Winter Dreaming: Planning your Kitchen Garden for the Year Ahead
It might surprise you that I love winter. As a kid in the Chicago area, winter lasted almost half the year and I spent most of it watching movies in our basement. Winter wasn’t that different from the rest of the year, which was too hot, humid or mosquito-filled to spend a lot of time outside. As an adult in Boise, where our weather is so mild, everchanging and sunshiney (compared to Chicago), I spend a lot of time outside, so winter allows me the time to head indoors and dream.
It might not surprise you that I dream of spring. I dream of all the early flowers (breadseed poppies in red and purple), crunchy lettuces (especially the ones with red flecks) and the fragrant tomato vines that wind up the trellises in our raised garden beds in Boise. If you’re like me and a sunny winter day in Boise makes you giddy for spring planting, here are some ways you can begin to plan your year ahead.
A late summer harvest to inspire reflection
What to grow:
I start with the most exciting question of all when I begin planning for my spring garden in Boise. I think first of what I loved growing last year and whether I want to grow more of it or the same amount. For me, I loved having fresh spinach in my garden in the early spring and I can almost always find more places to incorporate it into my diet, so that’s high on my list. It also turns out that my daughter loves crunchy vegetables like onions and cucumbers, so I am prioritizing those three items at the top of my list.
If you want to grow it all, try to prioritize one thing in each of these categories: herbs, greens, roots and fruit (tomatoes, peppers, etc.).
Prioritizing Tomatoes on a Trellis on the Mesa
What not to grow:
This is usually apparent around this time when I still have an entire bag of jalapenos in my freezer from two summers ago. I only need one or two jalapenos per week now that my toddler thinks everything is spicy, so I’ll stick to picking those up at the farmers market when a recipe calls for it. What did you grow last year that you simply could not find a way to use? It was Japanese eggplant for one of my clients, and it was parsley for another.
It’s okay not to grow all of your own food. I still have a CSA share and go to the farmers market weekly. We’re lucky to live in Boise, where fresh local food is so accessible.
If choosing what not to grow is a struggle for you, here’s an example of how we fit so many types of veggie plants into one raised bed.
How to grow it better:
Did your tomatoes turn into a forbidden forest that hardly produced any fruit? Did your kale get decimated by aphids? How about a rogue zucchini plant that overtook every inch of garden space you had reserved for fall planting? Think back on what you want to try differently in your garden this year. Whether it’s trellising your tomatoes over an archway or companion planting to curb garden pests. Set an intentional goal that you can spend time learning more about and measuring weekly in your garden to ensure you get results.
If you want some help in this area, we’re offering one-off garden coaching again this spring and summer. We can help you plan out your garden, troubleshoot your problems and even offer ways to renovate the space you have. Dream up your kitchen garden style with our new quiz by clicking the button below.