Our January Garden
Here in our North Florida garden, January brings us bounty and anticipation for the next season’s plantings.
Plants currently in our vegetable garden include:
Beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cilantro, corn salad, garlic, kohlrabi, mesclun greens, miners lettuce, minutina o erba stella, multiplier onions, pak choi, parsnips, radishes, rutabagas, snow peas, spinach, and turnips.
For a couple of months, we have watched our winter garden grow and hopefully the month of January we’ll be able to begin harvesting a nice variety for our meals.
This is our second winter garden and we still have quite a lot to learn. This year, we have put a large focus on controlling the plantings so that we have small harvests of a variety of vegetables over an extended period of time. This has proven to be quite a challenge. So far, I have discovered that no matter how well I plan, things do not perform the way I predict. There are many environmental variables that can effect harvest times and quality. After reading the other blogs from this site, it appears that I am not alone.
In Tallahassee, if we are to enjoy cool-weather crops such as cabbage, radishes, carrots, broccoli, and spinach, we need to grow them through the winter months. Despite the fact that we are located in Florida, we do not have balmy winters. Occasionally, the night-time low drops into the low twenties. We become weather watchers, waiting to see if we need to cover certain vegetables or not. This has been a warm year. Our weekly lows hovered at 33°F through November and most of December. It wasn’t until last week that we finally received our killing freeze. I was relieved to have it happen so that I could clean up after the summer vegetables and make way for the spring plantings.
Next week, our onion and leek plants will arrive. Last spring, we missed the planting window and kicked ourselves every time we had to go to the grocery store to buy them. In our area, we cannot grow the long-storage onions. The sweet onions are wonderful, but there is something to be said about being able to keep onions for more than two months. To prolong our onion use, we chop them up and freeze them in half-cup portions for use throughout the rest of the year. No matter how many we grow, we never seem to grow enough onions.
The Brussels sprouts are starting to form on their stalks. This is the third try at growing them here and I think I finally figured out the right planting time. I am growing a beautiful variety called ‘Rubine’. The seeds are difficult to find in the catalogs, but they are still available if you look. It is an excellent edible landscape plant and an heirloom.
A new variety of radish we are growing is starting to show its presence in our garden. It is a Chinese variety named ‘Green Meat’. They are long like a daikon, mild and sweet. They are still small for their type in our garden, but we could not resist tasting them early. The initial bite gives you a crisp, sweet flavor, followed by the usual hotness from a salad radish. As they get larger the heat is supposed to mellow out and become mild.
Another new variety of plant we are growing is Erba Stella. It is a star-shaped green from Italy. As far as I’m concerned, every salad should have some in it. It is a mild green with a pleasant texture. It is not a bulk green, but an accent. It passed the taste test of our children and visiting relatives. I am not sure how large the plant will grow- ours are still small. One negative, is that the seeds are teeny black specks. Up until now, I have resisted the urge to buy one of those hand seeders. I can definitely see a use here.
May your harvests be bountiful in the new year,
Tiffanie