Alright!
This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, today we have another exciting episode, but
before I start the episode, I want to wish everybody out there, all my viewers that are
watching, a very happy new year, and to have the best gardening season in 2015 and if you’re
not already gardening, I want you guys to start gardening, now is the time to start
planning, you know, order seeds, get them started so that you will have them after the
last frost date has passed in your area.
As for me, I’m continually planting in my garden, I grow year-round.
And if you live in a place that basically doesn’t have snow on the ground, I want
you guys to have a garden.
If grass is growing outside and it’s still alive and there’s trees and things still
alive outside with greenery on them, you can have a garden in the winter time so I mean,
here is a mild climate, you know we might get down to freezing a couple of days, but
I’m going to plant a whole bunch as you guys can see all lined up here in this freshly
prepared raised bed, whole bunch of vegetables for the winter season.
Now the winter season for me is mainly about leafy greens, but I have a few other things
that I’m going to be planting as well, so I guess without further ado let’s go ahead
and give you guys a close-up shot of some of the plants I’ll be planting this winter.
Right now we’re going to go ahead and share with you guys the different plants I’m growing
in the winter that you may want to try also.
These are all frost-tolerant to some extent, but if there’s snow outside, probably not
going to make it.
First we have the beets Chioggia.
I like to encourage and let you guys grow different varieties of the same plant, so
don’t just grow the common beets grow some uncommon ones.
Next we’ve got the bull’s blood beet, next we’ve got the bull door beet, I believe
that’s like a nice yellow one.
Next we’ve got the beets cylindra, it’s a cylindrical beet.
Next we’ve got the broccolini spirulagetolino[?].
Next we’ve got some guylon[?] green lance, and I want to encourage you guys to plant
diversity so in case you have a crop failure right?
I know some of these guys are going to work, probably most of them actually.
Next we’ve got the kohlrabi, kohlrabi’s a really cool one.
And yeah, you can eat the leaves so all these plants that I’m planting actually you can
eat the leaves, and on the beets obviously you can eat the roots as well.
And on the kohlrabi it makes an enlarged stem, so if you’ve ever had broccoli stalk, one
of my favorite things that my girlfriend likes is actually shredded broccoli stalks, or broccoli
slaw, and it’d be perfect to make the same out of kohlrabi, she’s going to love it.
Next we’ve got some mustard greens, yukina savoy.
That one’s really a more mild mustard green.
Of course we have the [inaudible] red, once again you know planting my foods of color,
and going to stagger the planting so it looks really cool in the bed.
Next we’ve got of course some bok choy, and then next we’ve got some kohlrabi garth.
You know I’ve got all different varieties of some of these same plants, kohlrabi and
while I am German I can’t pronounce German it’s super shletsum, I don’t know something
like that.
There’s a label.
This is supposed to make some super giant 10 inch green skin kohlrabi, I’m looking
forward to having maybe foot long ones.
Of course next we’ve got some lettuce, I’ve got two things of lettuce, and while I do
like to eat lettuce, I’m not a big fan of growing it, it seems you always get a lot
of bugs and slugs and things like that in it, so I’d rather grow something like this,
the frise or endive.
Much less effected by bugs, and even less effected in general is the escarole [inaudible].
Of course my favorite leafy greens in the winter time and if you’re European you’ll
know this one, most Americans don’t know what this stuff is.
This is actually known as the mache or corn salad right there, those little baby delicate
leaves are so delicious.
If you live in Europe you can go to any store and they’ll have mache, especially in the
winter time, and it’s so delicious.
If you live in America, I want to encourage you guys to maybe grow some yourself.
And it’s a cold crop so I like to grow it when it’s cold outside during the fall and
winter season.
Next we’ve got one called minutina, and this is also known as the buckhorn plantain,
related to the common plantain.
I do recommend harvesting those guys small when you can.
And of course, up one of my trellises we’re going to plant these guys, the sugar snap
peas or sugar and peas.
They’re going to grow during the winter and hopefully by, maybe by March I’ll be
having my own sugar snap peas off the vine, one of my first fruiting crops that I’ll
be getting to eat.
All right so you guys saw what I just planted, and these are just some of the crops that
you could plant, you know normally I plant a lot of rastica[?] family crops and things
like that.
The cauliflower, the broccoli, the kale, the Brussels sprouts, things like that.
And this time I’m pretty much just planting the kohlrabi.
I want to let you guys know that on all the rastica family plants you know, even things
like broccoli which we normally have to flower or the cauliflower which we normally have
to flower, you can eat all the leaves too and it’s similar to kale.
And especially if you’ve had those in the summer time, you didn’t them, I want to
encourage you guys to grow them again in the winter, or if you have a place that does have
snow, you can plant them early out, even if it’s not past your last frost date as long
as it’s going to have more mild climate, and these plants get sweeter in the winter
in response to the weather, and then they’re even actually more delicious than summer time.
So yeah revisit them if you don’t like their taste, and also I recommend harvesting the
little baby tender young leaves, they’re always more flavorful than the large ones.
I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me, I’m going to go ahead and plant this bed out,
and hopefully I get back at you, show you guys it finished.
All right so as you can see, it’s getting a bit darker, and I actually got all my plants
planted out.
Instead of staggering them and doing different ones in order of time efficiency I basically
planted one type of winter green in each row, and this is going to be pretty cool when they
get tall, and I want you guys to pay attention when you do plant things.
I tried to plant some of the smaller stuff like the mache which stays low, smaller and
this grows a little bit taller, that might grow about the same height.
And as I get into the middle they get the tallest so this will look pretty cool, and
yeah that’s pretty much a lot of winter greens that I got planted.
So I want to let you guys know, while I am doing a winter garden, I know that you guys
are maybe envious because you live in some place that snows.
But you can also still have a winter garden no matter where you live in the whole world,
even Antarctica.
You can actually simply grow indoors.
If you’re not able to grow inside I highly encourage you guys to grow indoors, you can
grow things like sprouts and microgreens.
I’ll put the links down below to my videos on how to grow sprouts and microgreens indoors
year round.
You know the food that you can grow yourself by far is some of the best food on the planet
that’s going to nourish your body, feed your body so that you can be healthy, wealthy
and strong.
Hope you guys enjoyed this episode learning about what I’m planting here in the winter
time, once again my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, and until next time
remember keep on growing.