Harvest to Table

Parsnip roots can be used in soups, stews, and side dishes. (Learn more about cooking and serving parsnips, click here.) The parsnip is a root crop that can be planted in spring and autumn in all regions and winter in mild-winter regions. Parsnips require 95 to 120 days to mature and reach harvest. The parsnip [...]

January is the coldest month of the year in the northern half of the world. The Norseman named January for Thor, their gold of thunder and storms. The Anglo-Saxons called it Wolfmonth because the wolves came into the villages in the dead of winter to search for food. Legend says that the Roman emperor Numa [...]

Cool-season vegetable varieties are legion. Check with neighbors and friends to see which varieties they’ve had success with. After a season or two you will find personal favorites. Here are several varieties for autumn, winter, and spring planting. If you are growing in a cold frame, you can get any of these started between late [...]

If Novem is the Latin word for nine, then why is November the eleventh month of the year? It all started in 46 B.C, when Julius Caesar asked the astronomer Sosigenes to review the calendar and improve it. Calendars are systems for measuring and recording the passage of time. Nature gives us a regular sequence [...]

Autumn is a good time to begin preparing the kitchen garden for spring planting. Remove woody and diseased plant debris from the garden as soon as the harvest is complete–pull up tomato vines and beans and remove late cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli stalks. Plant debris that is not diseased can be finely chopped and added [...]

Ready to stretch your growing season: get an early start in spring or keep the season going in autumn? Lettuce is your choice. Lettuce does not like warm days and nights, so the cool time of the year is lettuce season. You can lengthen your growing season dramatically with a lettuce box–that’s a cold frame [...]

Composting turns garden and kitchen waste into humus. Humus is Nature’s best fertilizer and soil conditioner. The process of decomposition that we call composting happens in nature as billions of microorganisms feed, grow, reproduce, and die as they recycle kitchen and garden waste. Compost will happen gradually over time. Set a pile of leaves or [...]

The combination of dead vegetation with air and moisture will result in compost. Composting is natural decomposition. Composting can take place in a simple free-standing heap of garden waste or a homemade wire-mesh container or a commercially made bin. Here are the basics you’ll need to know to start composting at home: • Site the [...]

A cold frame can keep plants 7° to 10ºF warmer than outdoors, sometimes as much as 20ºF warmer. Use a cold frame in spring to give seedlings a head start on the growing season and protect them from spring frosts. Use a cold frame in autumn to extend the summer and fall growing season into [...]

Use cloches and cold frames to extend the growing season, either in spring or autumn. When freezing temperatures are expected, most kitchen garden crops will benefit from protection. The simplest crop protection–a light blanket or overturned cardboard box–will protect plants by 1° or 2°F. A plastic or glass cloche, plastic tunnel, or simple cold frame [...]