Stoney Acres

The Greek goddess Persephone was the beautiful daughter of Demeter.  Hades fell in love with her and in true Greek God form he kidnapped her, took her to the underworld and forced her to marry him.  Demeter begged Zeus to intervene and save her daughter which he did.  Unfortunately I guess there’s a rule about getting out of the underworld (keep this one in mind so you don’t make the same mistake), if you eat anything while you are there then you can’t get out.  Persephone must have gotten a little peckish and had a snack and doomed herself.  Zeus was able to make a deal with Hades, Persephone was able to leave the underworld for 9 months of the year but had to return to her husband for 3 months.  During the time Persephone is in the underworld Demeter sorrows.   As the Goddess of the harvest and growth, while she sorrows nothing on the earth grows.  This, according to the ancient Greeks is why we have winter.

As I have said before winter gardening is really just winter harvesting.  Everything you are eating in December, January and February is really grown from August to October and just put in cold storage in your cold frame.  Most winter crops require 10 hours or more of sun light to show any real growth.  The 10 hour days go away right around the 5^th of November and don’t return until early February.  During those months nothing except Mache and claytonia do any growing.  Elliot Coleman refers to this time as the Persephone months.

August planted carrots in the mini hoop house

So in order to be able to have crops to harvest in the winter you must get them well under way in the fall.  In our zone 6 garden the targeted planting date for most winter crops is August 1^st.  There is some wiggle room on this date, we have planted as late as August 15^th and still been fine but that is when most gardeners should start planting winter crops.  I have found Mache and claytonia to be the exceptions to this.  I usually don’t get those seeds in the ground until September and they still do well.  But lettuce, spinach, carrots, and other winter greens need to get started the first part of August.

Winter Greens started indoors

Some of my beds aren’t ready for new seeds quite that early as some of my summer crops are still maturing.  I deal with this by starting seeds indoors under my growing lights around that same August 1^st time frame.  With some care these plants are in really good shape by early September and I can then set them out in their winter beds.  Not everyone has the set up to start seeds indoors, so your only other choice is to look at a local nursery for your starts.  Good luck, I’ve only found starts one time in the last 4 years so that is why I decided to make the move to an indoor seed starter.

Start plants indoors in July and August for early fall planting

Here is the planting schedule I try to keep every year, if you live in a warmer climate you can adjust these dates, if your climate is colder you better get going sooner.  Johnny Seeds has a great planting date calculator that you can use as well:

• Broccoli- July 1
• Cabbage – July 1
• Kohlrabi – July 1
• Lettuce – August 1 to 15
• Spinach August 1 to September 15
• Swiss Chard August 1
• Carrots August 1 to 15
• Kale August 1
• Other greens August 1 to 15
• Mache & Claytonia September 1 to 15

If you hit these dates you should have a great crop ready to start eating in November.

Up next in the winter garden series is cold frame design and construction.