One question that is raised by growing your own food in a temperate climate is “what do we eat in the winter?” In a reasonable year its possible that you could have salad greens in April and have squash, potatoes etc lasting into October, and a feast of food in the months of July and August. But what about the winter months of November thru March?
This year will be our biggest attempt yet to try to grow some food over the winter. The key is to get the plants started and growing now while the weather is still good enough to get them to a decent size. Once we get into the winter they will stop growing, but will survive over winter (hopefully). This means that some plants (like lettuce, kale etc) can we picked and eaten over the winter. Others like broccoli and cauliflower will start growing again in the early spring to produce food.
The biggest risk is freezing – a super cold night with no snow on the ground will kill off most things (snow is actually good because it forms an insulating blanket on the food that is around freezing and protects it from colder overnight temperatures. Its amazing what will come back to life after a few days in the snow!)
We are nowhere near being self sufficient in the summer, never mind the winter, but hopefully a combination of storing some of our summer harvest (potatoes, winter squash) and having some overwintering crops will mean a bit less food that needs to be shipped onto the island for us to eat.
So our list of potential winter eating includes (thanks to Chorus Frog Farm for the plant starts):
- Sprouting and ‘normal’ Broccoli
- 2 type of cauliflower
- Onions
- Swedes
- Cress
- Corn Salad
- Lettuce
- Arugula
- Spring Onions
- Peas (for a fall crop)
Only time will tell how well we eat this winter!