Garden Update: January

It’s full-on winter here. As I write this, I’m bundled up in a wool blanket I knit last fall, sipping mint tea made with tea leaves I dried back in September and gazing outside at a blanket of white. Tomorrow looks like a warm day with a high of 40º, so I’ll try to get out and enjoy the sun and warmth before several upcoming days of clouds and snow return.

The gardens may be covered in snow and sleeping, but inside we’ve already begun planning and planting. We experimented with starting lettuce, cilantro and basil inside and already have these greens growing! Oh my, we’ve had such luck. It’s so great to have fresh greens again. The fall kale has been eaten to the last four leaves and the celery is gone. Of course, I dried and froze many things but there’s nothing like a nice salad from live plants in mid-winter.

Today, we started our spring garden planting with lots of brassica vegetables: kale, broccoli, and kohlrabi. I love that as the fresh foods start to dwindle in the crisper, we plant new seeds to take their place. In a few months, we’ll be planting peas, carrots and all these starts, then it will be time to get the summer veggies going and the whole system starts to roll again.

How is your January garden? Under snow, or cranking out the produce because it’s actually the warm season for you right now?