A winter garden can be every bit as beautiful as a summer garden. Unless it's a vegetable garden, in which case it's just pathetic.
Walking into a barren vegetable garden in the middle of winter is like walking into your therapists office and finding them curled up in the corner crying and wearing a diaper with a pasta pot on their head. It's not encouraging.
But once a month or so in the winter I check on my normally therapeutic garden to see what's going on up there. Such was the case a week or so ago after a big snowfall. There wasn't any evidence of any humans being there for a few days but the rabbit tracks were everywhere as soon as I walked into the community garden.
Rabbits are kind of the reason I go up and check on the garden. I want to make sure they haven't eaten my leeks which should be ready to pick in the late spring.
Leeks are very important to me. So is
Normally my garden brings me joy! A sense of accomplishment! Much needed therapy! But in the winter? In the winter my garden just brings me a lot of resentment that it isn't spring or summer.
Last winter the rabbits ate my leeks. All of them. From the tips, right down to the ground. Fully nourished, they flourished, developed curvy Jessica Rabbit-like figures, mated, and gave birth later in the summer in the middle of my potato patch.
Pulling up rabbits. In my potato patch. That's a bit more impressive than pulling one out of a hat.
After a little bit of wandering and rabbit tracking (I also have a habit of following deer tracks, ambulances, police cars and the smell of french fries) I tromped towards my garden gate.
NO rabbit tracks inside. Just rolling beds of snow and the sad remnants of last summer's garden, like dried asparagus fronds and the odd tool left out to get that much desired Country Living "patina".
One of my hoop houses bit the dust (the hoops just fell over) but the other 3 were going strong even after strong winds and snow. The shape of them lets snow slip off instead of settling on top.
Sad, sad, sad. But it did get me thinking about how I'll change these hoop houses for next year. I need to get them a little taller for the massive kale plants I grow and the Brussels sprouts.
At this point in the garden tour my fingers were starting to really to hurt from the cold, otherwise I would have raised one of them high in the air in a salute to the season that finally killed my kale. Not that I even really like kale all that much. But still. Someone needs to stick up for the kale.
And there they are. My leeks. Covered by a swath of row cover supported by some homemade wire brackets. So far protected from the rabbits, voles and mice. And squirrels and chipmunks and deer and whatever else might be looking for something for their soup.
The rabbits have already made it known they're comfortable with potatoes, I don't need them to discover the magical combination that is potatoes and leeks.
After a bit of a walk around in my garden marvelling at how much neater compost piles look when they're covered in snow, I made my way out again to check on my raspberry bushes at the outside of my garden. They were thorny and dangerous. As predicted.
After about 15 minutes or so I packed up my things, shoved my hands back into my mittens and made my way to the car mumbling all the while about my aching fingers, the lack of sun, the desolate place the garden becomes in the winter. Also I was quite upset I didn't happen to have any french fries on me.
51 days until Spring. Until then I'll be in the corner with a pasta pot on my head, going through seed catalogues.
Jan
Eagerly await all of your blogs. Your garden in winter reminded me of a fascinating article I read about the Armillaria gallice that runs beneath upperMichigan 180 acres of forest. 2,500 year old parasite growth. Unless this was Trumpian fake news? Was in the Star so... Sounds like the sort of thing that would fascinate you.
Jan
Donna
Strangely enough, this is true news. Except it isn’t news, I read about this maybe 20 years ago and even weirder, there was a tv episode about this with Fox Mulder (remember that show?)
linda in illinois
great photos. cold and snowy here in Illinois as well. Freezing rain makes me cry but i know spring will come eventually. any Lufa seeds this year?
Ann Brookens
Which part of Illinois are you in? I live barely North of Springfield!
Erin
My outdoor kale finally met a similar fate. The kale in the hoop house is ok, but looking freeze-dried. It still works in soups.
I've had luck cutting the mature kale stalk to the ground and having regrowth in the spring. Not from every stalk, but enough to get us some early greens. The spring leaves are smaller but very sweet. The carry us over until the new seedlings size up.
Enjoy the seed catalogues!
Lianne D
I'm guessing your garden is far enough offsite to need your car to get there? I built your string tomato trellis last year, I need stronger string as mine disinterested at the plant base lol
Love your ideas!! Thinking of doing Brussel sprouts for the first time (4 hours north of Toronto, so hopefully I'll be successful)
Lianne
I'm guessing your garden is far enough offsite to need your car to get there? I built your string tomato trellis last year, I need stronger string as mine disinterested at the plant base lol
Love your ideas!! Thinking of doing Brussel sprouts for the first time (4 hours north of Toronto, so hopefully I'll be successful)
Jan Bushfield
Love the Canadian Living look of your watering can, but be warned...I have a much loved old enamelware pitcher, the gallon size used to pour coffee at church suppers eons ago...inadvertently left outdoors one winter and now it has a convex bottom and has to hang from a rope because it can’t sit on its bottom. The power of ice is astonishing. Your watering can may meet a similar fate!
charlotte tataryn
Karen, if you tip the watering can on its side, when the spring melt begins, ah what a notion - we're colder than Antartica, at -50oC with wind chill tonight, so not fit for man nor beast. I am grateful I am man, and have a house with a furnace, that hasn't stopped running in days, maybe weeks.
In any case, it's the frost/ice heave that rounds the bottom of the can, so if on its side, the ice melts differently and the bottom remains flat. I once had no pots, but now I have big pots, although some of them are now purely ornamental simply because they are black, and IF, by chance I actually plant in them, I dump the soil, and turn them either on their side, or upside, down and I've been doing this for years, having never lost a single one. My plastic water cans, fake-Haws, have survived a few winters, likewise, and all that happened was my husband picked on up, pre-melt, and it was so heavy, the handle broke, but nothing that a screw wouldn't fix. And in case, you know all this, "HI!" from one of your billion readers/fans!
Katie
I just did a stupid thing...I asked White Flower Farm for a copy of their catalog...I am excitedly dreading when it comes!
Diane
Can you share your favourite seed catalogues? I need to try some new varieties this year.
Cathy Reeves
As a budding painter, I’m digging that winter sky.
Dawn
😍🎨
Cathy Reeves....
Me too !
Karen,
Thank you so much much for your funny, witty and wise musings. You soothe my silly soul!
Susan
I live in southern Ontario about half hour from where you live Karen. Last year my husband put up a 20 foot by 28 foot double plastic hoophouse. Last fall I planted it full of hardy greens such as kale, chard, endive, spinach, bok choi, radichio. I cannot believe that even with temperatures going as low as minus 20 Celsius plants are still alive. Yesterday went into my summer paradise with temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius above zero. I follow what Eliott Coleman teaches about cold weather crops and what to plant. I just purchased 3 of his books and they are must read books for any hobby/farmer big or small that loves to grow. Four Season Harvest, The New Organic Grower, The Winter Harvest Handbook.
judy
I don know-to me your sleeping garden seemed so filled with hope and promise. Made me think of that Bette Midler song,beneath the bitter snow,lies the seed that in the spring becomes the rose.
Not to be maudlin,but when one comes to old age(I definitely didn't mean to come to old age-must have taken a wrong turn somewhere) Everything has a kind of wistful nostalgia about it,filled with possibilities,potential,mystery and happiness already reaped by the old and now the legacy of those with decades yet to be- so many springs,summers ,winters and fascinating experiences await and even a dull day is worth living. I know Karen and her readers know how to be thoroughly alive. She vibrates with Life!
Lynn
Ah, the woes of having small, vegetarian neighbors! Meet Bob the Groundhog and Sheba the Deer and Fred the Squirrel.
Have you ever considered foraging in winter? I don’t know what grows up there north of the border (I’m on the mid-Atlantic, in Maryland), but here we have chickweed under the snow, and hairy bitter cress (which is neither hairy nor bitter). And onion grass. Finding that bit of edible green in the middle of an otherwise dead looking bed is a joy for me, even if I only pinch off a sprig to munch on. And then there’s the native spice bush. Break off a twig of that and have a lovely cup of tea. There are so many hidden adventures outside, even in the middle of winter, in the middle of the yard. Might even be some chickeeed waiting for you in that same, sad-looking garden, just waiting for you to brush off the snow!
Robert
I feel for you Karen. I look every day at my garden in my community garden here on the wind swept prairie in Saskatchewan and wonder if anything will ever grow there again. But, I know it will - even when it’s going to -30 tonight, and the frozen ground is harder than concrete six feet down!
Spring will come
Karen
I believe it will. :) -30 is colllllddddd. I think tonight we're getting -23 overnight this week but by next Monday ... RAIN! ~ karen
Suz.
We have a snowy owl wintering on our street. He is making inroads on our bunny population.
Karen
Excellent! Snowy owls are sooooo beautiful. I mean yuck, and poor bunnies but ... it's the circle of life. ~ karen!
LeeAnn
I had a big garden once that is now just landscape.
I am a lifetime gardener that ended things because grandma became too busy to care for the things she used to do with her time.
I took down my beautiful fences and gates and hoop houses. I dug up and gave away my blueberries and raspberries and asparagus to a victim of Crohn’s disease who had to eat only organic everything.
I, too, wander about in that space that was is the dead of winter and wistfully remember what you see and the hope of spring brings.
Thanks, Karen.
Karen
I think you'd better start a garden again. Just a little one. ;) ~ karen!
Marna
Brrr looks cold! I grew up in So. California, if we wanted snow, we just drove 10 miles up my street into the foothills and then into the mountains during winter months.
I would not like all that snow in a garden at any time! I hope your leeks survive it all! :)
Martina
“Leeks are very important to me. So is______” do we fill in the blank? And here I thought you walked to your garden...or was it too cold?
Karen
LOL! I must have meant to fill in the blank myself and then forgot about it. So, yeah, let's go with you're allowed to fill in the blank for me. ;) And my garden is about 3 km away from my house so I never walk there. I'll run there and back the odd time, but rarely because I'm usually bringing home produce or tools. ~ karen!
Ann Brookens
Yes, I, too was wondering about that incomplete sentence. So the answer was "potatoes"? "The sanctity of my garden"? "Fluffy, ravaging bunnies"?
Tracy Egan
I just planted Brussels sprouts , beet, hollyhocks, sweet peas and a few other odds and ends. But then again, it was 82 here today in the Endless Summer Hell of southern California that i live in.... Your garden looks resplendent in its snowy winter wrap dappled with bunny tracks.
Susan Claire
I too live in southern California, and for the past week it has been shorts, tank top, and flip flops. I still have a producing tomato plant from last year. Avocados and cherimoyas are waiting to be picked. I don't think we have one season where we can just lay down the gloves and pruners.
Tracy Egan
Yep, my tomatoes are still producing as well! It's down to 75 today. I may have to put on a hoodie! Hahahhaaha!
Karen
I had no idea you could plant brussels sprouts when it was 82 out! Let me know how they do. :) ~ karen!
Tracy Egan
Fingers crossed yesterday was just a fluke.... Ned Stark promised me that Winter is Coming! Where is it, dammit!??
Melissa Keyser
i'm also in California, but in the Central Valley. I can no longer deal with the endless summer hell. We're selling everything we own and moving to New England in the spring.
Karen
That's quite a move Melissa! I love having all 4 distinct seasons, I'm sure you will too. ~ karen!
Deborah Burns
Sleeping garden... peacefully waiting for sun and warm temps!
Paula
I had no idea that you could grow leaks through the winter here. Did I possibly miss a post??!!!
If not, then more details please.