March in the garden is a time of transition.
I’ve always thought there was a sort of irony, that as weather just starts to warm up and the gardener finally starts to feel spring in her heart, we enter the leanest months of a year-round vegetable garden.
The earliest fall-sown greens and overwintering brassicas are coming into their own as the fall and winter root veggies and coles are tapering off. Beds that looked vibrant and full in November are bare, messy, and in need of a good weeding. There are fresh vegetables to harvest, if you planned for them, but they don’t quite fill the gap between last year’s crops and this year’s crops.
The Hope and The Harvest
So proud of both of these things – my 8 year old and a damned fine overwintering purple cauliflower. Slightly prouder of my daughter.
My boy stomped these seedlings about 10 minutes after I transplanted them. Their will to live seems to be carrying them forward as they put on new growth.
Sprouting broccoli taking forever to sprout – any day now I hope to harvest this.
Heading broccoli put in early fall is a gamble, but it paid off this year.
Plum blossoms! Good thing I don’t expect fruit off this tree, as I’m sure the blossoms will be frost damaged this year.
Greenhouse greens in their prime: mustards
Frisee in the greenhouse
Greenhouse Cut-And-Come-Again Lettuce on its second cutting.
Flowering kale alongside chard and sprouting broccoli.
“Purple Cape” Overwintering Cauliflower.
My little weeding helpers.
Collards just starting to flower.
Carrots just coming up in between rows of garlic.
It’s good to have help in the garden.
Chard, side-dressed and topdressed with fresh compost. Can be harvested until it bolts.
A range of kales still being harvested, but fading quickly as they send out shoots.
Beet roots often larger than you’d think from the leaves. They are still in good condition.
Cut-and-come-again arugula cover cropping garlic.
Unexpected little artichoke bud!
Stems of harvested cabbage throw mini cabbage flowers that can be cooked like brussels sprouts.
The Mess of Transition
Some sad mustards, undersized celeriac and weeds in need of pulling.
A lot of beds looking like this: a few chard plants and some garlic but otherwise bare.
Tuscan kale has been picked over pretty well – the delicious sprouts were harvested and cooked like broccolini.
Everything but some old brussels sprouts stalks has been cleared.
Organic fertilizer being worked in to prepare this bed for spring planting.
Lots of empty bags of compost littering the garden as beds are turned and prepared for a new season.
One Last “The Kid and The Cauliflower” Picture
After many celebratory photos, we harvested this cauliflower and had it for dinner. It was excellent.
Wow your garden looks awesome!! Kids are great for their excitement, if not always their help lol.
Have you ever thought about offering a class in your area through the community college or extension office? My dad does it (he’s Downeast though so no competition there) – it’s a decent extra income and for something you already do so well it might be worth considering. It could really benefit people who want to get their hands dirty. Just a thought, anyway…
~Beth
I love how proud your daughter is of the cauliflower. Most parents would kill to get their kids to even eat cauliflower, much less fawn over it. Keep spreading the veggie good word!
Thanks for also showing the not-so-perfect-&-pretty side of gardening – what it looks like in transition, or when life happens to it (as in your children having a stomp on it)! I look at so many perfect and beautiful garden photos that my expectations in my own garden can get unrealistic. BTW, it’s snowing in Portland (OR) this morning!
Looking good! That cauliflower is amazing! (And Bella lovin’ up on it is perfect!) It was slim pickings to get garden pics for my Mid-Month Meanderings this month. March is so…bare and messy for us. But also further incentive to plug on and get some stuff planted =) Thanks for sharing!
Beautiful purple cauliflower. It will be at the top of my list for this years fall/winter garden.
Keep up the good work : )
I second the comment above, thanks for showing us the pretty .. and the ugly in the garden this month. I can’t believe you have a little artichoke already. I’m down in CA in sonoma county and no sign of them yet here.
The color in your garden is wonderful – especially that cauliflower. You seem to be doing well at harvesting year round, hard in your climate I imagine.
Love the photos, esp. of your gorgeous daughter and show-stopping cauliflower. Our garden is all ugly-transition-phase at the moment. I am hoping to grow mustard this season to get some mustard seeds for pickling next year.
I just can’t ever get the ‘between stages’ right… but then I think even though I am not harvesting much now, I did preserve a heap of stuff we can eat!
I just found your blog and was wondering how your quartet orchard planting experiment is going. I searched for pics on your site but couldn’t find anything showing the trees with all the leaves and fruit. I just moved to Ohio from sunny Southern Cali and started planting my first set of trees in my 40 foot wide city lot one every ten feet well almost (I know it don’t add up – I have a special yard stick that allows me to do that).
Hi Frank, thanks for reading. Well, it’s a slow experiment but so far, so good. 🙂 The trees just went in last year, so no fruit for awhile. I’m planning an update post on the leaf out in late spring and another on summer pruning in a few months. I’ve had lots of reader interest in this topic; I sure hope it works! Cheers.
I liked the fork included in the bag picture. I keep wondering where all my silverware is going and then I find them randomly scattered around the yard.
I think the chicken’s eggs taste best during the times they’re allowed to work in the garden. I wish our yard was big enough for a year round pasture rotation for them. I’m jealous of people with enough land to let their hens free-range all year.
Hi there, just found your site and absolutely LOVE it! Would like to know what you use to keep slugs and snails away?
beautiful!