Winter months???

What do all you wonderful gardners do during the winter months?? I have to admit after being here for a few months I realize I am in no way the gardeners that you are all. I have very little knowledge. However once winter comes I don't even think about gardening till next spring. Just wondering if you gardeners continue some type of gardening in a green house or indoors etc....

I'll be interested in hearing people's responses, because I'm already worrying about GWP (gardeners' withdrawal pains) during this upcoming winter (my first NE one.) Heavens, I might have to tackle some of those inside-the-house projects that I've been successfully avoiding all summer!
I am planning to start my campaign to convince DH we really DO need a hobby greenhouse!
--Emily

Catalogues, catalogues, catalogues!

Dawn,
I wouldn't say it's bad to not think about gardening until spring - sanity is underrated!

Me - I do take a break during the holidays and then will look at catalogues and maybe think about some future plans after that.

I force bulbs and start growing the seedlings that need a head start by the end of February. The bulbs I'm forcing this year:

9 amaryllis (6 from 1 original plant)
paperwhites
narcissus
crocusses
tulips--queen of the night
freesia
lachennalia
oxalis
a few others I'm forgetting about

In addition, I also will be tending to several rosemary plants and begonias I brought in, some bulbs I pulled up, building two new window boxes and a seedling growing rack and shovelling snow and skiing so I'll be more busy if anything. ;-)

Stained Glass, work, transport kids, entertain my mother... hibernate and read.

Top 10 Things to Do This Winter

10. Do the housework I didn’t do this summer – which is all of it.

9. Teach Wallingford and Holly some new tricks – like how to shut the refrigerator door when they open it.

8. Paint the bedroom closet.

7. Organize, patch and paint my office without losing anything important.

6. Figure out how to raise yeast dough inside my house with out turning up the furnace above 60 degrees.

5. Make French Onion Soup with port and hot chocolate from scratch and not eat them at the same meal, this year.

4. Research an inexpensive water feature for my back yard that takes no electricity, doesn’t grow mosquitoes and uses water from my rain barrel.

3. Use the cold frame my neighbor built me last winter to grow something edible – or catnip.

2. Write a real blog instead of ghost writing for a self-absorbed cat.

1. Find the coffee table under the pile of gardening books I bought but didn’t get to read this summer by reading all of them.

Winter is a good time to review the garden through photos and drawings. Taking a good look at evergreen winter coverage is one of the main pleasures of the "darker months". I can never seem to add enough of the evergreens and 'winter' bloomers . And Dave47 is right, catalogs will help with winter withdrawal. New gardening books and magazines also help.

This message was edited Oct 18, 2006 10:02 PM

Not that I haven't already been planning for next year. But I will be finalizing my plans for my new BIG rose garden that is going in in the spring. I have garden design software, so I can play to my heart's content. And I have a spreadsheet of plants and suggestions and notes. And plant database software where I track all of my actual plants.

and I think someone mentioned a pile of gardening books on the coffee table. I'd like to see my coffee table again ;0) and I have a basket FULL of catalogs, Dave. like I think they're all not going to send me a new one next week. then if I run out of ideas I can always come here and go thru old threads and find some great plants that I've forgotten about or never heard of that I HAVE to have.

I always have, probably, at least a five-year plan in my head, and a 2-3 year plan on the computer. where some of you folks are probably wondering where on earth you are going to fit one more plant, I am still trying to fill a space that was totally empty 4 years ago. an expensive proposition, but a lot of fun.

It is wonderful to see how you will carry on through the winter. Amazing really. I guess once you get the gardening bug it sure sticks eh? I just can't see myself doing indoor gardening (other than my typical house plants like my spider plant LOL). It would almost seem like wearing your swimsuit in the winter LOL. Okay bad analogy.

I could see myself doing more winter gardening stuff once my children are older though. They are too young at this point (3.5 and 1.5) to keep busy with that in the winter. I can't wait to read more responses to this though...very interesting.

At the risk of sounding like a heretic, I actually enjoy the break from active gardening for a little while. Around this time of year, I'm looking forward to not weeding, watering, etc.. My work becomes very busy and the days are way to short for me to even see my gardens. Curling up with a gardening book or some catalogues sounds great for December & January (plus I'll do some wintersowing). Its February & March that drive me crazy. I'll plant more seeds, but I get real antsy in late winter.

In addition to the garden related activities above, I remove problem plants from my woods in the winter, since I've learned to ID from buds and bark my three worst, buckthorn, bittersweet, and honeysuckle. It the ground is thawed, late fall and early spring, I rip out small plants. If the ground is frozen, I take loppers or a saw and cut them down. (I've been known to be out on snowshoes with the lopper . . .)

I get involved in crafting, reading, wintersowing [from January on], spend more time on the PC and of course babying my houseplants that don't get enough attention during the active growing season outdoors.

Catalogs, Yes & yes. grampapa, what software? Database? Spreadsheet of plants? All winter I pour over catalogs. Also reading anything I can get my hands on. I love making new plans for spring planting. Moving things. Always re-organizing beds. It can be a long winter here, & the old addage: "patience is a virtue" usually applies. So I read, plan, & plan some more. I have a file set up where I have all the plantings listed. However, it is difficult to maintain because I move things so often.

Gloria, sometimes sane, but mostly not.

You know, I should have said, beside obsessing about the garden for spring, that I garden inside. I grow orchids. One of the reasons I started was to have winter 'stuff' to do. The other was that DH doesn't like plants that don't have flowers. I have some African violets. A hoya inherited from my mother that has managed to bloom. I have caught the bug on wintersowing from Anitabryk2. Used to start all my annuals and veggies from seed. I will probably do some of that this year, too. And I bought a group of mini roses to grow indoors this year. Right now they are all fighting spider mites, but once I get them by that, they should be ok. There's new growth and buds on some already.

And there's needlework. I haven't felt up to doing much of it for a few years, but my health is better now. I am a quilter and I love counted cross-stitch. So I'm planning on picking up a couple of those projects as soon as winter sets in for real.

That's enough. See...winter's over already ;0))

gram

I'll be keeping tabs on my Hardy Tropicals Project, as well as checking to see how my bamboo test plots are faring so's I can get some good data for the spring... I also like to go out during a light snow storm and sit on the big ash tree root under my bamboo grove and listen to the crystalline sounds of the snowflakes hitting the bamboo leaves.

I'll also be searching the net for more potentially cold-hardy tropical type plants to try next year. I'm also going to be trying to germinate some ButiaxJubaea seeds so that I can trial this new hybrid palm that promises to have good cold hardiness. I'll aslo be babysitting some of the marginally hardy plants that I got too late in the season to plant that are currently sitting in my computer room.

Catalogs, as Dave and others have said. Not just for plants but for gardening tools, garden art, etc.

Cleaning curtains and windows: used to be done weekly but DG changed my life.

Wallpaper and painting: we don't do it in the summer on purpose.

Cooking so we'll have meals prepared for when outdoor gardening starts.

Once again, I agree with Dave about the long months of February and March so this year we went to the Bahamas and next year it will be Lisbon but that's early March so I still need more February gardening addiction work, beyond reading books by the fire while sipping on the hot chocolate and running outside to take photos in the snow or building a snowman with my grand kids.

Naps! How did I forget naps! Dreaming of fresh vegetables and Japanese irises, Oriental lilies, Dahlias!

Hahaha you serious gardeners are funny! I love your zest for plants :) Thanks for sharing part of your lives with me.

You laugh! I love my naps as much as your little one does!

I think, just by nature of gardening as a hobby, we do like to share our plants and our love for them with others.

sure Grams - blame it on me! Do you have some pics of your quilts? I'd also love to see some more of your paintings!

Anita

Gram, Did you know that Al is a devoted cross-sticher from way back. I think he looks great in a dress!

So that's what does it for you Dave?

Dave - we have to write a letter complaining about February and March being too long! Now, to whom do I send it?

to Al, Arlene - everything winds up being his fault anyway.

Thanks - an address is a good thing.

It's not really so hard for any of us gardeners to believe but now I have a new hobby to take away the drearies - all within the last hour - growing Orientals and whatever seeds I can find from Asiatics and Japanese irises over this winter.

I have been working down in the lab, so far I got February up to 30 days and March to 41 - brilliant!


You can also call about my driving too at -1-800-get-bent

Oh no! I've been dialing 1-800-got-rain for you!

I thought all men had the same number for driving: 1-800-got-lost.

41 days in March! You're a mad scientist! We want 41 days in May, not March.

ArleneDahlia

I thought the number was 1-800-NO BRAIN?

Dawn - this is what we mainly do in the winter ;)

Pirl - I have never officially gotten lost.

Anita- ;}~

:) - you still have some spit on your chin Al...

This message was edited Oct 20, 2006 3:13 PM

OK - Al. Never "officially". Just unofficially as we were in Odell Parc in Canada (NB) and a mere four miles (of walking) out of place, shall we say?

All rules are off once you leave the country. Being on the right road but going the wrong direction isn't lost either.
Nobody ever talks about Old Brunswick anymore - it's always this 'New' one.

pirl I was in NO way laughing that you nap - trust me on this one....with 2 young ones I nap every weekend and normally both days of the weekend too. I am a full time working mom so I take pleasure in sleep when I get it....sleep in like gold around here. Trust me honey take all the sleep you can get! I am right there with you LOL

Dawn - it's getting crowded - even the dog wants to join me.

Al - Getting lost can be fun with a full tank of gas and lots of daylight.

Pirl
Southold
Old York

Al,
They are peppering you pretty well in my absence. We know you've been lost. How do you think Big City ended up in Menasha in the first place?

Dave

PS Bent? I haven't heard that since junior high school!! (I was in 8th grade before middle school was invented)

Have been just lurking NEG finding it most interesting what you guys are doing through the long winter days. I will miss gatdening more then I can say especially when it snows I am truly house bound. My Golden is the only company I have most of the time but love to cook but obniously cannot eat all of it I be adding to many calories without working in the garden and much too old to do anything else and half blind to boot so I cannot read much any more.
I do want to mention to Yankiecat, I have an ordinary stove and bake bread all the time, I turn on the oven at the lowest setting this is where the bread rises on top of the stove, also if you buy a small package of wheat gluten it will help a lot with only a couple of tbsps.

If only I had a green house, envy everyone that has it.

Hi Maria

Dave - I thought when you were in school - to 6th grade was all the learnin' ya needed.

Pirl - your DH must not drive from the backseat like my wife does.

Al - weren't you taught not to make fun of your elders? :-)

We're both okay with getting lost, as long as the sun isn't burning our eyes through the windshield.

Hi, Maria. I have greenhouse envy, too. Maybe someday. I have a really, nice, sunny south-facing 'sunroom' though. I want to be at your house when you bake bread. There were a few years (long time ago) when I didn't buy any bread. Made all my own bread and rolls. My mom got me the 60's version of a 'breadmaker'. it was a steel tub with a paddle so you could knead/raise a large batch. I had my grandmother's old gas stove. the thermostat didn't work, but you could pretty well tell by the height of the flame when you had the temp you wanted. hmmm..good old days. something very satisfying about baking bread.

can you get books on tape from the library? I'll bet your Golden is pretty good company, but maybe not much for conversation :-) Name? if I had a dog, that's what I'd want.

Al can't even find me and I've been circling his block for weeks with my left signal on.

gee, even 'bite me' is getting old. Before DH retired (he was a computer operations manager), apparently he said that a LOT, because people we always buying him stuff that said 'BYTE ME'. When he turned 50, we got our first vanity license plate '50 BYTES'. gotta come up with a new one, though. he'll be 60 next month.

grandpapa, I am a grand mama with four and a great-grandmama with two., They do use that name also I am from Vienna, Austria hence the German language.
My Goldens name is Samson, just love him a picture below. Talk to him all the time, he is very smart and also very naughty most of the time but then he is only two years old, still a puppy by Goldens standard.
Yes, I thought about going to the library for books but I am afraid it will put me to sleep, drone of voices and music always does. Even a good program on TV, which "good" does not happen too often, Oh well... just have to wait for spring again, but at my age of 78, I do not want to rush time.