Winter Confessions of a Gardener

One of the questions I am most frequently asked at this time of the year is, "What do you do all winter?"

Well, here is what a gardener (or at least this one) does when the greens aren't greening and the beans aren't beaning.

When our last CSA member has picked up their last share at the end of October, we still have another month's work to do, putting the garden to bed — planting cover crops, making compost piles, getting the weeds out before they drop all their seeds, harvesting the leftovers, planting the garlic, and generally putting everything in order for a little rest.

That leaves December and January.

Trauger Groh, in Farms of Tomorrow Revisited, says: "Farming is labor, craft and art.

The art arises out of a deeper understanding of nature based on thorough, ongoing observation, reflection, and meditation on all surrounding natural phenomena and processes."

December and January are the months for reflection and meditation.

During that time I revisit all that has happened during the growing season — evaluate and begin planning for the next season.

I usually begin by adding up all the pounds of food we grew, often taking time to figure out pounds per square foot for each crop.

This gives me a good basis for determining how well each crop preformed.

John Jeavons' book, How to Grow More Vegetables, has some nice charts I use for comparisons.

Of course, there is always the ongoing puzzle of why one thing did well and the one next to it didn't.

As best I can, I try to account for each crop's performance over the season.

Next, I pull out the leftover and saved seeds from last season and do a little inventory. Then I figure out what to plant this season and how much seed I will need.

These are the preliminary rituals before allowing myself to curl up with the seed catalogs and dream.

Knowing what I have makes it easier to be realistic when I get the catalogs out.

All gardeners know seed catalogs in January have an allure like the Singing Sirens — tough to resist.

Once my realistic, budget- based seed order is in the mail,
I go to the garden "map," see where things were planted the past two seasons, then figure out where to plant each crop this season.

The reason for this is to achieve a good crop rotation.

I try to follow a heavy feeder (like broccoli or eggplant), with a light feeder (like carrots or mustard greens), with a soil builder (like peas or beans) — a three-year rotation.

This helps ensure healthy soil, which is halfway to a good crop.

Lastly, my secret weapon in the ongoing quest for the "perfect" garden is a BIGGGG calendar.

I buy one of those big desk calendars, plot when to start
each vegetable in the greenhouse, when it should be ready to transplant, when to direct sow the ones that go right into the garden, and any other particulars I need to remember when in the thick of it (again, Jeavons' book is helpful).

This has served me well — it's too easy to forget to direct seed the spinach in the garden when we are working all day in the greenhouse getting seeds started there.

It's also nice to be able to anticipate things like first and last frost dates, summer solstice, meetings and classes, etc.

The spaces are also large enough to record things that happen during the year that you would like to remember as you plan for the next season.

After all the planning and ordering is done, the next step is to make sure we have enough shareholders to eat all those vegetables.

That's where I am now — thinking of all the folks out there who would like to have a weekly supply of fresh, organically grown, in season vegetables.

If that's you — give me a call at 342-0514 or e-mail me at .

Right now we have quite a few shares available, both whole shares at $500 and half shares at $300.

This is about 200+ pounds of produce for whole shares and 100+ pounds for half shares.

We not only don't use any chemicals on our farm, we use biodynamic farming methods.

It's been said we have the best vegetables in town!