Getting started with my winter garden – gardening in two seasons

It feels slightly ridiculous to talk about a winter garden when it is still brutally hot outside.

Winter crops waiting to be planted

The summer garden is still producing, the tomatoes are hanging on, peppers are growing, and there are still plenty of things to harvest and preserve. But at the same time, trays of cabbage, kale and other cool-season vegetables are waiting in the shade for their turn.

This is one of the things I have slowly learned about gardening here in Spain: I don't really have one gardening season. I have two. And August is when those two seasons start colliding.

Learning to garden with two seasons

When I first started growing vegetables, spring was the beginning of the gardening year. You sow seeds, plant everything out in spring, harvest through summer and then eventually clean everything up for winter.

That is certainly how gardening felt growing up in Sweden.

But gardening in our part of Spain is very different.

Our summers are long, hot and dry, while our winters are relatively mild. We can get proper frost and even the occasional snow, but there are also plenty of mild winter days.

That completely changes what is possible in the vegetable garden.

Instead of thinking of winter as the end of the growing season, I have started thinking about the year as having two main gardens:

The summer garden – tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, corn, squash, beans and all the heat-loving crops.

The winter garden – cabbage, kale, cauliflower, peas, onions, garlic and other vegetables that are much happier once the temperatures start dropping.

The difficult part isn't necessarily growing them.

It's the handover!

Starting the winter garden while summer is still going

This is where things get slightly chaotic.

If I wait until the summer garden is completely finished before thinking about winter vegetables, I have already lost valuable growing time.

So the winter garden has to begin while the summer garden is still very much alive.

I've already started sowing and raising seedlings for the coming cooler months, including cabbage, kale and cauliflower.

The problem is that August here is certainly not cabbage weather.

Temperatures can still be extremely high, and young brassica seedlings planted directly into full summer sun can struggle very quickly.

For now, I keep many of the young plants in a cooler, shaded area behind the house. They still receive some evening sun, but they are protected from the worst of the intense daytime heat.

I've also started planting a few seedlings out as an experiment.

It may be a little early. Actually, it is probably definitely a little early.

But gardening involves a fair amount of experimentation, and I have backup seedlings ready if the first plants decide that August in Spain is completely unreasonable.

First cabbage plans going in the ground!

The great garden handover

Over the next couple of months, the vegetable garden will gradually change.

This isn't going to happen in one dramatic weekend where I rip everything out and start again. Instead, beds will become available one by one.

A tomato plant that has produced its last worthwhile tomatoes can come out.

A finished crop creates space for a few cabbages.

Another empty bed can be prepared for peas.

Garlic and onions will eventually go into their winter positions.

Bit by bit, the summer garden becomes the winter garden.

I actually like this approach because it makes the garden feel productive all year rather than having one enormous growing season followed by several months of empty beds.

What I'm planning to grow this winter

My winter garden will mainly be built around vegetables that appreciate cooler weather.

This year I'm planning crops such as:

• Cabbage

• Kale

• Cauliflower

• Peas

• Garlic

• Onions

• Carrots

• Beetroot

• Other cool-season greens and root vegetables

  
  

Some will be planted relatively early, while others can wait until temperatures become more sensible.

I'm particularly excited about the brassicas.

There is something enormously satisfying about walking into the garden in the middle of winter and finding proper food growing there.

A cabbage doesn't look particularly exciting when you're standing in a supermarket.

A huge cabbage that you've watched grow in your garden for months somehow feels like an achievement. Last year I planded cabbage, but lost them ALL to the cabbage butterfly!

Summer is actually the difficult season

This has probably been one of my biggest gardening revelations since moving to Spain.

People naturally imagine Mediterranean gardening as easy.

Sunshine! Warm weather! Long summers! What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, actually.

By midsummer, temperatures can become so high that plants are simply trying to survive. Soil dries incredibly quickly, watering becomes almost a full-time occupation and some vegetables stop flowering or setting fruit properly during extreme heat.

The cooler months bring a completely different kind of gardening.

There is less evaporation. The soil stays moist longer. Many pests become less aggressive. Plants aren't being blasted by intense sunshine for hours every day.

Of course, winter brings its own problems. We can get hard frosts here, and the occasional snowfall is certainly possible. My winter garden last year is proof of that ;) Check that out here "Early gardenig tips"

But winter doesn't mean the garden has to stop.

It just means growing different things.

Gardening with the climate instead of the calendar

I think this is the biggest lesson.

A gardening calendar is useful, but the weather outside is more important than the date printed on a seed packet.

August might technically be the time to start certain winter crops, but if it is still scorching outside, I need to adapt. That might mean keeping seedlings shaded for longer.

It might mean planting some now and keeping backups.

It might mean waiting another couple of weeks before planting the next batch.

And that's fine.

Every year I understand our little patch of land and its microclimate slightly better.

One garden ends, another begins

There is something I really love about this point in the year.

The summer garden is tired.

Some plants are reaching the end of their lives. Others are still producing like crazy. The kitchen is full of things waiting to be eaten, frozen, canned or preserved.

But among all of that are trays filled with tiny green seedlings.

The next garden has already started.

In a few months, the tomatoes and corn will be memories. The beds that looked exhausted in August will hopefully be filled with cabbage, kale, peas, onions and garlic.

And while much of the garden is sleeping through winter, we'll still be walking outside and bringing food into the kitchen.

I'm beginning to realise that this is how I want to garden here.

Not one enormous growing season.

And perhaps, eventually, almost no real "off season" at all.