Winter gardening

I think it’s safe to say I somewhat mastered summer gardening in year one. My plants grew surprisingly well and I got many delicious vegetables including peas, carrots, onions, bokchoy and tomatoes. I’m sure there will be challenges to come but I’m feeling successful and very happy!

Tending to my garden is a great time for thinking and well, it provides tasty snacks too. What does gardening do you for? Why do you love it so much?🌱🌽

But winter is coming! Where I live is fairly mild, the weather usually doesn’t go below -1C(30 degrees F) We live in hardiness zone 8b if that means anything to you. I don’t know much about planting vegetables in the cooler months so I’m reaching out to all of you! Obviously I can’t grow tomatoes and peppers, but what vegetables am I able to grow successfully in cooler weather? Are there any things I need to know before I jump into winter gardening? Another concern of mine is seeds – I haven’t found anywhere that sells seeds past August…will I need to stock up? Do you order from a website? Save seeds from your harvests?

I’d love to grow broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes and am open to all your suggestions. What success have you had with winter gardening? Which veggies do you grow? I’m really looking forward to hearing from all of you🌱🍄

Garden Update – July

Somehow it’s already July! For those fellow Canadians out there, Happy Canada Day! For the rest of you…I hope you’re having a great day. The garden has really grown in the past few weeks, I thought I’d share some photos. I would also really love some advice from you, I’m learning but have had some issues…

The peas are fantastic; about 8 feet tall and producing over a handful every day. I planted both snow peas and snap peas, both of which are doing well.

Snap peas growing rapidly!

I planted about 10 onion bulbs…most of them got rather moldy and limp so I pulled them. I have 3 remaining. This is my largest. I have high hopes but honestly I don’t think it’s doing too well. Have you grown onions? Any tips?

Next are the 8 tomato plants which have taken off. As you can see they were quite small when I planted them. 7 of my tomatoes are doing well, still have yet to produce a tomato…soon! Grow babies, grow!

1 of the stems has an issue…so tomato planting friends I need some help!!! What has happened to my delightful tomato plant? It looks like something has eaten it out…suggestions?

The carrots are HUGE, the stems at least. I dug down to see how big the actual vegetable is and it’s about an inch wide(probably less), so they’re tiny still. I’m getting impatient with those carrots! I have a feeling carrots are one of those veggies that’s just not worth growing – a lot of waiting and not a ton of yield. Thoughts on that?

I’ve just planted some more bokchoy since the last batch was so successful and yielded SO many luscious leaves for us to gobble up. We ate bokchoy at every meal for weeks. I also planted a few beet seeds just to see what happens.

I’ve never planted beets, have you had success? How are your vegetables coming along? Have you ever had success/failures with any of these plants? What should I grow next? Happy growing, garden friends!

PS enjoy my calendula plant that FINALLY grew a flower. Bumble bumble bumble, come to my garden, bees!