Tread lightly on the things of earth

I’ve never tried gardening through the winter before. But the possibility of growing backyard vegetables year round has always intrigued me. So this year, back on October 1, I planted several cabbage, collard, and broccoli plants, and sowed mustard and turnips in two of my four 50 square foot beds. On frosty days I cover these beds with clear plastic suspended over flexible PVC hoops.

BTW, this plastic/hoops idea comes from what is possibly the most practical gardening book I’ve ever read, my mud-stained copy of the now out-of-print Jeff Ball’s 60-Minute Vegetable Garden. Nearly as useful — and chockfull of data about what’s possible from a small plot of land — is John Jeavons’ How to Grow More Vegetables. I’ve spent hours, actually years, daydreaming over the high-producing organic gardening techniques presented in both.

Granted, here in the U.S. mid-south we haven’t experienced temperatures much below 20°F (-7°C) yet. In fact, winter temps here rarely fall far into the single digit °F (-17° to -12°C). Even so, I’m still amazed to look out and see lush greens and broccoli growing in my garden in the middle of winter. And as I learned firsthand last year, I can plant sugar snap peas the first week of February, less than 3 weeks away. Year-round gardening!

As a lovely example, here’s some broccoli I brought in yesterday morning, which we ate steamed with some pasta last night. Ah! Compared to spring garden broccoli, winter broccoli is really mild-tasting, and there are no bugs at all.

I think I inherited a love-of-gardening gene from my maternal grandmother, who always seemed to me to be a wizard at growing flowers and vegetables. She was a good cook, too, though, whereas I’m not; after I get stuff grown I sometimes have a hard time knowing what to do with it. One thing at a time, boy, one thing at a time.