Winter Gardens

OMG OMG OMG they finally arrived!

Some girls collect shoes, I collect seeds...With each season, I become enamoured with something else and decide I need one in each color.  There was the year of the tomato... 60 tomato plants all different colors and sizes, This spring, I became obsessed with planting the perfect kale and this summer has been all about pumpkins... and for the fall/winter garden,  I am thinking roots... really really big roots. (15 pound beet anyone?)

So I went onto the Baker Creek Website and ordered seeds to plant now and harvest sometime between October and January depending on the weather.

Here in Seattle, we have a great climate for planting autumn and winter gardens.  The killing frost often comes late, and it is usually pretty temperate, and rarely ever really hot.  This means that it is next to impossible to grow a watermelon,  but it is pretty easy to keep certain crops like kale growing (and harvesting) all winter.

Late June-mid july is a good time to seed things you would like to eat in the fall and winter.  It is a good time to re-plant a salad garden, which I will be doing because I am interested in learning about some of the heirloom lettuces.  I am going to plant the new lettuce garden where the elephant garlic was, because that bed is square and will be easy to put a cloche on when it gets colder to extend the harvest well into the winter.

I also am going to plant peas.  Often by this time of year, I am sick of peas because peas are one of the first things you can plant in the spring, so I go over board, but this spring I was moderate in my planting of them... because I was busy having a baby, so while we ate a few meals of awesome snap peas, I have not had my fill for the year.  I am excited to try a purple podding pea.  This will make them easier to harvest because they don't blend into the vines. 

Finally, raddicio.  I know next to nothing about raddicio, but I dream that it is really tasty.  I think the plants are beautiful, so on a whim I will plant some and see how it goes.

so excited so excited so excited!!!

Best part of collecting seeds instead of shoes?  I don't need a bigger closet!