We try to plant hardy crops that will provide us with fresh food from the garden as deep into winter as possible. This year we planted collard greens in early September. On the late side for a successful crop, but it has really worked out. I picked a giant bag of collards on Sunday — December 20! Our kale is still holding on as well. I picked a good bunch and there’s still more out there. We’re also still picking carrots (we have them well mulched) and beets. I had four forgotten broccoli plants in a far corner of our community garden plot that I neglected to pull. Turned out to be a good thing — I picked a nice bag of side shoots on Sunday as well.
We haven’t had any snow yet this year, which is good and bad. It’s good because our greens aren’t buried by snow. It’s bad because snow is the best fertilizer. The more we get, the better our garden will do come spring!
We have had an unusually warm winter so far, so things are really holding on out there. We just hope that the warm weather doesn’t mess up our garlic by making it start to grow too much and then get nailed by a hard frost.
We still have winter squash in the cold cellar, carrots in the fridge and garlic on the shelf, so we’re doing pretty well in the fresh produce department, considering it’s late December!
I hope your mid-winter garden is doing well and you still have a couple of things to harvest. If you haven’t tried late season greens like collards and kale, I recommend them. It’s special to eat fresh vegetables at this time of year.