Putting Strawberries to Bed for Winter
Strawberries need a little fall prep to survive a Pacific Northwest winter without losing crowns to freeze-thaw heaving. Here’s what to do in September before the real cold hits, and it won’t cost you much.
-
-
Overwintering Onion Sets for a Bigger Summer Harvest
Planting overwintering onion sets in early fall gives you a head start that spring planting can’t match. Here’s how to space them, mulch them through a wet winter, and end up with genuinely big bulbs by summer.
-
Sow Spinach Late August for a Spring Harvest
Sowing spinach in late August sounds like a weird idea until April when you’re harvesting greens and your neighbors are still waiting on their seeds. Here’s how to time it right, pick the best overwintering varieties, and get a jump on spring with almost no effort.
-
Overwinter Pepper Plants and Skip Buying Transplants
Peppers are perennials, which means you don’t have to buy new transplants every spring. Here’s how to dig, prune, and overwinter your best pepper plants indoors so they come roaring back next season with a serious head start.
-
Fall Fava Beans: Free Nitrogen and an Early Spring Crop
Fall fava beans are one of the best deals in the garden: plant them in late October, ignore them all winter, and you get an early spring harvest plus free nitrogen for your soil. Here’s how to do it right, which varieties to pick, and why fall beats spring sowing in the Pacific Northwest.
-
Overwintering Brassicas: Start Now for Spring
July is the time to start overwintering brassicas like purple sprouting broccoli. Start seeds now, transplant in late August, and let the plants build over winter so they explode with early spring shoots when everything else is still mud. Patience pays off big.
