Opportunity Gardens: Winter is a Gift from the Universe We Cannot Refuse

An update from Opportunity Gardener and AmeriCorps VISTA Erin King

"We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming. We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make them other than they are. They are gifts from the universe that we cannot refuse. But we can choose what we will contribute to life when each arrives." – Gary Zukav

Well, it seems I’ve left you all with a cliff-hanger these last few months. As much as I wanted to write about gardening, I was too busy actually gardening.

What I can tell you is I’ve kept myself busy making all of the things from my garden. I’ve been living off of salsa, swiss chard and basil pesto, tomato sauces, and zucchini bread.  (I still haven’t fully recovered from my zucchini plant’s death.) Additionally, I’ve been a busy Christmas elf since July. Wait, that makes me sound crazy. Let me back up.

Back in February, when I was planning my garden and what I would grow, I wasn’t going to grow cucumbers. I never had a huge need for cucumbers in anything I made, and I figured the farm had me covered if I did want one for my salad. But my dad suggested I grow cucumbers and make Grandma’s sweet pickle recipe.

I wasn’t familiar with that recipe; Grandma had stopped gardening before I was very old, and I had only recently become a pickle-person. I don’t know that my dad actually expected me to follow through on his request, but, like the ever-crafty and resourceful daughter I was, I decided I would make Grandma’s sweet pickle recipe. My aunt sent me the recipe, and as soon as I learned it made 8 pints of pickles a batch, I realized I could give nearly everyone on my list pickles for Christmas.

The problem was not everyone I wanted to give something was a pickle-person, let alone a sweet pickle-person. So, in the meantime, I’ve been canning whatever’s available so I can be sure everyone on my list gets a product of my first garden.

Unfortunately, winter is coming, and with it, the close of the gardening and harvesting seasons. (Good thing I decided I was making Christmas gifts back in July...) Most of my garden activity these days is tied up in winterizing.

[Winterizing can be a very depressing or un-glamorous stage in gardening, but it’s very important if you want your garden to be ready to grow again in the springtime. You want to make sure you’ve cleared all of the weeds from your garden by the roots so they won’t be back in the spring. Pulling up finished crops when you’re done harvesting leaves nutrients in soil for your next crop. Adding compost to your bed adds nutrients back into the soil. Covering your bed(s) with a thick layer of straw mulch prevents weeds from growing and taking over the garden during ad warm spell, protects your dirt, and keeps the soil microbes cozy so they can continue to enrich your garden soil with nutrients.]

On Halloween, warnings of the first hard freeze were being posted everywhere for that night. I busied myself harvesting as many green tomatoes and cherry tomatoes as I could store. I placed the tomatoes in a cardboard box and placed layers of newspaper in between the layers of tomatoes so they could ripen.

I harvested all of my peppers and dill, pulled up the plants from my summer bed, and mulched the bed with straw. I’ll have to cover my bed with compost in the springtime to finish restoring nutrients into the dirt.

For my spring/fall bed, I harvested my remaining snap peas and green beans, and composted the plants. I then covered my leaf lettuce, spinach, and carrots with a sheet. I used my old rabbit caging–turned–tomato cage to keep the sheet from touching the plants. I covered my kale and swiss chard plants with reusable shopping bags.

The next afternoon, I harvested and hung up to dry my oregano, sage, and rosemary in my kitchen, and covered my herb garden with a covering of leaves to protect them in the winter so they’ll return in the springtime.

I still need to pull the rest of my fall crops, but I’m going to see how much bigger they can get before I absolutely have to pull them. I guess I’m just not ready for gardening season to end.