December Kitchen Garden Almanac – Harvest to Table

December brings early wintry weather, on the other hand no longer a large number of a slowdown throughout the all-year vegetable garden. Cool-season crops planted early in autumn will come to harvest throughout the next quite a few weeks. (If crops have slowed down, don’t worry. Once daylight drops to less than 10 hours, cool-weather vegetables slip proper right into a no-growth mode. Enlargement will resume when the light each day will building up in January and February.)

If temperatures are throughout the most sensible 20s or low 30sF, cabbage, chard, and head lettuce and carrots, turnips, and Brussels sprouts can be harvested this month–even from underneath a blanket of snow. Scallions and fall leeks can be harvested moreover; the leeks can be regarding the size of scallions. Onions can stay throughout the garden underneath a protective layer of mulch.

If snow has fallen in your wintry weather vegetable garden, do not despair. Snow is comparable to an insulating blanket and the cool-season vegetables beneath can however be harvested.

A killing frost or freeze will do some of the hurt to your vegetable garden in wintry weather–no longer snow. Give protection to crops from freezing temperatures with mulch, plastic tunnels, or cold frames. Loose straw or fallen leaves will give protection to plants from freezing temperatures moreover.

December Harvest Tips

• Asparagus: Asparagus is not able for harvest until spears are about 8 inches (20cm) tall when they are able to be snapped off at soil level. Two-year-old roots can be harvested for 2 or 3 weeks; three-year-old roots can be harvested for 3 to 4 weeks; older asparagus beds can be harvested from 6 to 8 weeks. Don’t harvest spears smaller spherical than your little finger; let the roots continue to mature and store energy.
• Broccoli: Broccoli and other cabbage family members member seedlings will have to be thinned to 18 to 24 inches (45-61cm)apart to verify whole growth. Keep watch over broccoli florets as they increase. You’ll wish to harvest them when they are whole on the other hand forward of they change into heavy and floppy. It is upper to cut broccoli florets a tad early and keep them throughout the refrigerator than to be surprised by way of an surprisingly warmth wintry weather day that can open the crops and ruin your efforts. Once the principle floret is scale back, smaller florets will increase in leaf axils for added harvest.
• Cabbage: In cold-winter spaces, cabbage is a spring and fall crop. In warm-winter spaces, cabbage is a wintry weather crop. Cabbage heads can withstand temperatures down to 20°F (-6°C) but if a big freeze is predicted, you will have to each pull the crop from the garden or give protection to it underneath a layer of straw. Headed cabbage can be scale back from the ground of the plant with a sharp knife when it feels solid and corporate. If the highest feels loose and flimsy, let it mature longer. Should you scale back the highest and pass away some of the essential stalk in the back of, smaller heads will form for a 2d harvest in mild-winter spaces.
• Carrots and Root Crops: Dig and harvest root crops stored throughout the garden underneath mulch as sought after. If the ground does no longer freeze sunchokes, carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, turnips, and other root crops can spend wintry weather underground.
• Chard: Chard leaves can be scale back when they are about 6 inches (15cm) long and however more youthful. Don’t bother with older leaves; send them to the compost pile. Reduce merely what you are able to eat and are to be had back later for added. Chard will keep producing as long as you steer clear of lifting the roots.
• Fennel: Florence fennel is able for harvest when bulbs are about 2 inches (5cm) all through at the base. Don’t let Florence fennel get so much better or it’s going to bolt and set seed.
• Kohlrabi: Harvest kohlrabi’s above soil bulbs when they are 2 to 3 inches/5-7.6cm in diameter. (Turnips are highest harvested at in regards to the an identical size.) Elevate the bulbs gently or scale back them off merely above the soil to steer clear of pulling up neighboring bulbs. Don’t let bulbs expand so much upper or they’ll change into woody.
• Lettuce: Lettuce must be protected from freezing temperatures; keep the plastic tunnel to hand when temperatures dip. Leaf lettuce can be harvested cut-and-come-again, very similar to chard. Reduce the leaves you are able to eat merely above the ground and let the plant expand on. Head lettuce is able for harvest when the highest is corporate. Keep excessive rain from head lettuce or it’s going to swell up and the highest will reduce up.
• Peas: Make a choice snow pears forward of pods begin to bulge; select snap peas forward of pods utterly increase; select shelling peas when the pods are plump and however sensible green–and comfortable. Get started the pea harvest temporarily after the principle blossoms appear–the principle pods for opting for can be low on the plant. Continue to pick peas each day until the harvest is finished.

December Planting Tips

Be affected individual, crops expand slowly all through transient wintry weather days. (There is not any growth when the daylight is less than 10 hours. Don’t expect new growth until mid-January.)

• Asparagus, artichokes, and rhubarb can be set out throughout the perennial section of the garden this month or next. Place perennials at the edge of the garden where they are able to produce for quite a few years without being disturbed. Other perennials include horseradish, sage, mint, and rosemary.
• Chicory: Plant witloof chicory roots in pots of sand and lightweight soil mix and place them in a depressing place at about 45°F (7.2°F). Harvest more youthful shoot as they appear.
• Cabbage: Just about the end of the month get began seeds of cabbage and hardy lettuces indoors. In warmth wintry weather spaces, you are able to sow hardy and half-hardy cool-season plants corresponding to lettuce and cabbage-family crops throughout the garden or underneath cloches.
• Tomatoes (certain, tomatoes): Mild vegetable seeds corresponding to tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants that require 12 weeks or further indoors can be started past due this month.
• Making in a position for Beans: Where the soil is workable, you are able to get in a position a planting bed for next 365 days’s pole or runner beans. Dig a trench 18 inches (45cm) large and about 12 inches (30cm) deep. Loosen the soil with a garden fork and add a 3 to 4-inch (7.6-10cm) layer of aged manure or compost to the bottom of the trench. You’ll additionally add hoof and horn fertilizer or dried blood. Then fill the trench with 3 to 4 inches (7.6-10cm) of soil and the second layer of compost and then the remainder soil. Mark the trench with pegs or garden flags. The website is now able for sowing beans past due next spring.

December Garden Maintenance

Not unusual garden clean-up.  Clean up parts of the garden that are not being used. Place compost and leaf mulch on the vacant part of the garden. Check windbreaks, mulches, and other wintry weather protection forward of and after storms. Arrange burlap screens and add mulch if very important. After storms remove broken branches from orchard timber and take a look at the weight of snow however on branches. Water timber and the garden in dry wintry weather spaces. Make certain that apparatus were cleansed, sharpened, and stored in a dry place. Coat the metal part of apparatus with gentle oil to stop rust. Wood handles can be painted a super color to make them easier to hunt out. Store tomato, bean, and other poles undercover. Store hoses coiled and shut off garden faucets. Check your outdoor storage areas for leaks.

Compost. Turn the compost pile with a fork and water to speed wintry weather disintegration. You are able to assemble a compost bin with wire or boards as small as 3 or 4 ft (.9-1.2m) all through and 4 or 5 ft (1.2-1.5m) most sensible. Place and pack leaves throughout the bin in layers 1 foot (30cm) thick; add a few shovelfuls of aged cow or horse manure to every layer. Separate layers with 1 inch of garden soil. Keep the pile rainy no longer wet and turn it each and every 2 or 3 months.

Soil preparation. Turn underneath without equal of the vegetable remains. Take a look at soil. If acid, add a layer of lime. If lacking in nutrients add ground phosphate rock, granite dust, or greensand to the garden by way of broadcasting the ones rock powders over the soil. The newly broken ground can be left tricky at some stage in the wintry weather; rain and frost will artwork the rock powders into the soil. Now is an excellent time to incorporate compost and green manure into the soil. It will combine in with the soil over wintry weather. Rotary till or spade the material into the garden soil and let sit on the tricky ground until spring. Add well-rotted manure to the area or trenches where you are going to plant next 365 days’s runner beans.

Winter Cold Frame Track-up

Greenhouse and Cold Frame. Clean, disinfect, and able the greenhouse for wintry weather. Check insulation to make sure the greenhouse can deal with the minimum temperature. Clean the glass to allow for the most productive wintry weather gentle. Clear gutters forward of the principle storms. Ventilate the greenhouse on delicate and warmth days; lack of air movement can encourage diseases. Step-by-step give plants a lot much less water so that they will upper tolerate low temperatures; sickness can be a lot much less of a subject. Check plants endlessly to pick off any unnecessary or death leaves forward of they start to rot. In opposition to the end of the month in a lot much less severe wintry weather spaces, you are able to get began seeds of many spring plants that can transfer into the cold frame or into the garden in February and March. Witloof chicory and rhubarb can be started this month for harvest in spring. Onion seed, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, leaf lettuce, mustard, radish, and spinach can be sown throughout the cold frame now.

Check the seal between the lid and very best of your cold frame to make sure it is tight. The frame edge can be lined with local weather stripping or a strip of used carpet underpad to verify cold air does no longer enter the frame.

Where temperatures are very cold, a piece of plastic sheeting can be stretched over single layer lids produced from glass, plastic, or Plexiglas. Double layers of glass–or an added layer of plastic sheeting–offers you the largest insulation.

The height of a cold frame will have to be merely taller than the height of the tallest crop that you are emerging throughout the frame. Always make a frame fairly taller than the crop you could be emerging at maturity.

A stackable cold frame will serve this purpose. Low frames are all that is sought after for spring crops. Alternatively for wintry weather emerging, stackable frame gadgets 6 to 8 inches (15-20cm) tall all through can be used to spice up the frame. A cabbage plant would in all probability require 4 8-inch (20cm) gadgets. Place the sloping unit–sloping against the South–on very best. You are able to protected stacking frame gadgets with pegs which can be appropriate into the unit beneath. Plastic sheeting, a tarp, or an old-fashioned carpet can be stretched around the throughout the frame to insulate and keep wind and cold from coming at some stage in the gaps.

Container Gardens

Switch comfortable container plants indoors or into cold frames for wintry weather. Section-hardy container plants can transfer into the cold frame; sink clay pots with plants into the ground. Shallow containers will have to be sheltered transparent of frost and freezing local weather. Set containers up on low is helping so that they drain freely. Check the ones plants endlessly. Remove spent plants from containers and compost them. Clean unused containers and store them for wintry weather. In delicate spaces, switch container plants transparent of eves into sheltered positions.

Orchard and Fruit

Strawberries. Make a selection strawberry beds now and artwork in a lot of compost. You are able to get began a brand spanking new bed with essentially the most robust runners from old-fashioned strawberry plants. A strawberry bed will have to be good for three years; even so, get began a brand spanking new bed every 365 days. Mulch provide beds with chopped leaves.

Planting fruit timber. Plant container-grown fruit timber where the ground has no longer frozen. Plant bare-root fruit timber in mild-winter spaces.

Pruning fruit timber. Prune established apple and pear timber. Do not winter-prune cherries, damsons, peaches, or plums.

Put old-fashioned fruit timber on a three-year pruning agenda: cut back one-third of the tree’s branches every 365 days for three years to revitalize the tree. Allow one-third of the new vertical shoots to stick and your harvest can be renewed next summer season.

Prune out broken, unnecessary, or diseased branches and crossing branches. Make certain that tree stakes are held firmly in place. Apply dormant oil to control over-wintering pests and sickness.

Prune back newly planted apple and other fruit timber immediately after planting reducing side-shoots to about one-half. Insert tree stakes forward of planting and make sure newly planted timber are protected. Water new timber deeply and add a up to date layer of mulch after planting.

Prune berries. Prune black currants, gooseberries, raspberries, and brambles after a troublesome frost. Pruning can continue until past due wintry weather. Reduce blackberry and hybrid berry canes that fruited this 365 days back to soil level; tie newly formed canes to is helping. Prune established black currant bushes by way of removing old-fashioned shoot from the center. Shorten the lead shoots of gooseberries and red currants by way of 1/2 and facet shoots to 2 inches. Remove all inclined shoots. After pruning, observe a mulch of well-rotted manure or compost.

Prune grapes. Prune grapes as soon as they are dormant; remove one 0.33 to no less than one 1/2 of the old-fashioned wood and thin out undergrowth. Grapevines can be critically cut back to 3-bud spurs along the principle division.

Fruit maintenance. Clean up dropped fruit and leaves. Compost leaves and fruit no longer affected by pests or sickness. Place mouse guards, tree wraps, {{hardware}} subject matter, or chicken wire spherical tree trunks to give protection to them from rodents, rabbits, and deer this wintry weather. Paint the lower trunks of more youthful timber to stop wintry weather sunscald. Previous than the soil freezes, mulch timber in a ring 8-12 inches (20-30cm) from the trunk.

Remove nests of tent caterpillars and cocoons attached to branches with a stiff brush or broom. Save the egg loads of the praying mantis. Learn how to distinguish between the cocoons of each and every. On a gradual day, observe a dormant-oil spray to smother scale and aphids.