Towards the end of autumn I can feel the shift into winter. The temperatures drop at both ends. The sun still appears but she is brief, bestowing warmth and light on a hungry people, then snatching it away. Replaced by days of thick, cold fog that is a worthy foe of the sun, forbidding her entry.
Before the cold seriously sets in, we begin the process of cleaning up the garden, pulling up the remnants of the summer harvest, the faded flowers, and even the sunflowers, picked clean and skeletal, come down. Leaves from the Yellow Tree bed down the perennials. Over in the vegetable patch, Charlie plants garlic and I plant greens, lettuce, mizuma, kale, arugula. Cilantro sprouts wildly from plants gone to seed.
I am always a bit sad to let go of the garden in winter. Maybe the garden needs a break, but I live so much in the outdoors and have a hard time transitioning my energy to inside. Charlie found a solution to this by deciding to build a greenhouse! It came as a total surprise to me, and the idea immediately got my growing juices flowing.
The greenhouse Charlie built is very functional and has everything; water, heat, lights, a fan, and a lemon tree!
It didn’t take me long to fill the greenhouse. I’ve always been interested in growing sprouts for their nutritional power, and so I began researching and experimenting with growing microgreens.
It wasn’t long before I was harvesting my first sunflower sprouts and cutting into the first flat of broccoli sprouts.
No more winter blues, or garden withdrawal. Salad greens have taken on new meaning. Every day I wake up and, regardless of the weather, I look forward to checking on what’s happening in my new winter garden.
