Preparing for Winter

Is it that time already?  I sure hope so, because I think everyone here at the farm, including our highly productive fields, need a good, long rest.  However, before we pack it up for the year, there’s still plenty to be done and enjoyed at and around the farm.  Let me give you a glimpse into what that looks like.  

Farm Visits – How can you expect to really improve if all your knowledge of growing food comes from your own experiences?  Thankfully, we have plenty of farmer friends in the area who gladly welcome us to visit their farms and see their operations.  Also, it affords a great opportunity to see friends and build relationships that, to be honest, you just don’t have time for in the middle of the growing season.  

We’ve been able to so far trek out to McCleaf’s Orchard near Gettysburg and see his fantastic fruit and vegetable operation.  Corey and his wife Vicky are not only great resources, but great friends as well.  One of Corey’s more impressive innovations are his massive grow tunnels over his sweet cherry trees.  Why grow tunnels?  Because one can lose and entire crop if cherries are ripe and a rain comes.  The cherries protect for that and also minimize disease and pest pressure.  Pretty cool!

We’ve also been able to visit a lot of other great farms like Query Mill Hill Farm (Potomac, MD), Arcadia Farm (Alexandria, VA), Black Ankle Winery (Mt. Airy, MD), Deep Run PawPaw Orchard (Westminster, MD), Accokeek Foundation Farm, and Red Wiggler Community Farm (Clarksburg, MD).  

Protecting your Crops - Yeah it got down to 25 degrees the other night…so what?  Now now, I realize that Nature will have the final say as to when our garden finally hibernates for the winter, but we can still utilize a few simple techniques to have fresh produce (sans greenhouse) up through most of December.  We do this in a few ways:

• Choosing Cold Tolerant Varieties – So I’m not talking about having tomatoes and squash through December, but more of your hearty greens, lettuce, even broccoli and cauliflower.  Things like kale and collards are pretty tolerant to cold already and will likely hang around through all the winter, but with some of your other stuff, especially lettuce, it really helps to grow varieties this time of year that can stand up to some frost and maybe even a freeze or two (or three!).  Current recommendations for varieties would be Rouge d’Hiver (Red French Heirloom Lettuce), Winter Density (Bibb-Romaine Lettuce), Premium Crop Broccoli, Winterbor Kale, and Snow Crown Cauliflower.  Basically, if it has “winter” or “snow” in the name, it’s probably what you’re looking for.
• Covering Your Crops – When it starts to frost and freeze, one of the best and cheapest ways to protect your plants is simply to cover them.  We use a thin polyester row cover that lets light and moisture in, but keeps frost out.  We drape it over hoops to create a mini greenhouse effect in the garden which will not only keep your plants growing longer into the winter, but faster as well (because of the added heat).