Emerging from the woods to face the bright and warming sun in the south, my wife and I looked out over the pure white expanse of Eagle Heights Community Gardens, the F.H. King Garden and the Bio-core Prairie. Typically, on a beautiful weekend in the gardening season, this scene would have been bustling with people busy over their vegetables; this day however, the scene was still except for a lone squirrel in the trees carving away on some morsels of precious food. Certainly, if you have been out there in the warmer months you know the serenity and beauty this place holds. Now, imagine the same yet more quiet and the landscape blanketed in pure white and the paradoxical warmth of the sun beaming down on your face while your toes are cozy in your snow-covered boots.
Following some rabbit tracks, we made our way up to our garden plot up the hill from the F.H. King compost pile. Feeling like we were the first humans to be there since November, we were eager to expose the miracle of mid-winter vegetables under the glass windows of the cold frame. We searched the loose unfrozen soil and well, you know what they say, when the cats are away the mice will...eat all of your carrots you planted in the fall. We were able to harvest a modest three carrots from under the straw and found evidence of the resourceful critters - gnawed tops of carrots and rodent fertilizer (thanks, I guess). The few we did get were delicious and sweet and with less bitterness than your average carrot. Apparently, it is too much of a wild kingdom out there in the winter, because we've previously had success with cold frames at our home garden in the middle of Madison. Or, maybe there are other strategies we haven't explored...some kind of distraction, an underground fence, or maybe signs like they put up at the CALS (College of Ag. and Life Sciences) plots - "Do Not Eat the Vegetables"...maybe that would work.
All was not lost. We brought a shovel. Not so much to dig in the dirt but to dig up the snow to see if there were any edibles hidden below. The leeks were safe and sound in their blanket of straw and snow, ready for harvest. Digging them up was like opening a time capsule jar of home-canned tomatoes in the middle of winter. The smell of wet black soil and the sharp onion-y aroma with the sun shining almost fooled me into thinking it was August, though my chilly fingers shook me out of my daydream.
Curious whether or not any of the collard greens we neglected to harvest before winter had survived, I uncovered four good looking collard plants with plenty of greens to take home. I felt like a kid awed by a magic trick. I could't believe they survived months of cold and snow. I took a bite out of a couple deep green leaves and it was as good, no, better than in the summer. They were "frost sweetened." Freezing temperatures turned the plant's starches to sugar. Not to mention they also tasted so good because of the unlikely event of eating fresh vegetables out in your garden in the middle of January in Wisconsin. I have the deep snow-cover to thank. Snow is not unlike straw in keeping certain plants alive, and the fluffy light snow has a better insulative value than fiberglass insulation, keeping plants from dropping too far below freezing. Following our tracks homeward, we planned concoctions for a soup with our winter's bounty, thankful for the sights and for the smells that would hold us over 'til Spring.
*The seeds we used were from the Fedco seed catalog and were specifically:
-Bleu de Solaiz leeks - a French heirloom from the 19th century. Their dark green leaves develop a tinge of blue during cold spells.
-Champion collard greens - a variety reported to be harvested in Maine up until the second week of February.
-Napoli carrots - endorsed by Eliot Coleman, and apparently mice.
*recommended reading: Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman
* You can still get to the Eagle Heights Gardens area in the winter by foot, bus or bike the same way as before but if you're driving, you should park in the public lot just north of the gardens near the lake on the same side of the road as the gardens or walk up from the Picnic Point lot.