As we near to the end of the days of the dollar as reserve currency for the world, feeding our families becomes much more important. Most gardens go in over a late spring weekend with little thought given to trying to keep a family fed during the winter. My focus is on growing food year round with an emphasis on nutritional content. There are ways to keep tomatoes growing later in the season, or trying to keep greens growing year round. What can we grow that can be stored without electricity or canning. What can we save seed from in order to become more self reliant. Gardening can save you a lot of money while improving your health. Talk about a win-win situation! We use small raised bed garden areas for winter gardening 4′ wide with almost a foot of elevation. We live in Oregon and the winters constant rains can flood everything drowning your dinner. I use ½” PVC sections cut 10′ long and hooked onto short rebar sections beat into the dirt and covered with clear plastic to keep off the produce rotting rains and help keep it a few degrees warmer inside the hoop house. The ground stays a bit warmer anyway so low to the ground hoops work well. I also save gallon jugs filled with water to use to hold the plastic down and act as a heat sink to help keep things from freezing. So fold the plastic in and put the jugs inside the hoop. Spinach, lettuces, cabbage, carrots etc will all take some light freezes. This gives you some fresh foods coming in all winter long.

The Backyard Homestead... Best Price: $4.91 Buy New $10.91 (as of 05:50 UTC - Details)

For winter focus on spinach, mustards, dandelions and other nutritious greens. Many started mid-summer can be kept growing slowly under a cloche in the winter. Low levels of light drastically limit plant growth rates. So pre planning and spacing become vital. I start planting for winter harvest in July. when the heat is on, few of us think about starting seeds. July is a good time to start carrots, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce and potatoes for overwintering. I also like to start Walla Walla onions and garlic in September. If you have never had fresh, home grown garlic you are in for a treat. It is up there with home grown tomatoes and corn for taste improvement over the store bought veggies. It is important to keep the winter garden seeds moist while germinating, which can be a little tricky when it is hot. I bought a new timer from Bi-mart that has a 6- hour setting. It worked quite well keeping my seeds moist. This works on batteries so put away several or set up a battery charger you can crank by pedaling a bicycle, or get a small solar charger. I try to automate as much as I can. You will want to get most vegetables planted by the beginning of August, depending on the maturity dates of the varieties you select. Varieties that have around a 60 day expected maturity can go in as late as mid-August. I like to try to plant spinach and lettuces every two weeks almost year round.

Butterhead Buttercrunc... Buy New $3.26 (as of 06:25 UTC - Details)

Potatoes and carrots can be kept out in the garden and harvested as needed all winter long. I grow a lot of garlic and onions to store in a cool dry area, One of the best things to grow are winter squashes. Acorn squashes are high in vitamins and minerals and are easy to store for the winter, there are many winter squashes our grandparents used to grow to have food for the winter. Sweet meat, pink banana delicata the list goes on. All are nutritious, easy to grow, easy to store and easy to save seeds from. Cabbages can be grown for winter use and kept in the garden under a plastic cover for quite some time and get sweeter with frosts. Or they can be piled in a card board box in a cool garage or basement. When one starts to go bad you can slice it up for sauerkraut or kimchi fermented food have additional health benefits.

I have a shelves in my garage and pantry about 18” apart. I get card board boxes and use an X-acto knife to cut holes for ventilation and fill them with onions, squashes, apples, beets, pears and other food that stores in a cool dry place. Carrots, potatoes and other root crops can be stored in damp sand in a plastic barrel or tub if you need the space open for your winter garden. The winter garden needs more space than a summer garden because sunshine is at a premium. Space is also needed in order to allow ventilation to avoid mildews. A spray of baking soda and water can be used to treat mold and mildew. I use a table spoon of baking soda in a quart spray bottle. My secret weapon for amazing plant growth is manure tea I use a cheap aquarium pump with air stones in a barrel with a bit of manure (I use horse manure, since we have loads of it,) and water. Using this I would have orchids bloom for months on end. Things got too hectic to continue with my normal garden activities and I started using a store bought fertilizer and my orchids quit blooming.

The planning is most important and often not done. How much of what do you need to feed a family for a year? How much space will it take to grow it? How much space will be needed to store it? What conditions are needed for the best storage cool/dry? Cool moist? Say for instance you want to have cabbage every week so you need to grow 52 cabbages. Do you need to plant them all at once? A long season cabbage? Or do you grow a 60 day variety? Do you plant out 6 every month and then plant enough to get you through the winter July 15? Will you cover them with a plastic hoop house and store them in the garden or put them in card board boxes and create a type of root cellar storage area? How many winter squashes and of what kind? I plant acorn squashes in the middle of a section of field fencing formed into a circle, the vines climb the wire and keep the squash off the ground and save a lot of space. If you want to have squash every week you will need to grow 52 of them! Maybe 10 acorn and 10 pink banana 10 sweet meat 10 pumpkins 10 Butter nuts and 10 sweet potato squash. I grow most of my squashes even pumpkins on fence rounds I grow cucumbers on them and tomatoes in them. The holes are big enough I can get my hands in for picking, they hold the fruit up off the ground and save space. I will get 10 acorns off 2 fence sections depending on the growth style if the plant is a vining type I can grow three plants in one fence section. You must stake them down I use regular T posts beat into the ground.

Read the rest of the article

November 19, 2010