Winter Garden Harvest March 2010

We planted arrugula, miner’s lettuce, raddiccio, bok choi and wong bok in the cold greenhouse in late October.  Then a second crop of everything, adding Oregon Sugar Peas in November.  We keep the greenhouse cold instead of cool (lowest temp: 40F) or warm (lowest temp: 60F) because of cost concerns and insect control.  We don’t heat the greenhouse at all, but cover the crops with the white cover cloth that allows light and water in…I’ve forgotten what it’s called…to help protect the crops when the weather drops below freezing.  It works!My goal was to have the seeds in the ground by September so that the plants would be 80% or grown before the cold weather set in.  The idea is the have the cold weather slow the growth down so that everything begins to be harvestable by late fall to early winter, then on into the late winter.Because I was so late in planting, nothing was ready to eat until mid to mid January.  The wait was well worth it. The miners lettuce was ready for harvest first.  I just had to clip off leaves, then they grow right back.  They have a real nutty flavor.  I also had planted miner’s lettuce outside, but it hasn’t grown to the point of harvest yet. They did survive the cold though. We started harvesting the arugula at the same time because the plants were starting to flower.  I love its peppery flavor!

In early March we started harvesting the wong bok and bok choi.  They started going to flower as well, it bit earlier than I expected.  They didn’t get as big or as full as I expected before they started going to flower.  I’ve been clipping the flowers off and harvesting those sparingly, to see if they grow a bit fuller.  The miner’s lettuce has been going to flower as well, but I just keep clipping those off and harvesting as usual.  The sugar peas have grown to about 2 feet, but no flowers or pea pods yet.  I wouldn’t expect those until the greenhouse stays in the 60’s consistently.  It gets into the 70’s when the sun stays out for any period of time, but drops into the lower 40’s in the summer.

Our citrus trees (Meyer Lemon, lime and kumquat) took a bit of a beating this winter.  The kumquat is still looking good.  I’ve been nibbling off of it for a month or so!  But the other two lost most of their leaves after our week long stint of 18 degree weather.  They’re supposed to be able to survive into the 20’s but I brought them indoors for that cold week anyway.  They started losing their leaves then.  The lemon tree looks like it’s starting to show some new growth, but the lime tree doesn’t.  I think the lime tree is still alive because it does have a couple of branches with leaves…we’ll see!