December Salad Days

This is a photo of our final garden harvest, taken on DECEMBER 14! We just finished eating the lettuce pictured above, on DECEMBER 27! And we live in WISCONSIN! How is this possible?
See below:

Here is a picture of our lettuce, taken just before our final harvest on December 14.

And here is the secret: our cold frame that protected the lettuce, even through temperatures around 0 degrees F. There was a lot of snow and cold between November 28 and December 14, and we were sure that the lettuce had died. But it hadn't! Cold frames really work, and they work in cold, snowy climates. We recommend them.

Tomatoes and snow

Welcome to the inaugural post of LakeMichigardener! it's been a fun first year of gardening here along the Lake Michigan western shoreline. We've learned a lot and need to keep track of what we do so we can get better and better at it.

The most successful part of our garden this year was most definitely the TOMATOES! What you see above it the last of our heirloom tomatoes, which we picked about 3-4 weeks ago before the first hard frost. They are ripening nicely on the windowsill, and although they do not have the same delicious quality as the summer tomatoes, they are still MILES better than the typical tomato you can buy in a supermarket at this time of year.

Although we will not be posting as frequently as with our companion lakemichiblog, we hope that this blog will be a helpful resource for other gardeners and mostly, for us. Enjoy!