A window box planted with hardy flowers and foliage offers a garden view when it's too cold to stay outside. These structures capture solar energy and create a microclimate around our vegetables. What’s the proportion you like for a cold frame? Didn't plant those tomatoes? You and I are nature’s best hope, and I’m glad Doug joined me again to help us learn to support it. In spring and fall, I make sure to vent my structures often by propping open the tops of the cold frames or clipping up the ends of the mini hoop tunnels to allow good air circulation. Award-winning author Niki Jabbour continues to harvest a wide assortment of vegetables and herbs in her fall and winter garden in Halifax, Nova Scotia! A. All rights reserved. You just want to make sure you buy seed from a company that specializes in growing shoots and sprouts, because some seed of course has been treated, and you should avoid that when you’re going to grow them as a food source. I hope that everyone who loves to experiment in their gardens joins me on this global food journey. Because I grow a global vegetable garden, I do sometimes buy seeds in bulk from the bulk food store. I had a “Salad table top” raised bed made this spring that allows me to stand up & sow & harvest basil, cilantro & thyme. The Year-round Vegetable Gardener by Niki Jabbour. Growing up, our vegetable garden was a May to September garden with most of the harvest enjoyed in August and early September. Nikki Jabbour wrote a fantastic book that has become a useful reference in my library. A. I found what works best for me is a 3 by 6 foot cold frame. I sow the seed, I’m done. Q. I was going to say: I’m seeing this solid glacier, this iceberg made of straw. WHEN I TALKED to Doug Tallamy in February around the publication date of his latest book, “Nature’s Best Hope,” I didn’t want to go on and on about the advice in it regarding smart fall cleanup, which is one of the ways I know I’ve dramatically shifted the way I manage my own garden compared to 10 or even five years ago. Niki’s vegetable garden in Halifax just got a facelift to become even more productive. I’M A BELIEVER in succession sowings, and regularly spread the message of fall harvests and other vegetable-garden second chances. Q. Photo by: Excerpted from Niki Jabbourâs Veggie Garden Remix, © by Niki Jabbour, photography by © James Ingram/Jive Photographic Inc., used with permission from Storey Publishing, Excerpted from Niki Jabbourâs Veggie Garden Remix, © by Niki Jabbour, photography by © James Ingram/Jive Photographic Inc., used with permission from Storey Publishing. The winter season can yield some incredible plants, vegetables, and fruitsâgiven that you are armed with expert knowledge. For instance, I use my grow-lights all summer long for succession plantings, and I am still using them now to start all my cold-season cabbages, and kohlrabis, and even leeks for fall and winter harvesting, and more hardy herbs and greens. I’m going to try it with row covers right after Labor Day and see if I can keep the bunnies out! Don't miss HGTV in your favorite social media feeds. It’s 8 mil thick and gets 90 percent light retention. Your light stand—how long are those in service? (Disclosure: includes affiliate links.). This my first attempt at this and I hope it works out well. With a few steps and some planning, you can enjoy garden fresh vegetables all winter. âI usually put an old bed sheet on top of that just to hold the straw or the leaves in place, a⦠For example, Swiss chard is a fall garden superstar but tends to succumb to the frigid temperatures in our garden by December. And with a cold frame, you don’t have to build one if you’re not handy. Learn how your comment data is processed. What does well in the cold frame? I get all these mulched leaves and it’s a treasure. I will have a bed that’s totally prepared, and I will sow very cold-tolerant things like arugula, or Asian greens, or spinach, chard or endive—any number of hardy greens. No answer, or feeling shy? So delicious. I first became aware of Canadian garden writer and radio host Niki Jabbour when she asked me to appear on her Weekend Gardener radio program several years ago. Veggie Garden Remix celebrates diversity in the garden and spotlights some of my favorite unusual, global or uncommon edibles like burr gherkins, cucamelons, Inca berries, chickpeas, Yukina savoy, celtuce and about 235 other awesome crops. If you start them indoors, you don’t have to worry about that. Some of my favorite cold season crops include kale, endive, leeks, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, spinach and parsley. He happens to sell them so that was easy for me. By mid-March that stuff is ready to harvest. In The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener, Nova Scotiaâbased gardener and writer Niki Jabbour shares her secrets for growing food during every month of the year. With her lively âLike this? Winter Gardenerâs Clock- When should I start a winter garden? It looked really good. In our last minutes, I have to ask you: Did you really bulldoze that super-productive garden of yours, Niki? What happened? Niki will share some of her favorite season-extending devices like cold frames and mini hoop tunnels, as well as spotlight the best cold-tolerant cr (Stream it below, read the illustrated transcript or subscribe free.). I’ll select a random winner after entries close at midnight Monday, August 15, 2016. I really like the idea of the newly designed garden with several tall raised beds. If I have some that’s reseeded in the garden, it’s perfectly fine once the snow retreats in spring. âThe easiest thing to do is if you have root crops in your garden this fall like carrots or beets or parsnips, things like that, the best way to extend that harvest all winter long is to cover them with about a foot or so of shredded leaves or straw,â she said. Cover the hoops with clear plastic and weigh the plastic down with rocks or logs. I tried 2 by 4 and 2 by 3, but they’re just too small to plant. MY WEEKLY public-radio show, rated a “top-5 garden podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper in the UK, began its seventh year in March 2016. Q. Usually my last sowing of something would be in October—late October—but that’s not something I expect to eat right away. A. Pokemon works OK; it doesn’t have to be “Star Wars,” but something of that genre. Q. Q. Sep 16, 2014 - Oh Peppermint Swiss Chard, you are so beautiful! My first book, the award-winning, The Year Round Vegetable Gardener, was published in 2012 and Groundbreaking Food Gardens hit shelves in March 2014! A. It’s funny, my husband is obsessed with arugula; it’s one of his favorite salad greens. I can tell you to grow carrots, but you might be like, “I’m not that fond of carrots.” You should pick what you like to eat. My first book, the award-winning, The Year Round Vegetable Gardener, was published in 2012 and Groundbreaking Food Gardens hit shelves in March 2014! They are topped with Lexan which has a double layer of polycarbonate for added insulation. But I now have this space with 20 raised beds, three or four tunnels, surrounded by a deer fence because we are in a deer super-highway. Tags: Seven Springs 2012, Guest Post, Organic Gardening, Niki Jabbour, If I could only pick one season extending structure for a home vegetable garden, it would be a cold frame. Right now there is still time even in our Northern gardens, to plant some things that we will harvest in the fall. A. It was inspired by my mother-in-law, a Lebanese immigrant who taught me to flex my gardening skills and try growing new-to-me Middle Eastern crops like edible gourds, purslane and zaatar. Writing this made me think of the ⦠TRADE . A. I don’t use glass for the top, either. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station in the nation. When Gilmore and I connected through Facebook, she had questions about which one of the buildings she should choose. She gives ideas on extending the growing season, growing into the winter, designing gardens, and what vegetables and herbs can be grown year-round. Nikiâs vegetable garden in Halifax just got a facelift to become even more productive. Thank you for this wonderful interview. I would love to grow carrots in the winter and have been researching other veggie’s to grow too. We just had a Cold Frame 101—I needed a remedial class in cold frames. My first season extender was a fabric row cover that allowed me to stretch our homegrown arugula harvest by weeks. It’s more expensive than the free glass window on the side of the road, but they tend to last about 12 years for me, and they don’t break, and they work well for me. You don’t want things touching the top glass or plastic. I’d love to win that book! Niki Jabbour is an author, blogger, radio host and gardening expert from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Growing attractive edibles right into, and even through, the winter. 2019 American Horticultural Society Book Award Winner 2019 GardenComm Media Awards Gold Medal Winner Best-selling author Niki Jabbour invites you to shake up your vegetable garden with an intriguing array of 224 plants from around the world. So it kind of helps me overcome the hot, dry weather of summer. If you get a lot of snow in your region, run a wooden board (like a 1x2 piece of lumber) down the center of the structure before you put on the cover to help shed snow. Things like leeks, or tall mature kale plants, or collard greens—they do best under a mini-hoop tunnel. But you don’t need one. Q. I think I read it in the book that you have like 30 things that you can grow, even in Halifax, in the November-to-March period. A. I think the first thing you need to think about is what do you like to eat. We brought in a big tractor, and they leveled the area, and we have a big back lawn area and we took out half of that to expand the garden. I’m in Seattle, so frost is only occasional, but I think mulching might up my percentage of success in my raised bed. Oct 25, 2012 - A blog about my adventures as a professional garden writer, radio show host and obsessive veggie gardener! Well, serendipitously, later that day I went to the post office and found a review copy of Niki Jabbourâs new book, âGrowing Under Cover,â waiting for me, and had some answers for my neighbor. Very easy to grow, and there are other shoots to grow as well—broccoli shoots, arugula shoots. Soon, I began building mini hoop tunnels over my raised beds for fall and winter harvesting. Instead, I save that precious garden space for the cold-hardy vegetables and herbs that we can harvest all winter long. The great thing about winter veggies is the wide variety of texture they offer. Now I will start some lettuce and kale from seed. I plant that in my cold frames, usually in early to mid-September, I direct seed it. Bio: Niki Jabbour is the award-winning author of three books - The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener (2012 American Horticultural Society Book Award), Groundbreaking Food Gardens, and Niki Jabbour's Veggie Garden Remix (Winner of the 2019 American Horticultural Society Book Award, Winner of the Gold Award from GardenComm, and short-listed for a 2019 Taste Canada Award). I do it quickly, so it doesn’t get icy. Q. Q. OK, I’m writing this down so I get the right stuff. Plant them densely, keep them watered, and you’ll be harvesting in about three weeks. Whatâs more, she guides us through the process so we too can eat garden salads in the midst of winter. The general rule of thumb for planting a winter vegetable garden in Zones 7 to 10 is to plant during October. It’s prolific, easy to grow, and probably among the top 5 cold-tolerant plants to grow for a fall-winter garden. 'horticultural how-to and woo-woo' | margaret roach, head gardener. A. I’ve considered getting this book anyway. After gardening in the same space for 12 years, we underwent a major garden renovation in the spring of 2016. Health issues are taking their toll on me right now but I do want to garden in the winter and the other seasons as well. Last year I tried kale and lettuce and that was all I tried. Even though it’s efficient, because you’re using 8-foot lumber, the 4 by 8 is a hefty thing to lift. Those go over the top usually in late November. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. So it keeps the soil from freezing solid it stays diggable, right? I just planted eggplant, spaghetti squash, cauliflower, peas, romaine lettuce, and carrots last week (October 20th). We all planted in.. Early on, I found the biggest challenge was finding seeds for my winter garden. [Laughter.]. One year I actually thought I’d be clever, and I had some straw bales. We add the pea shoots to stir fries, salads, sandwiches, wraps—just about anything we possibly can. Catalog. I’ve had them in the past but don’t right now. Or play the Aug. 8, 2016 show right here. Niki Jabbour brings you 73 novel and inspiring food garden designs that include a cocktail garden featuring all the ingredients for your favorite drinks, a spicy retreat comprising 24 varieties of chile peppers, and a garden thatâs devoted to supplying year-round salad greens. [Laughter.] We grow greens and lettuces in an attached solar greenhouse, effectively extending And if you do a straw-bale coldframe, that’s usually taller than a traditional coldframe, so you can do taller things in there as well. Q. A. Q. I told a friend of mine who’s an organic seed farmer that I really wanted to grow pea shoots like he does, sowing them really thickly. There are some books out there for market gardeners that are wonderful—reading what other people are doing. But with help from Niki Jabbour, let’s be more polite and talk.. A. The easiest way to start stretching your season is with mulch. We harvest from our mulched beds all winter long. And then the easiest way to extend your season is mulch. I have my tea there at least twice a day. We harvest it until March or April, and it will eventually start flowering by February or March–and we eat the flowers in our salads. But how much longer are you sowing and transplanting into this garden that may then be under a blanket, or under the lid of a cold frame, or high tunnel. You want to have them a little lower. © 2021 Discovery or its subsidiaries and affiliates. You do have to keep them clean, yes. Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Having read it from cover to cover, I can honestly ⦠I thought, “This is cool,” and wondered what else I could grow into late fall and even longer, and started to research. So maybe the cooler part of the year is an opportunity? It can save you a lot of money. Known for her expertise in cold-weather gardening, she grows dozens of vegetable varieties in her 2,000-square-foot garden that she's able to harvest year round. Niki Jabbour - The Year Round Veggie Gardener A blog about my adventures as a professional garden writer, radio show host and obsessive veggie gardener! Picking the right crops to grow is very important. A NEIGHBOR with a new cold frame emailed me the other day, seeing colder weather finally in the forecast and wanting to know how to extend his season even longer inside the unit. My beds are all raised beds, which makes season extension a snap. But in winter, the bacteria or fungi that cause most common garden diseases are inactive or have been killed by the cold temperatures. That would be another way to go. Yes, and you can use straw as well. Niki Jabbour - The Year Round Veggie Gardener A blog about my adventures as a professional garden writer, radio show host and obsessive veggie gardener! Last year I planted lettuce, basil, and even parsley when I got back from vacation after Labor Day. Listen live at 8:30 AM EDT Mondays, to the replay Saturday morning, or stream the podcast anytime. So arugula was your gateway drug into season extension. We grow lettuces that are started in the greenhouse, then grow on in gallon pots on the south-facing porch on the picnic table. Rabbits ate every spec of lettuce I planted this year. We grow a wide variety of food in our fall and winter garden beds and many, like kale and carrots, get sweeter as the temperature drops. But even things like leeks can be mulched—with leaves or straw, then covered with a bed sheet. You just can’t go wrong. (Photos courtesy of Niki Jabbour. Other things that are easy? Niki Jabbour's Veggie Garden Remix: 224 New Plants to Shake Up Your Garden and Add Variety, Flavor, and Fun. It absolutely was—it’s a very dangerous salad green. See how this seasoned gardener grows fresh produce all year long. But first the fence and hotwire for elk, deer and bear, and ongoing gopher control. It’s much cheaper than cedar, which is also great but just more expensive. So things like endive and mache and spinach and arugula and mizunas and mustards, parsley and scallions and thyme, and all the different mustards, lettuces, chard, pac choi—all of these do well in a cold frame. Then I also use mini-hoop tunnels, which I make inexpensively, which go over my beds. YOU FINALLY got everything into the ground, transplanting every little seedling and sowing every seed, and it’s time to sit back and pat yourself.. You can find her book here: Check out our post that has some winter gardening tips and a further review of Nikkiâs book: Nikki Jabbour is definitely an expert in winter gardening. My first book, the award-winning, The Year Round Vegetable Gardener, was published in 2012 and Groundbreaking Food Gardens hit shelves in ⦠Privacy Policy. Photo by: Storey Publishing Joseph De Sciose. Spruce up your outdoor space with products handpicked by HGTV editors. The author teaches you how to garden 365 days a year and explains how it doesnât matter what climate you are in. Spinach is super easy, and arugula. LONGTIME GARDENER AND FIRST-TIMERS went all out in this craziest of years, bringing the expression “victory garden” back into the headlines. Discover The joe gardener Show - Organic Gardening - Vegetable Gardening - Expert Garden Advice From Joe Lamp'l 174-Season Extension Practices for Getting More from Your Garden, with Niki Jabbour Update: 2020-09-17 1 A. I’m in sunny coastal Central California (San Luis Obispo), so we have much milder winters with lows in the 40’s. The Winter Garden: Over 35 step-by-step projects for small spaces using foliage and flowers, berries and blooms, and herbs and produce. Niki Jabbour The first frost used to be the end of the vegetable gardening season â but not anymore! It’s so ridiculously cold-tolerant. Parsley & kale organized, because you don ’ t right now things touching the top glass or plastic of. Fence and hotwire for elk, deer and bear, and I had it... The vegetables or varieties I wanted to grow green vegetables during winter of gardeners, including myself who. Are a lot of soil ; I use trays, because you don ’ t get icy one bed am! 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