A Winter Container Garden

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Folks without greenhouses-even apartment dwellers-can enjoy homegrown vegetables with . . .

by Charles G. Loeb Jr.

Charles G. Loeb Jr. It's a typically bone-chilling winter day in southern New York State, with the mercury huddled at 20°F and six feet of crusty snow on the ground. Yet I've just picked some fresh Swiss chard for tonight's dinner! In another day or so, I'll gather some kale. I harvested tender, green broccoli a week ago, and-a few days before that-picked brussels sprouts.

No, I don't have a greenhouse, or even a cold frame. My crops are all grown in containers. I start them in late summer, let them reach maturity outdoors, then bring them inside when frost threatens.

The "green thumb bug" bit me a few years ago, when I first experimented with indoor plantings of tomatoes and cucumbers. Then in 19811 rented a warehouse for my wholesale and mail-order spice business and decided to set up a rather ambitious container garden on the piece of asphalt pavement that came with the lease. During that summer my wife and I savored tomatoes, zucchini, peas, beans, kale, okra, chard, lettuce, and broccoli . . . all from my 200-square-foot plot of pots.

After the first hard frosts, I moved the remaining few containers of kale to the attic. I didn't really expect the plants to survive, because the single, east-facing window there receives only three to four hours of sunlight (when there is any) during the short days of fall and winter. Moreover, since I only use the warehouse for a few hours each week, I keep the temperature there below 50°F.

I was flabbergasted, therefore, at seeing how the kale flourished. My family ate one plant in January and another in February, and-later that month-I put the remaining two back outside. They seemed to almost spread their leaves to the cool late-winter sunshine and, in early April, yielded a bumper crop of greens.

With that experience behind me, I decidedin the spring of 1983-to plant enough containers to provide my family with fresh vegetables at least once a week through the cold months and early spring. Although I concentrated on crops that would grow back after harvesting (chard, kale, and broccoli), I also planted brussels sprouts and cabbage (which store well) and two varieties of lettuce. All in all, I put in about 60 plants, staggering the sowings so that each vegetable would be fully grown by October 1.

We had an unusually mild fall, and Jack Frost didn't move in until mid-December . . . but when he came around, he seemed determined to make up for lost time! Like much of the rest of the country, we had the coldest Christmas on record. By then, of course, my plants were safely upstairs. I put shelves across the window and placed the best specimens on them, to make the most of whatever sun we were blessed with. I arranged the rest' of the plants on the floor . . . where they had to settle for a thin ray of light that made a slow arc from 8:00 AM until noon. (During the late afternoon, I actually had to turn on a light to find anything in the 60-square-foot attic.)

Even so, our nine chard plants were very productive, and we ate their greens once a week. By February, the leaves were small, but new growth continued. If anything, the baby shoots were more tender and tasty than the early pickings. The 30 regular kale plants and the five of the flowering types (which are as tasty and more colorful than the standard kind) also produced weekly harvests right up until I was able to pick outdoor crops in the early spring.

The broccoli, too, was a delightful surprise. Each of the ten plants produced scores of small but delectable sprouts. However, there weren't quite enough for a full meal at each picking, so this winter I'll plant more. The three cabbage plants weren't expected to grow inside, and they didn't. But one small head made some delicious cole slaw, and the other two, which were put outside in early spring, were ready to pick in just a few weeks. My five brussels sprout plants were harvested by late January.