20 square feet challenge - in a raised bed: Wintersowing (part 5)

It's been such a cold night. I didn't expect it at all. In a way, it sort of destroyed my plans for today's project, but I will try to do it anyhow. I sit next to my 20 square feet vegetable challenge, a garden bed that I created this time of the year last year. My wish was to do this bed to show you how easy it is to grow plenty of food on a small area in the garden. It didn't turn out exactly as I wanted because we had such a dry summer. So a cold night, a dry summer, and we had problems with the water in our well. So I was not able to water my vegetable garden. So I had to let this bed rest for almost the entire summer and well, I didn't manage to grow it since we needed the water in the house for laundry and cooking and everything else. So now I will try to start it all over again. And what I did the last couple of weeks was simply to pull out some weeds from the ground. And nothing really happened to the things that I put in this bed in the beginning, you know, the leaves and the horse manure, for example. And that's because the summer has been so dry. You need some moist in the soil, in the ground to start the process where the earthworms will try to turn this material into compost. And that didn't happen. So basically it's in the same condition as when I started. So I have just, as I said, pulled out some weeds and I have also dug down two compost bins into this area. And it's Bokashi compost. And what I want to do today is to make a sowing with spinach. And this is what you call a winter sowing. You make the sowing when the ground is frozen or when it's cold and the seeds will lay in the ground, even if it's frozen, even if it's covered with snow and it will germinate in springtime. Usually my winter sowings will germinate between February and March. So in the beginning of March, you can see the small seedlings push up themselves through the soil and it's like magic. So this is what I will try to do today. I brought Bokashi, a bucket of Bokashi. I will try to dig it down. I'm not sure if it's going to work because the ground is frozen. But I will try to do this. And then I brought with me a pallet collar. This is very, it's very common in Sweden to use pallet collar in the garden. I know you can find it in like the States and in Britain and other countries as well. I will give you a link in the description to this video about pallet collars, what it is and where you can find it. So read it if you don't know what it is. And in this pallet collar, I will put some fresh compost and I will make my sowings. And it's very exciting because in a way I am starting next year, next season, already the year before. And it's a great benefit for me in the garden. So let's do it. One thing that is quite easy to forget is that like the leafy greens, spinach and lettuce and other green vegetables, leaves, they are hungry plants. They need quite a lot of nutrition into the soil. And that's why I feed the soil with Bokashi compost in this case. And I have now turned down one Bokashi bucket. And a couple of weeks ago, I added two buckets in the ends of this bed. So in a total of three Bokashi buckets. And I also added some fresh compost on top. And it's not necessary to do this. If the ground was not frozen, I would not do that. But now it's easier for me to make the sowing in fresh compost, not on frozen ground. So that's basically why I do it. And now I will sow the spinach. And I brought with me seeds to a variety. It's called Butterfly. It's a variety with quite large leaves. And I have tried this variety several times for winter sowings and it works perfectly well. So what I will do now is simply to sprinkle the seeds over the surface. And maybe I should tell you something also. Why I chose to use this pallet collar and not sprinkle the seeds directly on the surface without this rim on top. And it's basically because I want to protect this winter sowing. A lot of wild animals come here. And when they smell Bokashi compost, they might want to dig in this area. And I also want to force the seeds to germinate earlier than they would if I didn't protect this base with a lid or another type of cover. So that's why I do it. It works so well. All right, so this is the new start for this vegetable challenge project in my kitchen garden, Sara's kitchen garden. And I hope so much that next spring and summer will not be as dry as this year. So I hold my thumb, as we say in Sweden, that it will work perfectly well. What I just made is a winter sowing of spinach. And the point with winter sowing is that it saves me time and energy in spring. Springtime is a valuable time. I have plenty of things to do in the garden and it's difficult to find time for all the projects. So basically, when February and March comes, I would say 25 to 30 percent of my space for growing vegetables is already filled with sowings in wintertime. So I don't have to work that hard in spring with sowings and plantings, because plenty of space is already filled with vegetables. It's so nice. So this is suitable for us who grows vegetables, who lives in cold countries. It's a bit more difficult to do winter sowings in mild climates where you don't have really cold temperatures with snow and frozen ground in countries like, let's say, Germany and France and countries like that. Then you have to work in other ways. Spinach and lettuce and like cabbages and some leek, for example, are good for winter sowings. Parsley and dill and pak choi and other vegetables. I talk about this in, I think, one of the first parts of this series. So, well, wish me luck and we will leave the next part, the other half of this bed for another sowing, maybe in wintertime or early spring. Don't know yet. And I will only cover this sowing with this net. It's a certain net for making like composts. And I use it to cover sowings and soil in the garden so my dog will not come here digging and the cats and birds, etc. And I will now wait for snow and rain to fall on the ground so I don't have to water my sowing. And then in, let's say, January, February, I will put on a lid and that will speed up the germination for the seeds so that they will show up in the beginning of March, at least. I mean, I made sowings a couple of weeks ago in another pallet collar, in another place in the kitchen garden, and they already showed up. They germinated already. So, again, I will hold my thumb for that sowing too. Thank you for watching and you can follow this project and others in my garden at sarahbackman.com. See you there and thank you for today.