Garden Sprawl Friday - on a Sunday

The first day of spring, or the day after, is a good time to have a new GSF post. My small experiment with overwintering carrots, cabbage, onions and rutabagas has been, well, an experiment. Which is to say, I'm learning and observing.

I started them off at a good stage in late summer, perhaps being a bit too young going into winter, and many have pulled through, though only to get obliterated by insects or the now on-coming slugs, looking to feed; and with the record warm winter we had, there is probably a lot of them.

I have been especially impressed with the carrots (Royal Chantenay). Their tops died off of course, but now their tops are sprouting again, and their roots are immaculate; it's just how to deal with slugs. They eat the tops, and then they do their best to feed into the root from the top down. They don't go far, but it's enough to kill the carrot.

There are no onions left. I don't know if that's because all of them got harvested through fall or not or what. The cabbages do great through winter, especially this variety, January King:



I've pictured the two most photogenic. The others are smaller and fighting back after being munched down. Again, insects or slugs. The leaves I put into the beds for winter are housing them, providing shelter and warmth.

The garlic is making its way:


And I cleaned out the greenhouse (not heated)


and seeded lots of varieties of lettuce (the seed I saved from the Cos lettuce last year was the first to come up), leeks, onions, cabbages, endive and raddichio, to be transplanted in April some time. I sowed March 1 and 2. In that time we've had frosts, highs of fifteen (celsius) and lows of 0, or just below (celsius). Of course, the temperature is higher in the greenhouse.