Here in the Adirondacks, many businesses and people seem to close up shop in the Winter and the same goes for the garden.
Well just because the temperatures are dipping doesn’t mean you can’t get a harvest of fresh veggies all year round.
Elliot Coleman, in the “Year Round Harvest,” reminds us that growing heirloom winter vegetables is less about temperatures and all about daylight and sunshine.
Winter Gardening
So I received a cool email the other day from someone who is farming in Kentucky and she had some kind words about my blog.
She also had a handy infographic to share that she thought my readers would find helpful.
“With winter upon us, it’s easy to daydream about our spring plantings and summer harvests. But did you know there are ways to extend your growing season throughout the harsh winter months?”
Their design agency teamed up with Fix.com and offered to share the benefits of keeping a winter garden and give practical cold weather planting tips for every zone.
Winter Gardening: Tips and Guidelines Specific to Your Zone – check out the full article
[click image below to view larger]
Source: Fix.com
https://www.fix.com/blog/winter-gardening-guide/
Hardiness Zones
Our hardiness zone here in Willsboro is Zone 5a (-20F to -15F).
You can find your hardiness zone here: planthardiness.ars.usda.gov
Champlain Valley growing
In all of the Adirondacks, because we’re in a valley versus being in the higher elevations, our region is known as the “banana belt.”
Not that we’ll be growing bananas anytime soon!
Our farm gets lots of sunlight and also slopes and faces to the south.
You can see the drastic changes in micro-climate as we drive west towards Keene and Lake Placid where the snow is deeper and temps are colder.
With everything going on at the farm last year, we did not have time to try our hand at growing traditional winter veggies.
Our plan for this year is to not only do some winter gardening, but to do some summer gardening in raised beds.
We’ve got a nice list of vegetable and flower seeds going from Johnny’s Seeds and High Mowing Organic Seeds that we’ll be ordering soon!