Winter Gardening

What do you do when you garden space is covered in a foot or two of snow? It might seem like a depressing time for a gardner, but for us, it is filled with excitement and anticipation.

In December I made sure we were signed up for any new seed catalogs we wanted to get. The companies that we regularly order seeds from already send us theirs each year. Our favorite seed catalogs are from local Maine companies- Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Fedco. Both of these companies provide amazing specifics and customer feedback in their catalogs, and ordering local is important to us. They provide a selection of amazing seeds to grow anywhere, but have fantastic additional information and varieties for growing in our specific climate.

We also decided on a decent sized garden expansion for the coming season. I ordered two new Birdie’s Raised Garden Beds. We already have two smaller metal beds that I ordered last year from Lehman’s as the Birdie’s beds were backordered and the lumber situation made it so that we weren’t going to be putting any wood beds in our garden anytime soon. We found great success with the metal beds last season and switched over to the Birdie’s beds as they are larger and we need all the raised garden bed space we can get this year. I may have ordered too many seeds…

This last month (January) my youngest and I started sorting through our seed selection while her big sister was at school. She loves looking at the different seeds and we talk about her favorite veggies to eat. Having our girls invested in the garden just as much as we are really adds to it being a joy and not a chore when we are out there in the summer.

In a week or two it will be time for us to start some seeds. Especially the more stubborn ones to get going (hot peppers). We are also looking at the idea of starting more onions inside this year to try to for some larger storage onions this season.

Seed starting inside is all pretty new to us, as in California we were always just able to start everything in the ground in the spring. It has been a learning process, and there have been failures, but there have also been great successes. If you want to get started, do it! If you plant something to early, you plant something to early. It might work, it might not. There is no shame in picking up a start at your local greenhouse because a seed you started failed. You can’t succeed if you don’t try. So try the thing! Plant the seed!

What is your favorite homesteading joy in the middle of winter?