The season of giving is upon us! And friends, do I have some giving for you. This week I’m doing a couple of great giveaways just in time for you to show some holiday love to your favorite gardener. If you win and decide your favorite gardener is you and you’re keeping the loot, no one will judge. Promise.
Today, I’m happy to be sharing Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard: A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Crops at Home. If you’ve been a reader for a while, you might remember the authors, Colin and Brad, from my original giveaway post of this same book last summer. They are the founders of the Seattle Urban Farm Company, and have written Food Grown Right, a really excellent beginner’s guide to backyard-scale edible gardening.
When Seattle Urban Farm Co. asked if I would be interested in doing a second giveaway of the book and I was like, “Do cabbageworms in my bok choy drive me crazy? Of course I would!”
That’s Colin and Brad.
Food Grown Right is optimum for new-ish veggie gardeners. If you already have a giant bookshelf full of gardening how-to, how-come and oh-now-what? books, you may find the info in Food Grown Right to be a little duplicative, but you might also appreciate having all the basics, from layout, planning and irrigation options to crop-specific growing information nicely laid-out and condensed into one easy to use reference.
Find a slightly more comprehensive review at my original post, or check out what other people think.
Year Round Vegetable Gardening Like The Pros
So, the season of giving is fine and all, but it’s also the season of garden planning, right? This is when the seed catalogs arrive, and the graph paper comes out and everything is all full of potential. So while I had Brad and Colin on email, I also asked how they manage their year-round gardening and came away with some great tips.
Year round planning for year round harvesting.
If you strive to eat from your garden year-round as a cold-season gardener, right now is the best time to take stock of your successes and challenges. Look around your garden and ask how you’d like things to be different this time next year. What are you already out of and what aren’t you loving enough to actually go pick in the rain? I can already tell I need to figure out a way to get more giant kohlrabi in my life.
It’s hard to imagine since nary a spring pea has been planted, but if you want to eat your own cabbage in December you have to be kinda aware of that goal…the prior December. Why? Well, in the Pacific Northwest at least, the fall and winter crops usually go into the same ground that held the earliest spring crops. So when you are thinking about how much space to give to peas and spring radishes vs. tomatoes and cucumbers, you should keep in mind that your fall garden will probably be bounded by the space you gave to spring. By the time the summer crops wrap up it will be too late for most fall and winter crops to go in.
If that kind of seasonal think-ahead seems daunting, don’t worry, it becomes much more normal after you’ve been through the rhythm a few times. It might also help to see how everything sort of fits together. My free Year Round Planting Guide spreadsheet may help with that. Just scroll down until you see it about half way down the Downloadables section.
In the meantime, incorporate these Pro Tips for Year-Round Gardening from Brad and Colin into your four-season planning.
How should a beginning gardener who wants to begin planning and planting for year-round growing in the maritime northwest get started?
Eliot Coleman’s book Four Season Harvest is a detailed introduction to the principles of year-round growing; I strongly recommend that anyone interested in growing fall and winter crops check out this book. Our book also gives you fall and winter planting suggestions in the Month-by-Month chapter, so is a good resource to have on hand.
What is the one thing beginning gardeners get wrong when growing crops for fall, winter and over-wintered harvest?
The biggest mistake we see with beginners growing fall and winter crops is that they assume that they’re actually growing the crops in the fall and winter. To have a successful winter harvest, you need to be growing your crops in mid-summer through early fall (mid-July- September). This way, they’re sized up and almost ready for harvest before the low light levels of October set in. Because of the cool weather, fall crops don’t bolt or lose eating quality through the winter. Winter gardening is kind of like turning your vegetable plot into a giant refrigerator. If you plan properly, you can be harvesting from the garden all through the cold season and into the early spring!
What can a gardener do to ensure a great cool-weather growing season next year?
Start planning early! Planting for your fall and winter crops starts in mid-July, with the bulk of the crops planted in late August and early September. As your spring crops mature and are ready to be removed from the garden, some space will open up for fall crops. Early June is a good time to talk to nurseries and find out if they carry fall vegetable starts, and a good time to buy or order seeds for your fall crops.
What are a few of your favorite cool weather varieties?
For spinach that grows well through the fall and winter and resists downy mildew, try “Lombardia”. Claytonia is an excellent green for winter gardening (similar in taste to lettuce, but will over-winter without protection in our climate). Purple Mizuna is a beautiful, mild-tasting mustard green that also grows well during the fall and winter. “Red Russian” kale is our favorite kale variety; it does well and tastes amazing spring, summer, and fall. “Cherriette” radishes size up quickly and uniformly for September and October harvest.
Thanks, Colin and Brad, for sharing your insights!
Enter To Win A Copy of Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard
Contest open until Tuesday, December 18th at 6 pm. Continental U.S. residents only, sorry international readers. Good luck!
Pssst…you know how I said a couple of great giveaways this week? Check out Thursday’s post. Free organic seeds! That’s all I can say right now.
Update: Contest now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered, and congrats to seed-hoarder Natalie M., the winner. Natalie, check your email for instructions on how to claim your prize!
I started a small garden for the first time thus year. I need to learn to produce more.
My biggest challenge is knowing how to deal with pests and disease without resorting to chemical warfare or (as is usually the case), just letting the pests feast on MY food. For instance, right now something is eating holes in my swiss chard making it look more like swiss cheese than anything else. I am also terrible at starting anything from seed, so most years I buy starters which is not nearly as economical as I need to be right now. I try to use my garden as a means of cutting costs, so improving my efficiencies would go along way toward helping my budget.
I’ve successfully grown a solid summer garden for a few years running and I spend lots of time planning where to plant things for the first time around in my small plot. Everyone seems happy in my summer garden. However, I am still struggling with figuring out how to create space in my summer garden for all the fall plantings I want to do. I struggle with the transition from summer to fall and these past few years I have ended up with a few random plants struggling through the fall/winter. My tomatoes have done really well these past few years and I’m always so proud and hopeful for them that I leave them in the garden until October or whenever the Portland fall rain season really kicks in. That means there isn’t a lot of space to work with until I pull them out.
My biggest challenge is my Dog, no really my Mini Schnauzer is quite the little smart a$$ and hates, I repeat hates Garlic… he will get into the Gardens dig up the garlic and move them to the far corner of the yard where he never goes to be rid of them.
My biggest challenges are myself, and the climate – winter gardening, especially, in the upper Midwest is daunting (it’s so cold up here right now I can’t imagine anything making it – what can I do against 3 deg F without a bunch of expensive added heat??). But I know people do it, and I think eventually I’ll get over my aversion to maintenance tasks….
Thanks for the giveaway! (And everything else you do :))
Trying to fit it in to my life. The planning is easy, but the actual doing is hard. Thank goodness it stays light until 10 pm in Washington during the summer, or I’d never have time to actually “do”.
My biggest challenge is knowing that I’ll have to go out in the rain and the cold- and I obviously have to educate myself more on how to do it properly after reading this short column. I need this book.
i am on a waiting list for this book. like #23 or something!
My biggest challenge is space- I always try and pack as many plants as I can into a space and have a hard time visualizing their mature size! It’s so hard to cull the seedlings- I want them all to do well!
My mom and I struggle with finding the right crops to grow in our community garden plot.
I haven’t figured out how to keep my new little plants alive while I go on vacation. Especially when I am expecting rainy weather and then Seattle has a dry week instead.
Oh I’d LOVE this book! My husband and I just moved onto 4.3 acres with our 4 small kids. My biggest challenge is literally knowing what to do with it and WHEN to do it. Pretty basic. LOL (We do have chickens already, a good start!)
My biggest challenge is we are innkeepers. We live at work and there is currently no dedicated “us” space at our inn. The trick for growing a garden for us will be to make sure it’s a manageable size for me to care for (an unkept garden will not add to the quaintness) while still yielding the good stuff for our family of four.
The cost. I always wonder if its worth it or just to buy organic veggies from the store.
My biggest challenge is to just get started. This spring will be my first garden!!!! I need all I the help I can get. It is so exciting to have information geared to the Seattle, Puget Sound area.
Raises hand, pick me!! pick me!!
love your blog, so informative for us newbies
Marlys
My biggest problem is keeping the slugs away!! GRR!
Biggest challenge: Not enough space! I garden in a P-Patch in Seattle that’s about 100 square feet, and could easily use five times that. Fortunately, I have farmer friends who sell me great organic produce to can in the summer, but I would love to have a bigger patch of my own.
My biggest challenge is the crazy weather here in North Idaho! The winters are very long and harsh, and the Summer’s are extremely short. This past year I planted alot of Hungarian and Ukranian heirloom varieties and they did pretty well.
My biggest challenge is the garden space. I have a community garden plot that is much bigger than the container gardens I’ve had in the past, but still not big enough to fit everything I want to grow. It’s also a 15 minute bike ride from my house so I only get to the garden 1-3 times a week and I have to factor that into my planning.
I’ve got a big box of seeds, but that just doesn’t do me much good if I don’t get the little dears started on time. Then, once the garden is underway, Part II of that challenge is keeping the succession planting going.
Our biggest planning challenges have been two-fold, but both are related to relative knowledge:
1) Planning for when to do what. We are still baby gardeners – knowing which crops we should be doing seed starts for in January-February, versus when to set up for fall crops. For example, this year it was mid-September before we even asked what we should be doing for fall because we had no idea we should have been planning months earlier. Therefore, no fall garden this year 🙁
2) We are in a trailer park, doing almost entirely container gardening on 1/10th acre deck and patio space. I’m sure we could do so much more with the space, but we dont have a good enough understanding of which plants to mix with what in our containers, so we spread them our much further than they probably need to be.
Right now our biggest challenge is just getting started! This past summer my husband and I bought a house with a 1/4-acre backyard, and we’ve been planning on putting in some raised beds and a kitchen garden, but it’s just so overwhelming trying to figure out where to start! I’m hoping we can put in some boxes and start working the soil over the winter, so maybe by spring we can start some plantings!
I garden in two small community plot, so my space is fairly limited. I’m struggling with how best to maximize the space, and to limit myself to a respectable number of tomato plants (I am NOT growing the thirty varieties my seed-catalog-loving self desires).
Thanks so Much for asking what my Biggest Challenge for Garden Planning efforts are. Numero Uno: My backyard is what I call “A Winter Wonderland”. Surprisingly, I live in Southern California. The land of Sunshine and Blue (okay grey-blue skies)! But, my backyard is nightly inundated with pharaoh cats, stay dogs, possums – from baby size to Great Grandma variety. Raccoon’s about my height when standing and of course my ever so friendly baby and Mama skunks. Perfect setting for a backyard garden…smile. One last thing, I don’t live in the hills, I live in the city. I Thank GOD that my home has become a place of Refuge for non-human creatures. Funny, no rabbits have shown up this year! Millicent A.
My biggest challenge is getting things in the ground when I need to. I think I’ve got a plan and the weather or life changes my plan. I don’t end up getting everything I want in the ground in order to produce well 🙁
My biggest challenge is choosing what to grow…too many options out there!
My biggest challenge is a bad case of the black thumb, except for zucchini. I planted a mini 1.5 x 25 foot garden and it crashed and burned, except for two weird cukes and frankenzucchini. My whole family has green thumbs. My dad even grows all his own flowers from seeds every year in 8 greenhouses indoor/outdoor rigs. I killed everything. Tomatoes. Green peppers. Cherry tomatoes. The rabbits and squirrels loved me though. We fed all of them well on greens. I would like to redeem myself someday, especially as we are moving into a house with a small backyard in two weeks, and hopefully a few successes will be mine this year. Now, back to jam canning and caramels. 🙂
I’m new to gardening, and I live in Colorado. So right now my biggest problem is the timing of seed planting with late frosts at night and the hot sun during the day.
Deciding what NOT to plant, and then when I fail at that, finding room for everything!
Matt Jarvis
Eugene, Oregon
Thank you for all those tips! We’re arriving in the maritime PNW in January, and my biggest challenge will be dealing with the difference between that and our current location–near Houston, TX. Things grow in the winter here, heck it’s a lot easier than keeping stuff going through the summer, when nighttime lows are 75-ish for a couple months.
My biggest challenge is trying to realistically figure out how much I can actually do. I always think I can do about three times as much as I really can.
My biggest challenge is figuring out where my garden will get enough sun. The tiny trees are now full grown, so things have to move where the sun reaches.
My biggest issue is space allocation and trying to limit myself to existing garden space. I end up planting too much without enough room around it to grow to its potential!
I would love this book to help my darned chickens from eating all my crops.
No, for that you should check out Free-Range Chicken Gardens. Seriously, it’s great.
Added to the wishlist… thanks for the suggestion here, awesome.
Usually my biggest challenge is growing everything I want in a small space, but in the last few years it’s been getting the summer crops started during the cool, rainy early summers we’ve been experiencing. The first year I grew melons (30 miles east of Seattle), we were wildly successful. Since then, the turnout has been a few melons to an entire bed that produced nothing.
Planting way too much in too small a space . I plant close and interplant with flowers like marigolds nasturtiums and herbs but have to watch because mildew is a problem where I live.
My biggest problem is not overestimating – both how much and what I can plant and the actual amount of light/water/other necessities needed.
Definitely space! We live in a town house with a tiny patio/yard area, so getting the most out of containers and the few square feet we have available is my biggest challenge.
I have a hard time planning for winter crops, and knowing how much to plant for my family.
I inherited a garden that had been neglected for years, and is thus full of weed seeds. I can’t afford to replace the soil, so I’m just having to mulch and deal with tons of weeding, in my free time (which, as a PhD graduate student, isn’t very much!).
My biggest challenge is, well, myself. Every winter I stare out the window and envision the wonderful veggie garden that will be and every spring I wait too long to get things ready. So this is the year since I decided to make every available square foot of soil productive for us. This is it, but I can use every bit of help and advice I can get…
My new challenge is the darn squirrels digging up, eating, or just breaking everything. My constant issue is not getting enough sun. I’m looking for crops that can stand some shade.
My challenge is finding the space for my ever growing list of things I want to plant!
Time and energy!
My biggest challenge is my own procrastination. That and I never feel like planting winter crops at the correct time after the spring harvest (I’m in the PNW, too), well, because it’s just too summery! Oh, and also getting lazy about watering during the summer….we need to install drip irrigation and have yet to do it after almost 4 years of having a garden.
My biggest challenge right now is figuring out where to settle down 🙂 Once I’ve found that perfect plot, I’ll be ready for the book!
My biggest challenge is figuring out where to start!
My biggest challenge is not having enough space for all the starts I end up with. But, if I had more space I would probably still have too many starts! I end up planting them all, because I can’t stand wasting a good plant. So far the cramped quarters haven’t caused any yield problems, and I always have plenty of people to eat my excess, so, maybe it’s not really a challenge after all – LOL!
I am currently trying to plan for a year round garden; starting with lettuce, and broccoli. Currently my biggest challenge is determining how many plants and how often to replant
Our biggest challenge this year will be maximizing our growing space by going vertical. We already have a well established growing space, so between now and the spring – I have a lot of structures to get built, gutter gardening to get on, and much much more to do. Finding the time to do all the needed projects is really the hardest part…