Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] winter and spring vegetables?

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Harvey Ussery <huboxwood@earthlink.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] winter and spring vegetables?
  • Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 18:46:43 -0600

I'm making a listing of vegetables that can be left in the ground for
winter eating, and the earliest spring varieties to plant, including
sources and culture. What root crops do you have in the ground now, and
what will you plant early spring in your climate?

paul

In the ground now:

*Carrots - I'll just leave them where they are until the ground freezing weather is imminent, then pull and put in a "clamp," a protected hole in the ground. I prefer to leave them in the ground all winter protected under a thick enough mulch to protect from freezing, usually do that, works great--but germination was a bit spotty this year, so the carrots more spread out over the bed, mulching whole bed heavily wd be wasteful.

*Mangels (mangel wurzels, fodder beets): I raise these for the chickens (also good fresh winter fodder for pigs, lactating stock like goats & cows). Said to be okay as people food as well, I haven't eaten them, raise a winter beet instead (Lutz highly recommended).

*Chard - Still green and lush in the garden, can keep harvesting until it gets seriously cold. Have planted more in the greenhouse, they're coming on real good.

*Fall alliums: You inquired earlier, Paul, about whether it was too late to get these in. Hope you did. Early this month I planted 2 types garlic (softneck & rocambole), 2 var's shallots, yellow potatoes, Egyptian walking onions.

*I rarely grow them, but there are a number of more unusual root crops that are great overwinter. Unlike most root crops, which turn to mush if they freeze, parsnips, salsify, and scorzonera can go thru any number of freeze/thaw cycles and be just fine when you dig them out in the spring. (Of course, you can't dig them when the ground is frozen.) A similar root I'm interested in is skirret (Sium sisarum), some of which I planted this spring in our emerging "forest garden." Didn't get a harvest yet, but it is perennial (and can be propagated vegetatively), and so I hope to multiply it next year and get a taste. Skirret also is a good generalist nectary plant--it has a flower something like that of yarrow.

As for earliest spring var's to plant:

*I like to grow chicories in the early spring. Start them in the basement under grow lights and/or in the greenhouse, transplant them early spring, quite cold hardy, great salad greens. (I prefer to lettuce.)

*Spinach. Cold hardy.

*Various cooking greens - raab, hon tsai tai, mustard are favorites

*Have any onions you stored over winter, starting to sprout as they end their storage life? Assuming they haven't turned mushy, plant them out, harvest the green tops.

I'm just rambling here, so many possibilities.

~Harvey




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page