germination. If 1 sprouted, it's 10% and the seeds aren't worth keeping. Remember different seeds germinate at different rates, so don't be impatient, give them at least 2 weeks and sometimes (in the case of some peppers or parsley) even 3.

You should keep extra seeds (or seeds you've harvested from your own plants) in a covered container in the fridge, with a packet of silica gel. The silica gel keeps the seeds dry and the cold in the fridge keeps the seeds viable longer.

Another thing i like to do in the winter is have some blooming plants indoors. Helps me get through these dark, cold snowy months. The above photo shows my amaryllis called apple blossom. This amaryllis has bloomed for me every single year since i got it about 7 or 8 years ago, until last winter. Last winter it didn't bloom and i thought it was done. This year, just before i was going to start watering it again, it put up a flower stalk. I promptly starting watering it, and it started to bloom a couple of days ago! It has a light fragrance and is so nice to see in early January.

It's between christmas and new years.. nothing going on in the garden cause i don't have a hoop house, low tunnels or a green house.. got all my catalogs and going through them to put in my order soonishly, cause.. starting in february i'll start some seedlings.. but not quite yet.. So, to keep you all entertained till i post again, which probably won't be for another couple of weeks.. here's a photo of my cat, Muddy.. he just turned 2 in November.. he's a big cat, about 15 pounds, not fat, just big! I call him little big cat. I know, not much to do with gardening but he is one good looking cat! ; )

I know i've been really slack about my blog lately. There are a few reasons.. #1. it's winter.. there's not a whole lot going on in the garden in winter. Though, as you can see from the above photo, i'm still harvesting kale, brussels sprouts, and not seen, collards, and lettuce. The second reason is i got the flu.. Kinda puts you off your game for awhile. I'm not 100% yet, but i've had to get back into gardens i work to clean up for the winter.

It's important to clean up your garden area before the ground freezes solid. You don't want insects making a nice winter home in your garden debris; just gives them a head start next spring. So besides overwintering crops, like garlic, you want to pull out all your stalks, stems, etc.. from your garden area. Not only does this help with pests, it also means you're ready to go next early spring.

Also, if you've had pests like tomato horn worms, or flea beetles, and the like, not only do you want to pull out all your dead vegetation, you want to turn your soil over now.. Reason, a lot of pests lay their eggs in the soil, by turning it over now, you can expose a lot of the eggs and hopefully kill them. While i'm not usually an aggressive person, i do believe in killing pest insects with vigor. After all, they're eating my food, i don't think they worked for it!

So.. maybe in the next few weeks i'll post a photo of my empty garden, which is kinda sad.. one day i'll start posting photos of my incredible greenhouse where i grow stuff year round, but till then.. and till February when it all starts again.. Lets harvest what's still growing, and give thanks for the season we had!

It's getting cooler now, we've had a few frosts and this morning we even got some snow flurries. While that doesn't make me happy, it does mean it's time to cover my garlic. On this bed i used a type of organic straw that's been treated so there are no weed seeds. Garlic does not like to compete with weeds, so it's good to use a mulch that doesn't have any in them. Leaves are acceptable as well as pine needles. Both leaves (especially oak leaves) and pine needles are more acidic, but only using it as a mulch and not digging it into the soil, will not affect the pH of your soil.

If you're planting hard neck garlic then you'll want a good 4" to 6" of mulch on top of them. For soft neck garlic you'll want 8" to 12". I'm planting both kinds this year, so obviously i want to keep track of what garlic i planted where. Next post i'll show you how I do that. This bed holds german red and music garlic, both hard necks.

The reason you want to mulch over your garlic isn't because it isn't winter hardy, at least with the hard necks. The reason is that in the fall and in the spring, we get cold temperatures, then warm, then cold again.. This can make the garlic bulbs heave out of the ground, not something you want. By mulching them over, it regulates the temperature better and they won't do that. For soft necks you're also protecting them from extreme cold, which they don't like, and which is why you use so much more mulch on top of them.

So why would I plant a soft neck when they're so much more trouble? They also have a higher failure rate than my other garlic varieties. The answer is, they are the longest storing types of garlic. I'm planting a kind that's supposed to be a little more winter hardy than some others. It's called susanville, and i'll let you know how it did next year.

For now, all my garlic is planted and protected, now all i have to do is wait....

We've been having some really nice warm autumn weather lately. A bit too warm to put straw down on my garlic. You don't want to mulch over your garlic while it's warm out, the reason is pest insects can make nice cozy winter homes in the mulch and you don't want to give them a head start next spring. So, I'll have to wait to mulch over my garlic. On the up side though, i'm still harvesting lots of stuff from the garden. Shown here from left to right; a fall crop of romaine lettuce, kale, above the kale are purple brussels sprouts (we have had a frost so they'll be sweet) a couple of nice green tomatoes and a 1/2 red sweet pepper. The reason you want to wait till a frost to harvest the brussels sprouts, is as i said, because they'll get sweeter, same for collards. The garden my collards are in though, haven't gotten a frost yet so i haven't started harvesting them quite yet.

I started planting my garlic on October 20th. Usually here (in New Haven CT) you want to start planting your garlic around mid October. You don't want to plant it too early as the cloves will start to grow too much, but you don't want to get it in so late that the garlic doesn't have a chance to acclimate before the winter sets in. We've been getting some warm days here so it gives me more wiggle room to get them all in. I've been working in 3 different gardens, but I'll be planting my garlic in 4 places. My partner and I are starting a farm and I'll have lots of room to put in more garlic this year. Garlic is a heavy feeder, so the first thing you want to do is enrich the soil before you plant. I get composted manure and humus mix, add that to the soil and dig it under before i plant. The above photo shows the compost added, i rake it around then dig it under and rake it smooth. 

Once i do that, i separate the cloves of my garlic. You want to plant each clove, pointy end up, 4-6" apart, and 6-10" between the rows. Remember that all these little cloves will grow into a full head of garlic so give them room so you can get a nice big head of garlic. If you plant them too close they won't have the room to get large. I like to separate the cloves and lay them out on the top of the soil, then all i have to do is dig 4" deep and plant them in, they're all set where they should be. Makes the work go faster. I'm planting 4 different kinds of garlic this year. The music and german red garlic are from what i grew this year. I'm also trying cascade rose which is an early developing hard neck, and susanville which is a soft neck garlic.Soft neck garlics aren't supposed to do well here, this one though, is supposed to deal with tough winters better than others, and the soft necks can save for over a year, which most of the hard neck garlics won't. So.. giving it a try.

You need to add some kind of mulch to garlic. While the hard necks are very hardy, you want the mulch on it to prevent heaving. Heaving means, the garlic rises up over the soil line, this isn't something you want to happen, it occurs when temperatures go up and down. 4 - 6" of mulch on top of your garlic will prevent this, for soft necks, you want 10-12" of mulch as they're not as hardy. I'll show photos of that when i add the mulch. I don't want to add it too soon as the temperatures are well above freezing and there's no need to do it yet. if you add the mulch too soon, it will give nice cosy homes to pests for the winter.