By Kelle Rankin-Sunter
By the time we reach the end of September most gardeners are ready for a break. We have weeded, planted, watered, harvested and worried ourselves into a well-deserved moment of inactivity. Though, there are a few of us who enjoy the challenge of seeing exactly how long we can eke out something edible (or beautiful, in the case of flowers) from our gardens.
I must admit that I belong to the second category. Admittedly, I am not always as diligent as I should be about doing all my vegetable-producing chores during the summer. This is especially true when the competition for my time includes the need to harvest apples, Italian prune plums, grapes and Asian pears. However, as the days get shorter, I am inclined to start looking around the garden to see what might winter over and how I can make that happen.
There are many easy and inexpensive ways to extend your harvest in our mild, maritime climate. I am not even going to mention the most desired thing – the greenhouse. We want to be affordable and practical.
The first thing you must understand is that you aren’t going to be watching your plants grow and produce like they do during the summer months (nope, not even in a greenhouse). Our sun angle is too low and the temperature is just a bit too chilly. For example, most seeds won’t germinate below 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit. Select varieties can work in cooler climates like cruciferous, root and leafy vegetables. It’s also important to protect your plants from damaging weather.
The most obvious of varieties are the root vegetable family: carrots, beets, turnips, radishes and so on. Once planted in late July or August, they will grow through the winter. You simply leave the plants in the ground until you need them for dinner and then dig them up. You won’t need to water them; just protect them if we get temperatures that will hover at 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit for longer than a day or two.
My easiest choice for protection is a cardboard box stuffed with shredded newspaper (leaves or hay also work) placed upside down on top of the garden bed and weighted with a rock or brick.
For an easier system that you can leave in place all winter, use simple wire hoops that are about two feet tall. Shield the hoops with a row cover to make a tent that will trap the ground heat. The row cover allows the rain through but keeps the temperature two to four degrees warmer than the air, depending on the weight of the material. This method has been used successfully in areas like Wyoming and Colorado, where they use a double layer of material: one on the ground next to the plants and the second on the hoops over the plants.
Kale with a bit of a chill to it is simply delicious, even to those who aren’t the biggest fans of the leafy cabbage. Kale makes a great cruciferous green and is very good for you. Other leafy greens that willingly survive the winter include bok choy and Swiss chard.
These can be left with no protection, though they will look pretty sad for a while after a cold event. There have only been a few winters where I’ve lost them due to desiccating cold wind. Of course, protecting them will ensure their survival. There are also cold hardy spinach and lettuce varieties that survive fairly well. If you are like me, the sticker shock from buying fresh greens last winter was enough to make me build a raised bed and put a cover on it.
Raised beds make extending your harvest easier. The soil warms up faster in the spring so that you can germinate your seeds sooner. Being elevated off of the soil grade keeps the bed from staying too wet, and controlling the soil blend in the bed maximizes its ability to support plant growth. There is still time to install a garden bed, and the galvanized metal ones are reasonably priced.
In the meantime, don’t worry if you are one of those gardeners who is already finished for the season. There are CORE classes to take (see nwcore.org), seed catalogs to review and lots of gardeners to chat with in our community.
Kelle Rankin-Sunter is founder of Blaine CORE, which holds free home and gardening classes at Blaine Public Library. Rankin-Sunter can be reached at fruit@Blaine-CORE.com.
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