January Garden

Here are some shots of things in and from my vegetable garden, growing in January!  With a bit more foresight, a bit more planning, and a bit more mindfulness and care during the ups and downs of the temperatures during a mid south winter, I think I could have loads of fresh parsley, chard, kale, broccoli, beets, carrots, and lettuce, not to mention sprouts grown inside of course.

sorrel

The problem with growing a garden through the winter here is twofold.  First, plants put on growth not just as a response to warm temperatures, but also as a response to day length -- hours of daylight.  So having a good winter garden depends on planting the seeds or setting out plants at a time when they can still get enough day length to put on good growth before the day length decreases to the point where the plants just mark time until the days start lengthening again.  Here in the mid south, that means planting the fall garden in September, when our daytime temperatures are often in the upper 90's, sometimes even triple digits!  Those are pretty brutal conditions for a baby seed or plant to contend with, especially ones that do best in the cooler temperatures of spring in fall -- which are exactly the ones that need to be planted at that inopportune time.

stir fry greens

parsley

blueberries in bud

strawberry bed

Here was my harvest this last week of January.

I think a nice light stir fry will be on the menu tonight.