***Winter gardening chat! *** December~January

[sarahannecloud9]

My fall garden was a flop. The girls found it and that's history. I have all those plants still in the kitchen, but not near enough light for the massive tom plants to bloom. I tossed most of them last night. I have one bell still trying to grow one pepper, lol. The herbs are great. I'm gonna transplant them up soon.

I did get a huge task done. We spent the last week collecting the compost from the coop's front hill. It got scattered in the garden along with tons of leaves and droppings from the coops 2X per week cleanout. I quit putting it in the compost pile. They just scatter it. I have to turn the compost pile and I'm gonna scatter all the mostly done goodness out there too. I found that rotten stump down the hill was overflowing with rich compost. That all went in the garden. I was amazed, all rotten wood and leaves that had collected over the years.

Now i need a wheelbarrow! My garlic that's potted by the backdoor is sprouting. Not much but looks great. The onions and garlic by the garden wants to grow through the cover too. Doind very well. Ray keeps saying we'll do the raised beds soon. Too much on our plate, lol.

[missc]

A little bit ago I remember seeing websites that you guys use for garden planning? I can't find it! Does anyone have a website (preferably free) that you use and like?
Thanks!

[3lilbubs]

Haven't updated in forever! The frost and snow froze my broccoli solid but its STILL alive!! I have a 50cent piece size crown growing on each. It's sure taking forever, I hope the spring broc. grows faster. My onions and garlic also look whithered and the strawberries and rasp/blackberry canes are finally dormant. The hens have pecked at my red onions and garlic a bit. I warned them that if they kept it up I would consider it inviting themselves to dinner.

My indoor garden is crazy. The tomato is big, and has 2 sets of fruit and one more coming. The herbs are big and tasty, we've eaten a lot of those! I pulled out the purple basil because it was too floppy. It grew too fast indoors and didn't get a nice sturdy stem to hold it up. My sil (she works at home depot) told me all the bare root plants have come in, so I'm going to look for an herb to replace it with while I'm in there. I took handfulls of the parsley and basil the other day for spaghetti and it was so nice to have that freshness and it tasted wonderful! It seemed to actually like being trimmed back because it's gone crazy growing since I did that. Not much to see outside, a lot of brown. But here's my indoor plants.

[millermom1110]

Have any of you ladies ever tried winter sowing?? I stumbled upon an article about it and I think I'm going to give it a try! I'm zone 6 and apparently it works with most veggies other than tomatoes and peppers even if there's snow on the ground. Tomatoes and peppers seem to do better if you wait til March using this technique, according to what I've read.

[3lilbubs]

I was thinking about it. The only thing that scares me is that we usually have a early April sneak-attack cold snap before we head into spring and I'd be so upset if it killed my seedlings.

[okiemama]

I just wanted yo say I missed the winter gardening in Oklahoma this year I probably could have had a bad-a winter garden its been so mild this year...

[millermom1110]

Originally Posted by 3lilbubs I was thinking about it. The only thing that scares me is that we usually have a early April sneak-attack cold snap before we head into spring and I'd be so upset if it killed my seedlings.

That's a good point. We had 3 85 degree days in March last year and then it went back to typical Western NY weather. It messed with all of the local farms...apples and strawberries were scarce and prices went through the roof. In the event that something similar happened this year, would there be any way to save my plants?

[3lilbubs]

Not without considerable expense. I threw plastic sheeting over my tomatoes and stuff really fast, buckets, anything I could find. It reduced the damage, but they still were burned. The true gardening fabric is the best thing but can still only protect passing frosts. If the ground freezes there's no saving it. http://www.gardeners.com/GardenQuilt...efault,pd.html

[missc]

Those of you that have free range chickens, any ideas to keep them out of your garden?

[3lilbubs]

Sorry, I'm pretty sure mine can channel the matrix to get into ours. They'll peck at mine thru bird wire (and they're successful), fences, you name it.