Summer is finally here and you know what that means? It is now time to plan and start getting our fall and winter gardens planted!
This can be a bit confusing to a new gardener. After all, don’t you plant a summer garden in the summer? Well, no. You did that back in the early spring. The way to look at it is that your garden is labeled by the season in which you harvest. So you are now likely enjoying the fruits of your springtime work from your summer garden.
Folks living in very harsh climates (say high in the Rockies, the high desert, or the far North) can’t expect to raise much out in the bare, exposed soil in January. But with some well made seed choices combined with various combinations of physical protection like cloches, row covers and hoop houses, you may be surprised at what fresh produce you are able to enjoy this winter. For people in milder climates, the sky is the limit. Bottom line is, you won’t know what is possible until you start trying.
I am the first to admit that I have been pretty lax about my personal winter gardening efforts over the past few years. As a seed farm, we end up working really hard to get the harvest done from late summer well into the fall. This often is happening with the added stress of racing against threatening weather. It is all we can do to finish, get the gardens cleaned up, compost piles built, all of the posts, trellises and tomato cages put away, the ground tilled, and cover crops planted. It then takes weeks to months to get all of the seed harvest cleaned, tested and readied for sale. This not only takes most of our time, it leaves us pretty burnt out. After a spring and summer of gardening, I am sure that you know what I mean.
However, the reality is that fall gardening requires much less effort than in the early spring. The ground is already cultivated and usually just waiting for seeds. The larger areas that we don’t plan on using over the winter are tilled and planted in a green manure cover crop.
Like many of you, we are very interested in controlling what we are putting into our bodies. We enjoy eating fresh produce, but don’t buy the stuff that has been shipped from parts unknown. The only real answer is to keep our gardens as productive as possible, all year round.
To give folks a starting point, we have been working on improving a newly created educational resource site. I am organizing the information by region starting with the United States. You can see what I have assembled so far by visiting www.WebGrower.com. If you find broken links or have suggestions for your areas, please shoot me an email.
Something else that we decided to do was to resume a practice that many of the 19th and early 20th Century seed houses did . . . publish a Fall Garden Catalog. You can download a copy of it at http://www.vintageveggies.com/catalog_req.html. To help select suitable varieties, a new category section can be found at http://www.victoryseeds.com/fall-garden-seeds.html.
| New Web Site Feature Victory Points™ ProgramGet Rewarded When You Shop!  I am kind of excited about this announcement. Victory Points™ are a way for us to thank and reward those of you who choose to partner with us by supporting our seed variety preservation work and using our Victory Seeds® in your gardens. This is something that I have wanted to do for a very long time and finally got it off of my “to do” list!There is nothing special that you need to do to join or enroll or subscribe. Simply log into your customer account every time you shop and automatically earn Victory Points™.
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For all of you who are just getting to know us, and as a reminder to our longtime supporters, if you are interested in keeping closer tabs on what is going on around here at the Victory Seed Company, check out our Facebook page, Twitter, YouTube channel, Pinterest board, and our blog. Please join in the conversations. More information about these opportunities is located on our web site and at the end of this newsletter.
Until next time, gardening success to you,
