Winter is almost finished. Most of of the green color is from weeds. I did reach some of the goals set after last year's winter garden 2025's failures.
Red Merlot is the most winter hardy lettuce I have ever grown. Learning from last year's mistake that it is necessary to fertilize during the winter made this lettuce stand out brightly among the weeds. (Weeding wasn't one of my goals.)
The onion bulbs that were purchased last spring, stored in the vegetable tray of the refrigerator then planted last fall are waking up. No others were started from seed in the fall because the spring harvest was so large, none were needed. These will get me through until the spring crop is ready. A few new varieties have just been started this week and if they do well, they will be planted again in the fall. Growing onions in the winter is easier. Eventually I will get it right.
A goal not met was finding a good broccoli variety. Winter storm Fern killed them. The carrots were a success but were dug early to avoid possibly losing them in the blizzard. Last year's biggest goal was to plant enough Bloomsdale spinach to make us happy. That, I accomplished and I'm glad I did. We have plenty of our favorite green!
Every year I make a new mistake from which to learn. This year getting the seedlings out too late killed most of them when Fern arrived. Everything was behind schedule because we were waiting on the second planting of green beans to mature. They were delayed because a fat rabbit ate the spring crop one night. The very late planted spinach did just fine. It is enough to make your head explode trying to guess the weather. The once in a lifetime ice storms seem to be happening regularly.
This year's winter goals will be to plant earlier, try onions from seed again, look for another variety of broccoli, and repeat my success with spinach. Perhaps not making mistakes would be the best goal but I wouldn't learn anything then!
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