Welcome to December

I finally put my garden to bed today. Well, mostly....I plan on putting some compost into the big boxes once its ready, and that is likey to be around Christmas. I compost household stuff with a couple of Bokashi buckets. It works pretty well. I'll have to write about it later this winter.

The garlic still appears to be doing well! I really hope it doesn't freeze. I packed more leaves around them today since it is going to freezing tonight AND we may have snow. I should probably bring my salad greens in too, though they have toughed out a frost we had already.

Even though it is winter, I have started to plan next year's garden. I started my tomatoes in March last year. If I'd been thinking ahead, I would have started some tomatoes inside for the winter--I am lucky in that I have a sunroom that gets decent light year round. That experiment will need to wait until next fall!

Last year I grew:

Eggplant
Bell pepper
carrots
Basil
Chives
Mint (several varieties)
Salad greens
Beets
Striped tomatoes (did not work out well)
Cherry tomatoes (lemondrop, sungold, and sweet 100...all fabulous)
Nasturtiums
Watermelon
Peas
Cucumbers
beans in three colors!

A lot of this is in my freezer at the moment.

What I want to add in/change:

A large tomato variety
Soybeans (I found seeds and I want to make edemame)
Hot peppers
Spaghetti squash
zuchinni
head lettuce
garlic (in progress)

I think this means Iw ill need to build a few more large self watering boxes. I made a bunch last spring for my tomatoes, and they were a definite improvement over what I had been doing before--I could get away with watering tomatoes oevery other day in the hottest part of summer as opposed to 3 times a day. I used (and modified) instructions found here to create my self watering containers. They were pretty easy once I got rolling. I did not use PCV pipes, but a black flexible pipe that I got at Home Depot for like $4 for 10 feet. That made a lot of boxes. I use segments of hose for my fill tubes. I may change that.

I hang out on a great Yahoo list about growing veggies in containers, called ediblecontainergardens so I will share that now. It is really nice--lots of VERY helpful and fun folks, and it is one of the better organized Internet lists I have been on--the files section is a great index to the discussions!

More later as I decide what I need to order as seed....