Failure, er, Hard Lessons in the Garden

My poor garden is very nearly as neglected as this blog (insert sad face here).

Despite having high hopes for winter time harvests of fresh, tasty vegetables, I made some crucial errors that resulted in "less than optimal results." Or a complete and utter failure.

As previously mentioned, I got started a bit too late with my fall/winter crops. Then I was caught completely unawares by a hard, prolonged freeze in December, with temperatures dipping into the teens for several nights. As a result, my broccoli, which had been the jewel of my garden, now looks rather sad. Or dead.

Before the deep freeze hit, I did harvest a very tiny head of broccoli and a small-ish head of cauliflower. As I was preparing to cook the cauliflower, I found one of these hidden inside. It appeared to be dormant. Or dead.

Either way it wasn't very appetizing, which isn't to say that we didn't eat it anyway.

To combat my abysmal ignorance on the subject of winter gardening, I purchased Winter Harvest Handbook: Four Season Vegetable Production for the 21st Century by Eliot Coleman. Mr. Coleman winter gardens on a huge scale. With actual success.

One tidbit I've already gleaned concerns day length, which controls the amount of growth you can expect from your vegetables. So even though my winter temperatures are (usually) more moderate than those in Maine, where Coleman operates, I'm farther north and have shorter days. Accordingly, I have to plant my winter harvest crops earlier so that they can achieve usable size before day length drops under ten hours.

Luckily for me, the U.S. Naval Observatory has conveniently posted the requisite data right here, which means that I won't have to record careful observations on the time the sun rises and sets in my area, which means I won't have to endure another "learning experience" next fall.

What once looked like this:

Now looks like this:

And if you think the broccoli looks bad, you should see the cauliflower. I'm not posting a photo out of blogging courtesy to those with weak stomachs.

The one thing that appears to have survived the cold snap unscathed is the corn salad, or mache.

I realize that doesn't look all that promising, but I assure you, the visible damage is from pests, not Jack Frost.

There are also a few spinach seedlings surviving under one of my coldframes.

I'm disappointed and in addition to that, yes, I'm taking some heat from my husband as the not insubstantial cost of the establishing the garden was sold with the promise of fresh vegetables in mid-winter. But, like generations of gardeners before me, I'm hopeful, if not yet confident, that I can win my bet with nature next winter.