Update on the garden

On September 14, we planted a fall/winter garden in our yard. We have many mature trees and very little sun, so our usual plant-in-the-spring type gardens have produced mixed results, at best. When the trees lose their leaves in the fall, we have a bit more sun, so we decided to see if cool weather crops would do better.

I think for our first attempt, we did pretty well.

We have harvested some lettuce (one batch failed to germinate --too cool?) and look forward to enjoying some broccoli raab in the near future. The broccoli raab is by far the biggest success.









The spinach looks pretty good, although someone else is eating it for us :) These are green onions that are coming along slowly, we also have chives.











The chard suffered a bit from a hard frost we had. The pea plants succumbed to the frost completely. The calendula is the only flower that is thriving. The pansies didn't germinate at all.









Over all, considering we planted everything a month too late and we have had an unseasonably cold November, not too bad.

Next year, I will definitely try again (along with, possibly, an early spring version) and get things planted earlier. I will plant a succession of lettuce crops and I will have much higher hopes for the peas. (They looked good until the frost.) I will use a cover for some of the more tender plants if the weather gets too cold, and I will try to figure some way to protect the plants from critters. Any suggestions?