Gardening – The end of the season

The garden, once vibrant and abundant with vegetables and flowers, faces an inevitable end as winter brings freezing temperatures. Despite the loss, there is hope for renewal in the spring, with saved seeds and plans to start again when warmer weather returns.

End of Season Gardening with Kids

This is how my garden looked on January 1st.

Full of color. 

Full of life.

Full of wonderful vegetables to feed my family and flowers to feast our eyes upon.

But I knew that this was coming to an end, and so I brought my camera out to take pictures.

On the first of the month, I am trying to photograph my plants so that I can trigger my memory to what was growing in our garden. I am going to try do a better job at writing things down too!

Garden notes from the first of January:

• We were harvesting: salad, kale, radishes, green peppers, banana peppers, cherry tomatoes, green beans, basil, cilantro, and dill.
• I have transplanted lettuce and Kale that we started from seed, but were too close together. We are still adding a small batch of radishes and carrots each week for a continuous spring harvest. Would like to add more broccoli.
• Our lemon tree has blossoms and the beginnings of fruit – this is the first year we have had this tree and are not expecting it to produce any lemons, but one can hope!
• Some little bugger keeps eating my broccoli, cauliflower, and snow peas. I’ve fenced them and covered them, but they are still being eaten. The kids are begging for peas, but I am throwing my hands in the air and admitting defeat for the movement.  Broccoli has been re-planted in the front garden flower bed.  Crossing my fingers this will work.
• One of the blueberry bushes looks like it will not survive. I must not have watered it well. This may be a good thing, because I planted them too close together. 
• The grapes have lost their leaves. I am so new to growing grapes. Hope this is a sign that they are dormant and not that I have killed them =(
• The Gerber Daisies have split well and are beautiful. I have moved some milkweed to the side garden and hope that the seeds will come up there again this spring. We saved many of the flower seeds for spring.

Here is one of our favorite hang-outs on the deck. I sit here in the mornings and read to the children while basking in the morning sun!

But, all gardens cannot go on forever. 

The forecast was for a cold week, hitting record low temperatures. We did have the option of covering all the gardens with frost covers, but made the choice that it was time. 

Time to say goodbye to our beloved peppers.

Time to say goodbye to the never ending supply of basil.

We love our gardens, but there is a time when plants cannot survive, stop producing, or are eaten by some little critter and we must say goodbye. 

Dear plants, you have been a part of our lives for almost an entire year. You have provided us with food and beauty, we will miss you dearly! Until the spring my little warm weather pants!  Thank you for growing in our garden. But this is not a forever goodbye, for we have saved the seeds we could and when the weather warms up again, we will plant them with hopes of growing new crop, just as wonderful as before. Until we meet again!

As our garden rests through the Florida winter, we look forward to the promise of new growth and the joy of tending to it again when the warmth of spring returns. Until then we’ll be working on our next garden plan with the kids.

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