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Winter Garden

With killing frost ending the summer into fall garden, my winter garden takes over. This year finds it a bit meager thanks to the groundhogs and deer, but there are a few plants left.

Choosing Plants

Cold hardiness is a must for a winter garden. It’s hard to help more sensitive plants survive.

My choices are spinach, turnips, Napa cabbage and carrots. Some others a bit more sensitive include yellow heart cabbage and winter radishes.

Chinese celery likes cool weather, but is not frost hardy. Bok choi is hard to keep too.

Winter Tactics

I use old blankets and towels along with plastic. The main raised bed is set up for a plastic cover. The new raised bed has the beginnings of a cold frame so the blankets and plastic are jury rigged for now.

This round I got caught with some leeks and beets. Luckily the beets are in the same bed as the turnips which are frost tolerant to mid twenties. The forecast is for lower, so all of this bed is covered for a few days.

winter garden strategy
Blankets and plastic may look clumsy and ineffective as winter garden protection, but this picture was taken after a night at eighteen degrees and another at fifteen degrees. The winter radishes and spinach came through just fine. All of my other beds protected in this manner survived well also, no casualties.

The Shade House

Plastic goes over this cattle panel structure turning it into an unheated greenhouse. Although the plastic doesn’t keep the inside from freezing, old towels and blankets protect plants overnight. The plastic does heat up the inside if there is any sun. It gets quite toasty necessitating opening the door.

The plastic I use is nothing fancy. It’s clear – actually cloudy white – from the hardware store. This is not greenhouse grade, but it works for the winter.

Winter Garden Greens

Generally this will hold plants into January, occasionally into spring. The shade house need only covering attention and door opening to raise some good Chinese celery and greens.

The raised beds need a more permanent winter garden solution. I’m hoping to get cold frames over both, but will make do over this cold spell.

By Karen GoatKeeper

Karen GoatKeeper loves to write. Her books include picture books, novels and nonfiction for science activity books and nature books. A recent inclusion are science teaching units.
The coming year has goals for two new novels, a picture book and some books of personal essays. This is ambitious and ignores time constraints.
She lives in the Missouri Ozarks with her small herd of Nubian dairy goats. The Ozarks provides the inspiration and setting for most of her books.