First Winter Garden

[Guest Cogent Design]

I had some moderate success with my first spring and summer garden this year, now I am looking at preparing to grow crops throughout the winter.

 

I have a 4x8 raised bed, that I plan to build a greenhouse over. One lesson I learned from  my summer garden is that harvesting mixed crops sucks. lol

 

I am considering lettuce, kale, and carrots. Any thoughts or feedback on these?

 

My greenhouse will be a diy, as I do not want to spend hundreds of dollars on one. I was thinking about building a moveable pvc frame and stretching plastic wrap over it. I'll pick it up and move it whenever I need to water my crops. Would this get the job done?

 

What can I do about air flow?

 

Thanks for any responses....

[Pat]

Good for you. I applaud anyone willing to devote their time and effort to gardening!

 

Those crops in particular are well suited for cooler weather, particularly lettuce. If you plan on your greenhouse staying at tempatures similar to those of mid-spring - 50s or so - you may put in some other crops. It's always worth a shot. Regardless, for a winter crop, you might also look at turnips, cabbage, radishes, and broccoli, at least. All are best grown in cooler weather. In fact, our broccoli this year went to seed after only getting a couple small heads due to the heat...

 

I'd like to mention a website that has a lot of good information about gardening is called Harvest to Table. I like to go to Google and put in the name of a vegetable, then 'harvest to table'; this will usually bring up about three different pages they have on that vegetable.

[Raoul]

Interesting. I just had this same conversation yesterday with my gardening buddy. I'm looking to do a portable hoop house over a portion of my garden area, I'm thinking we can do lettuce, greens, carrots, turnips, and cabbage. 

[Randall53]

Raoul....love your sig line dude.....and I agree completely..!!!!!!

[JWC]

The last couple years I have been able to keep lettuce and spinach almost all year without a greenhouse or any covering. in the mild winter year before last we had fresh lettuce all winter long without me covering it once. It's awesome to go out and pick you a big ol salad for Christmas dinner!

Just because i want to try it I have some old tomato cages i no longer use that i plan on cutting loose, rolling out and the rolling up long ways to make a frame then covering with plastic and using rebar to hold it down. I'll run a soaker hose through in case i need to water and then mulch with straw. I figure i can roll the plastic up and reach in through the gaps in the concrete wire to pick.

I honestly think you could leave the plastic off lettuce most of the winter except for when it's going to be very cold for a few days straight. A little frost doesn't hurt it or spinach too much. To me fall and winter is definitely the time to grow lettuce and spinach. It's very simple.

[peejman]

Put a thermometer/hygrometer inside.  The first year is all about figuring out what the temp range is and controlling the humidity. Once you know the conditions inside, you can better determine what will grow.  A friend has a real green house and annoys us with fresh, vine ripe tomatoes in January. 

 

You'll want some sort of door.  Taking the frame on/off every time will get old real fast.  And you won't want to expose the plants to that blast of cold air either. 

 

 

edit... also make sure your cover will reasonably survive the weather.  It'd be a bummer for an over-night gust of wind to blow it down and the ensuring frost ruin everything. 

Edited August 2, 2013 by peejman

[Jamie Jackson]

We've done well the past couple of years with kale, Swiss Shard, collards and turnip greens with roots up through January with no covering. But these have been pretty mild winters.

I've learned the weather is not something you can count on in East TN LOL.

 

We have used tomato cages (for a frame) and rope to make a covered 4'x8' bed (clear, thick plastic sheeting). It worked well, but did require management/manipulation adjusting ventilation for humidity control. It would really warm up some days.

 

A proper green house would be great...maybe one day... :pleased: