Winter Alliums

I'm sure most of you would agree with me that gardening is a hobby that requires a lot of patience and planning. There's also the anticipation that comes naturally with the change in seasons, which is why I usually find myself focused on what the garden would look like 3 to 5 months from now. At the moment, I'm focused on November, December and January. During the past 12 months, I've been able to pick something from the garden each month, even when temperatures failed to get above freezing. Granted, some of those harvests were rather meager. I'm hoping that with a bit more planning this year, I can get some of those cold weather harvests to be more substantial.

Above are some of the leeks I planted in the Spring. They are definitely slow growing. I think I'll top-dress them with a bit of compost and fertilizer to get them growing again.


Last week, I decide to transplant my winter alliums. These scallions were started a few weeks ago. If all goes well, they should be ready by late November or December.


Last spring, I also planted a clump of leeks for transplanting later in the summer. These are my experimental winter leeks. I'm hoping that, if all goes well, they will mature sometime during mid to late winter.


The entire clump lifted easily with a simple turn of the garden fork...

Then I went about sorting through the bunch, trying to pick out only the largest leeks for replanting. (I'm learning to be more cut-throat this time of year.) After a quick trim of the leaves and roots, they were ready for transplanting.


At this point, I'm watering all of my fall/winter seedlings almost every day to protect them from the summer heat and they seem to be responding well to it.

If you're growing a fall/winter garden this year as well, I'd love to hear about it!

On a random note, how creepy is this!!! Makes you think twice about inhaling your food (literally).