The Time Warp Garden Bed

See those beautiful, meaty leeks?  I planted them by throwing some seeds into my cold framed raised bed in February.

LAST February.

Welcome to the raised bed that time forgot.  Without fail, this particular raised bed, which is the only one over which we erect a cold frame, takes two years to produce a crop of anything.  I generally use it to grow carrots and leeks (and radishes, which, thankfully, mature at normal time frames), and it typically takes many extra months for the produce to mature.

This really isn't much of a problem.  As soon as I harvest all of one crop (I generally divide the bed in two and plant two different crops on two different schedules), I reseed the bed, regardless of the time of year.  In this case, I harvested the last of the last crop of leeks in February 2012 and just threw some leek seeds in there and quickly covered them up (it was February; I was cold!) and closed up the cold frame.  We had small leeks to eat all last summer and winter, but we still have plenty on that side that are growing fat and happy.  I'll certainly enjoy eating them all summer, although I'll be darned if I know quite how they overwintered (twice) and why they are now getting their serious girth to become the big boys like you see in the stores.

I don't know.  Every time I think I understand gardening, something strange happens.  I guess that's why I love my hobby.