The Winter Garden

The Garden. My peaceful zone. I only started gardening about 10 months ago with my first spring/summer planting. What a blast! I've learned quite a bit since then, most of it by trial and error (and the internet!). I started out with just four 10' x 5' raised beds in the spring, and as you can see now, I'm up to twelve 10' x 5' beds, two 5' x 5' beds and 60 feet of 1' wide bed along my fence line.

The great thing about Florida is that you can grow something in your garden basically all year. Actually, the hardest time of the year to grow veggies is in July/August. It gets really hot & wet, diseases flurish and I know you've heard about our bugs! So what you're looking at is my winter garden. It's in a little bit of a transitional stage. It's getting cold now (highs in the high 50's/low 60's, lows in the high 20's/low 30's) and my tomatoes are done. Which is fine by me because I want to squeeze in some broccoli before my spring planting. I've got some onions going now as well as garlic, celery, cabbage, lettuce, beets, radish, carrots, potatoes, strawberries and a few brussels sprout. I also have some green manure going for my spring garden.

One problem I have is.........trees. I love trees but they mess with my garden. My property runs East to West so as winter approaches the Sun starts to fade towards the equator and fall behind some of my trees. I've cut about 10 trees down so far, but I still have shade. The good news is that after December 21st the sun's been coming back my way, so it's just a matter of time before I have full sun again. Next year I'll start my Fall garden in mid-August instead of mid-Sept. and that should help.