The garlic has been planted, and the Veggie Garden volunteers have started prepping the beds for the winter months ahead.
Volunteers of the Veggie Garden who have worked tirelessly all year round are ready to wrap it up for the year, but before they do, they are careful not to leave the beds bare.
Vanessa Choo, lead of the Veggie Garden cautions that valuable nutrients in the soil can leach out with the heavy rains if beds are left exposed, and by spring, garden beds will play host to a variety of weeds.
Choo suggests planting a cover crop, such as fall rye, or mulch the beds.
“Here, we have chopped down the bean plants and used the plant material to cover the beds. We also left the roots in place in the soil.”
Alternatively, Choo suggests leaves, which are plentiful this time of the year, can be used to cover up the beds to retain and add more nutrients.
Overwintering crops
Typically, kale, collards, swiss chard and some brassicas will overwinter in this region. Choo says, “You want plants to be at least “teenagers,” if not fully grown, going into winter. This is because these plants grow very slowly in the cold. So you can harvest into the cold months and the plants will get more bald over the winter.”
On the positive, Choo notes that come spring, the plants will burst into life and will be the earliest crop you can harvest.
In the photo above, the Veggie Garden volunteers are keeping ‘winter landis’ a very cold-hardy lettuce, under covers.
“Some of this lettuce survived the -12C winter we had in 2023, and last year most survived the winter uncovered, but this year we want to do what we can to make sure 100% survive whatever temperatures are headed our way.”