Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Three Seasons are enough for me... right now

I'm getting an inferiority complex about my garden. After too much reading of Organic Gardening, Mother Earth News, and the wealth of home farming blogs on the net, all  full of  gardens that feed families of 10 on a half acre lot,  couples that build stone garden sheds with rocks from their own property, and folks who keep chickens as housepets, I feel a failure.
Where's my green street cred? Sure,  I have solar power, but I paid someone to install, it , instead of making it from a kit. And some of my raised beds are made from pressure treated lumber!!!   Most of all, I have resisted the peer pressure towards four season gardening.  My job is much busier in the winter, and I like a break to think and plan about next year.  But the mags are all on about low hoop-houses and winter crops, and I feel a but of a lazy bum.  But at least all the  other gardens in my neighborhood are at rest now too... or so I thought.
Driving home from Target I saw it-- the little vegetable garden that could on the corner of Anthony Street, the one I always eyeball as I go by, the one with peas and onions every April and tomatoes in July, now has two plastic covered low hoop-houses.  The pressure is on, even here in my neighborhood.
Actually, with weather as mild as we've had,  I  almost wish I had put up some hoops too.  It's January 3rd and we've had no snow since October!  Here are a couple of pictures of my  current pitiful four season garden: a patch of parsley covered by a milk crate with reemay tucked around it, and a towel thrown over it on colder nights. It actually works when there isn't much snow.
The parsley outside the crate is pretty much gone, while the close-up shows the parsley inside, still plump and green.  Here's the crate tucked in for a forcast of  15 degrees tonight, the coldest night so far this winter.  



Despite the peer pressure up the street,  I'm not giving in to four seasons yet, except with parsley.  Instead I'm planning on building more raised beds and getting more production out of three.  That's enough for me right now.