Year-Round Gardening

I am in love with the idea of having fresh veggies from the garden all year long. No, I don't think we'll have tomatoes in January without the assistance of a heated building. But there are loads of vegetables that can easily be had in the harshest Ohio winter with some simple season extensions. Vegetables may not grow during the winter, but we can protect them from harsh weather and harvest them all winter. 

There are two wonderful books on this topic. The first is Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman. http://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetables-Edition/dp/1890132276/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372622338&sr=8-1&keywords=eliot+coleman+four+season+harvest
Coleman lives in Maine and has an organic farm from which he sells fresh produce year-round without artificial heating. In this indispensable gardening book, Coleman discusses compost and soil care, useful garden tools, the storage of root crops. He gives details on and designs for several season extenders including cold-frames, greenhouses, and hoop tunnels.

One of my favorite parts of this book is an invaluable list of vegetable types. Coleman includes varieties best-suited for winter production, planting details, crop rotation information, growing and storage tips, and very simple serving suggestions.

The second book is The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener by Nikki Jabbour. http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Round-Vegetable-Gardener-Matter/dp/1603425683/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372623068&sr=8-1&keywords=nikki+jabbour
Jabbour lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia and gardens to supply her family with fresh produce year-round. Like Coleman, Jabbour includes details and designs for cold frames and hoop tunnels. She also discusses several ultra-simple season extenders, such as row covers and straw bales. Jabbour gives many lovely garden layout plans. The book is filled with beautiful photographs. It includes a list of vegetables outlining favored varieties, planting and harvesting tips. My favorite feature of this book is Jabbour's planting calendar she gives with each type of vegetable. It's a simple graph showing when to seed and plant relative to frost dates.