We always practiced "mulch" gardening and had very good success with it. I know we received strange looks and comments when people drove by and saw two feet of hay, straw, or other mulch on top of our garden. But when you can just pull the mulch back, lay your seed potatoes on top of the ground and cover them back up with the mulch, it sure made things easy. (To harvest the potatoes we just pull the mulch back again and pick up the new crop of potatoes right off the top of the ground.) Also, the mulch conserved soil moisture and weeds could not grow through the thick blanket of mulch.
We could also delay our harvest, especially root crops, because the mulch protected the crops. Sometimes we left some of it in the garden and pulled veggies all winter. On November 7 (2008), we pulled our beets because the snow was starting to pile up and we were getting hungry for them.
I'm getting hungry for some right now so I think I'll go down to the fruit room and see if there is maybe a jar or two of them left. Thank you Kare, for all your hard work.
On December 8, we decided to pull the carrots too because the snow kept coming and more was in the forecast. We knew approximately where they were in the garden but with so much snow on the ground, we had to poke around a little. After she swept away the snow in one spot she started forking off the mulch until the carrot tops were exposed.
And sure enough! Under all that snow and mulch, the carrot tops were still green and the ground was so insulated that it wasn't even frozen yet.
What a treat! Fresh garden carrots in December!
We decided to leave a few in the ground too just to see how far in to the winter we would be able to go out there and pick them. We did that for a while but, as I mentioned earlier, the snow piled up so much we couldn't even find the garden anymore. I haven't planted a garden yet since Karen died but after doing this post now, I am getting inspired to do so.
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