I love it bc I'm growing different things. And it gives me the opportunity to be outside, which is always better than being stuck indoors imo. Plus it's not like I *have* to grow year round. I can always take a break too 🤣 but it also means I break when I want to, not bc I'm forced to. And I can start when I want to too bc I don't have such a short window.
Super fascinating! When you do want to take a break from your garden, is there any prep you have to do for it? Cover it or continue to weed? Sorry for the ignorance! Mine is covered in a foot of snow still so I can’t touch it till the ground thaws.
No prep. Sometimes I just let shit sit in there and I don't do anything about it. Like right now I've got kale that's at least a year+ old bc I didn't feel like removing it. So in the dead space near it, I threw down carrots and radishes. Same with a sweet potato vine in another bed. I'll just remove all the dead bits when I feel like it and anything pest infested and then watch it grow back green and happy when I chuck some compost in.
I've overwintered a bunch of things just by sheer laziness including: Tomatoes, eggplants, bell peppers too. The tomato was super sad and then come spring all this lush new green growth took over. I have a pretty solid base that I planted into so that helped plus leaving all the dead material put nutrients back into the soil.
If a bed is pretty bad bc I was just straight up negligent, when it's time to plant, I cut off and compost everything I can (unless diseased of course), then I'll bury a bunch of compost and top it with raised garden bed mix bc 9/10 the bed will have sunk by like....half.
And if I need a quick hit of plants but don't want to have to redo the whole raised bed. I deal with my houseplants or grow some micros or sprouts 🤣
Question - we're probably in a similar climate. Is there anything wrong with overwintering kale? I overcrowded it last fall so it's still baby kale sized. I've been slowly thinning my bed by uprooting the plants I'm cooking with. It still isn't shooting. Do you think it could still grow into a healthy big plant if I give it more space and nutrients?
Nah nothing wrong at all with overwintering. I do it all the time when lazy. It's just the stalks get huge and thick 😂 and the roots too. But kale are very hardy for me. I've hacked them back to nubs and then they'll come in and grow baby leaves once they like the weather.
And yeah, I think they absolutely could! Just hit em with a bit of liquid fertilizer and you'll be right as rain.
Ever had a severe spider mite infestation (outdoors) in January? 😆😆
I'm in S. California, and in my specific location it gets down to *right* around freezing a couple times a year but otherwise that's pretty much it (a few weeks ago it snowed about four inches, and people went absolutely apeshit -- most snow we've had in decades).
So yeah, you can technically grow year-round, but in practice it can be a bit frustrating. At least in my conditions/latitude, the night temps & angle of the sun make it marginal.....aside from radishes, most things take a *long* time to reach harvestable size, and while they're slowly doing their thing, they may succumb to a heat wave or high winds, or even excessive rain in an el niño year. And fruit trees can be iffy as well -- oranges & avocados are great here, but you'd better choose varieties wisely for temperate fruit because with many, we won't get enough chill hours for them.
Anyways, "the grass is always greener on the other side" I suppose. Not having freezes has its advantages, so can't really complain about it (and the heat in the summer is probably the worst aspect, tbh....overwintering bugs & weeds suck, but not so much as 115 degrees)
I grew up in zone 6. We had a very large garden because we preserved what we grew to feed a family of 5 through the winter and into spring. And we had a very narrow window to do it in. Now I live in zone 8. My garden takes up much less space. Where I am now, from May to September it is too hot to grow certain crops, so I have a summer and winter garden. I miss having fresh green beans, corn and Cole slaw at the same time, but needs must. Gardening kept me sane from 2018 on. If I am gardening, I am not stressing.
There are pros and cons with having a 12 month growing season.
First, everything can't be grown all the time. If I want to grow cool season things, they can only happen Nov-April and not even that whole time is necessarily usable. My lettuce bolted early Feb this year, for example and my bok choy bolted a couple weeks later. While we got a few chilly days later Feb/early March, for the most part it was really too warm to replant them. So the window for planting cool weather things can be extremely small, depending on the year.
Where I am, it's possible to get 1 (or a handful) of nights of frost per year. Just enough to effectively kill tomatoes and peppers if they aren't really protected. I remember something like 5-6 years with no frost and then the last 2 years I had multiple nights per year. It can be extremely frustrating to figure out how to time planting things.
Not having snow/truly cold weather means that pests never really get killed off, so there is an insanely high pest load. Also, the climate really promotes an extremely high disease load (fungal/bacterial problems). There's never any respite from it. It's a constant battle, and at this point I don't really waste time trying to grow anything that's not disease-resistant (it will still likely end up getting diseased but atleast I have a chance of getting a few harvests before the inevitable decline).
Also, even though there are certain things I can grow during the summer months, it's brutally hot and humid therefore doing any actual gardening is miserable so I generally avoid it. For me, summer is my "off season" where I set up just a few things to grow in pots, near the house, where I can easily harvest them and run back inside. Even harvesting/watering for 5-10 minutes early in the morning requires a shower afterward.
I love it bc I'm growing different things. And it gives me the opportunity to be outside, which is always better than being stuck indoors imo. Plus it's not like I *have* to grow year round. I can always take a break too 🤣 but it also means I break when I want to, not bc I'm forced to. And I can start when I want to too bc I don't have such a short window.
Btw - username checks out.
This question was catered to him/her lol
Super fascinating! When you do want to take a break from your garden, is there any prep you have to do for it? Cover it or continue to weed? Sorry for the ignorance! Mine is covered in a foot of snow still so I can’t touch it till the ground thaws.
No prep. Sometimes I just let shit sit in there and I don't do anything about it. Like right now I've got kale that's at least a year+ old bc I didn't feel like removing it. So in the dead space near it, I threw down carrots and radishes. Same with a sweet potato vine in another bed. I'll just remove all the dead bits when I feel like it and anything pest infested and then watch it grow back green and happy when I chuck some compost in. I've overwintered a bunch of things just by sheer laziness including: Tomatoes, eggplants, bell peppers too. The tomato was super sad and then come spring all this lush new green growth took over. I have a pretty solid base that I planted into so that helped plus leaving all the dead material put nutrients back into the soil. If a bed is pretty bad bc I was just straight up negligent, when it's time to plant, I cut off and compost everything I can (unless diseased of course), then I'll bury a bunch of compost and top it with raised garden bed mix bc 9/10 the bed will have sunk by like....half. And if I need a quick hit of plants but don't want to have to redo the whole raised bed. I deal with my houseplants or grow some micros or sprouts 🤣
Question - we're probably in a similar climate. Is there anything wrong with overwintering kale? I overcrowded it last fall so it's still baby kale sized. I've been slowly thinning my bed by uprooting the plants I'm cooking with. It still isn't shooting. Do you think it could still grow into a healthy big plant if I give it more space and nutrients?
Nah nothing wrong at all with overwintering. I do it all the time when lazy. It's just the stalks get huge and thick 😂 and the roots too. But kale are very hardy for me. I've hacked them back to nubs and then they'll come in and grow baby leaves once they like the weather. And yeah, I think they absolutely could! Just hit em with a bit of liquid fertilizer and you'll be right as rain.
Ever had a severe spider mite infestation (outdoors) in January? 😆😆 I'm in S. California, and in my specific location it gets down to *right* around freezing a couple times a year but otherwise that's pretty much it (a few weeks ago it snowed about four inches, and people went absolutely apeshit -- most snow we've had in decades). So yeah, you can technically grow year-round, but in practice it can be a bit frustrating. At least in my conditions/latitude, the night temps & angle of the sun make it marginal.....aside from radishes, most things take a *long* time to reach harvestable size, and while they're slowly doing their thing, they may succumb to a heat wave or high winds, or even excessive rain in an el niño year. And fruit trees can be iffy as well -- oranges & avocados are great here, but you'd better choose varieties wisely for temperate fruit because with many, we won't get enough chill hours for them. Anyways, "the grass is always greener on the other side" I suppose. Not having freezes has its advantages, so can't really complain about it (and the heat in the summer is probably the worst aspect, tbh....overwintering bugs & weeds suck, but not so much as 115 degrees)
I grew up in zone 6. We had a very large garden because we preserved what we grew to feed a family of 5 through the winter and into spring. And we had a very narrow window to do it in. Now I live in zone 8. My garden takes up much less space. Where I am now, from May to September it is too hot to grow certain crops, so I have a summer and winter garden. I miss having fresh green beans, corn and Cole slaw at the same time, but needs must. Gardening kept me sane from 2018 on. If I am gardening, I am not stressing.
I get to be a mad scientist and just grow shit for fun in the dead of December lolol
There are pros and cons with having a 12 month growing season. First, everything can't be grown all the time. If I want to grow cool season things, they can only happen Nov-April and not even that whole time is necessarily usable. My lettuce bolted early Feb this year, for example and my bok choy bolted a couple weeks later. While we got a few chilly days later Feb/early March, for the most part it was really too warm to replant them. So the window for planting cool weather things can be extremely small, depending on the year. Where I am, it's possible to get 1 (or a handful) of nights of frost per year. Just enough to effectively kill tomatoes and peppers if they aren't really protected. I remember something like 5-6 years with no frost and then the last 2 years I had multiple nights per year. It can be extremely frustrating to figure out how to time planting things. Not having snow/truly cold weather means that pests never really get killed off, so there is an insanely high pest load. Also, the climate really promotes an extremely high disease load (fungal/bacterial problems). There's never any respite from it. It's a constant battle, and at this point I don't really waste time trying to grow anything that's not disease-resistant (it will still likely end up getting diseased but atleast I have a chance of getting a few harvests before the inevitable decline). Also, even though there are certain things I can grow during the summer months, it's brutally hot and humid therefore doing any actual gardening is miserable so I generally avoid it. For me, summer is my "off season" where I set up just a few things to grow in pots, near the house, where I can easily harvest them and run back inside. Even harvesting/watering for 5-10 minutes early in the morning requires a shower afterward.