Caleb Warnock - Backyard Winter Gardening: Vegetables Fresh and Simple, in Any Climate Without Artificial Heat or Electricity the Way Its Been Done for 2,000 Ye

2013 Caleb Warnock
Photographs Caleb Warnock
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, whether by graphic, visual, electronic, film, microfilm, tape recording, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

ISBN 13: 978-1-4621-0371-3 (Ebook)

Published by Hobble Creek Press, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc.
2373 W. 700 S., Springville, UT, 84663
Distributed by Cedar Fort, Inc., www.cedarfort.com

Cover and page design by Erica Dixon
Cover design 2013 by Lyle Mortimer
Edited and typeset by Casey J. Winters

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T O MY WIFE, CHARMAYNE , who often says that when we met, I was a gardener in need of a garden, and she had a garden in need of a gardener. We transplanted raspberries on one of our first dates, and for ten years we've been growing beautiful things together. I love you better than the fresh raspberries I picked out of our backyard this afternoon during the surprise summer rain! These past ten years with you and the kids have been my joy.

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY LAST LIVING GRANDPARENT , Grandma Billie Nielson. What would I be today without your home, your farm, your cooking, your garden, and years of wisdom from you and Grandpa? I found myself a surprise grandpa at a young age, and I could not have done it without your years of daily example. I strive to be the same kind of grandparent to my grandchildren that you are to me. Every day of my childhood, a plaque hung on your kitchen wall that read, Everything Cometh to He who Waiteth, so Long as He who Waiteth, Worketh like Hell while He Waiteth. I have tried to live this motto in my garden and everywhere else. Thank you for teaching me.

CONTENTS

The Parisian growers for generations past have practised the art of raising vegetables and salads to perfection during the worst months of the year (Weathers, French Market-Gardening, 1909, v).

A thick January snow has been falling outside for hours, slowly whiting out the yard and garden. Our leafless apricot tree stands as a frosty work of art, and the long branches of the mugo pine bend toward the earth, burdened by snow. I have fed extra food to our horse, two cows, and thirty-five chickens, and they are content and settled for the night. The vegetable garden is at the mercy of the winter night wind.

Today, most people would assume my vegetable beds underneath the January snow are sleeping, lying dormant until spring brings back life, growth, and fresh food.

Not so.

Alerted to the coming storm by the weather forecast, I have been busy in the garden for days, picking lettuce and globe onions, watering the peas, cutting leaves of Swiss chard, and pulling up rutabaga. I have planted hundreds of seeds in the January garden soilcantaloupe, peas, gourmet lettuces, cucumbers, onions, collards, mustard greens, herbs.

At our house, we eat fresh produce from our garden every day of the year, no matter the weather or the season. This is not a research bookthis is the way we live every day. Every photo in this book was taken in our backyard garden. Our way of life is not an experimentthis is the way families have eaten for centuries. Before the invention of 24-hour grocery stores, industrial food, and groceries shipped from around the world, families fed themselves in winter by picking fresh fruit and vegetables from their backyard winter garden.

In our backyard right now, beneath five inches of white-powder snow, you will find at least four varieties of fresh, tall green lettuce, along with tender Chinese cabbage, crinkly spinach, onions, peas, strawberry plants, rutabaga, Swiss chard, mustard greens, potatoes, kale, carrots, and beets. Even fresh tomatoes off the vine (with a little extra investment). And not just a few vegetablesenough good vegetables to feed our family, day after day.

Enough to feed a crowd, in fact. One recent weekend, I was asked to teach a class on winter gardening. I decided that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a fresh winter vegetable buffet must be better. So just before the class started, I went out into the blowing snow and picked some fresh vegetables, brought them to class, and fed the forty people waiting for me. I think it's fair to say that most of the people in attendance were surprised, shocked, gobsmacked. I think this is fair to say because they said so themselves.

THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT FEEDING YOUR FAMILY FRESH FOOD FROM YOUR OWN BACKYARD GARDEN ALL WINTER LONG IS LESS WORK, FAR EASIER, AND LESS TIME-CONSUMING THAN YOU MIGHT IMAGINE.

I only mention this to make a comparison. Without fresh, all-natural winter gardening, the people of Paris, London, and New York City would have starved to death in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Not too many generations ago, my ancestorsand yourswould have been shocked to learn that their future generations would have all but completely lost the know-how necessary to feed themselves and their livestock fresh garden food in winter without relying on someone else. To our ancestors, that notion would have been ludicrous or alarming, or both.

This book is about being useful and educational, about helping families relearn the truly easy ways to feast straight from a fresh backyard garden in the dead of winter. I live in the Rocky Mountain West, and my coldest backyard temperature has been seventeen below zero. So if I can enjoy fresh garden salad in January, so can you! No greenhouse requiredno artificial heating of any kind, no artificial lighting, no electricity. Learn which vegetable varieties can stay unprotected in the backyard garden all winter, even at seventeen below zero. Learn the forgotten skill of growing nocturnal or sleeping vegetables and how to use the two-thousand-year-old art of growing fresh winter food under cold frames and in simple, all-natural hotbeds.

Learn dozens of winter vegetable varieties you can grow this winter, including carrots, lettuce, spinach, peas, chard, and much more. This book explains how to grow them, and where to find the now-rare seeds. Everyone can do something to feed their family, no matter your schedule or where you livea huge farm, a couple of acres, a condo, or a rented apartment. I have lived in all of these, and I have grown my own food in all of these places to some degree. If you want to do it, you can. You may not do everything in this book this winter, but you can do something. In today's uncertain economy, it's time to be self-sufficient.

The good news is that feeding your family fresh food from your own backyard garden all winter long is less work, far easier, and less time-consuming than you might imagine. And you won't find better tasting food at any price!

(I should note that our family eats out of the cellar all winter too, but this book does not address cellaring vegetables in detail. For more in-depth information about cellaring, please refer to my first book, The Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency Used by the Mormon Pioneers)