Meal #3 lot of stored veggies from the garden.

I woke this morning to a dusting of snow.  The kids were excited to see even the coating that we got.  The week is supposed to bring flurries most days this week, with no meaningful accumulation.   Right now, I'm really happy with pretty, but not inconvenient.  Tomorrow is the solstice and I'm planning to plant some things to celebrate.  For now, we still have lots of stored veggies from the garden. 

Last night we ate some more of those veggies.  I decided to make a roast in the rotisserie oven.  You will remember the infomercials from 8 or 10 years ago.  Hubby bought me one long ago and it is in sad shape.  The plastic arms that hold the door on have broken.  Hubby had taken it into the fire station once and we're now missing parts as well.  It still works though, and I refuse to throw it away until it completely dies. 

As you can see, the roast was a perfect medium rare.  I never make roasts and when we order our half cow from Den Besten farms, I always account for that.  There are always a few that I allow, but generally even those get turned into jerky.  The sides are the Rio Grande russets from the garden with raw milk from a local farm.  The sugar snap peas were frozen from the garden, along with the beets that were harvested in July. 

It's amusing to set a plate in front of my family and have them ask for more veggies before they even eat.  The garden veggies have that effect on us.  Somehow the store veggies just don't taste quite the same.  These will run out eventually, so I'm planning a trip to the Providence farmers market with some good friends in January.  It will be nice to see all the other lovely things they have as well.   Dark Days meals aren't so tough when your pantry and freezers already hold so many wonderful local things.  You would be hard pressed to find a meal we eat that doesn't have at least something from one of the local farms. 

This post is part of Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions and The Dark Days Challenge at The (not so) Urban Hennery. 

Harvest Monday Nov 1, 2010

Brrr!  It is certainly November here in New England.  It was 25 degrees when I woke up this morning.  The kids were bundled up in winter coats and the heat was turned on.  The living room was 58 degrees, so there was no messing around today.  As a result, I decided to harvest a few things that I was unsure of.  Tonight is supposed to be just as cold.

There was quite a bit of broccoli and a few beets that were big enough to harvest.  I left the broccoli in to see how well it does.  There are a few more heads started and some side shoots that may develop.  Since I've never had anything planted this late, I'm not sure how well they'll do.  The beets are not sizing up as well as I would like, so I thinned them and we'll see what happens.  I know both broccoli and beets are ok with some cold, but I'm not sure when they'll be destroyed.

The rest of the greens, cabbage and carrots are looking good, so they'll stay in the ground.  My Pac Choi has gotten far too big, so the chickens have been enjoying it instead.  The cabbage is still forming heads, I'm curious to see what will happen with them.  It would be great if the cabbage, beets and carrots would continue to size up, the light is getting scarce though.

This post is part of Daphne's Dandelions, head on over and see what everyone is harvesting this week.

My October garden

It isn't big or fancy.  It is a bit weedy, but I have quite a bit still happening. 

The chickens are in the main garden doing their clean up.  The fall garden is the jungle in front.   I haven't erected any new hoops.  That has to be done this week, if I have time.  We've been having some warm/hot tropical weather lately, but that will end after today.  They aren't saying well get a frost yet, but it can't be far off.  It's already rather late for my area.  I'm actually now questioning whether I'll put them up, or just throw a cover over a few things. 

This is another angle of the bed.  At the top is broccoli, then red cabbage, overgrown bok choy, rainbow chard and then at the bottom is carrots. 

I'm in awe of the carrots.  I've tried so many times to grow decent carrots, without success.  These were planted in late July after the garlic was harvested from this bed.  So far they seem to be doing amazingly well.  In another bed are some beets, planted about the same time.  They are both doing very well.  My spring plantings generally are pretty pathetic.  Since we don't really appreciate the beets in the summer, but love them in the fall, I think I'll stop even doing a spring planting.  It seems it would work out perfectly to harvest the garlic, amend the beds and plant my carrots and beets.  How cool is that? 

The broccoli is also doing remarkably well now.  All those plants that had looked beautiful and healthy, but weren't doing a thing, are now pumping out broccoli like crazy.  With these, there are a few things I'm thinking.  First, they got planted later than they should have.  Second we had a very hot summer and the broccoli loves the cool.  My plan for next year is to winter sow the coles and greens.  I'll then plant a second round in early July and see how that works.  We love our broccoli around here, so finding a good way to grow it is imperative.

How is your fall garden doing?

Fall garden update

The fall garden is really starting to come into it's own.  The broccoli has finally started to make a head.  I was wondering if it would ever behave.  The heat this summer is messing with things.  I'm hoping that the heat we're having this week won't stop the broccoli progress. 

The pac choy is doing extremely well and really needs to be harvested.  In the background is some chard sizing up nicely.  I think I'll plant some more of the pac choy this week.  It grows very quickly and is very yummy as well.

This is some more broccoli that the bugs have been enoying along with some red cabbage.  This bed also contains some carrots that seem to be doing well.  I'm hoping that they'll put on some good growth in the next few weeks.

In the second bed, the beets are also doing very well.  We are big fans of roasted beets in the cooler weather.  These won't over winter well, so we'll eat what we can and harvest the rest for storage in a few weeks.

Also in the second bed are my second crop of cabbages and broccoli.  Some of the cabbage was harvested last week, the rest needs another week or two. 

This is my first year doing a real fall/winter garden, so I'm still figuring out what works and when they need to be planted.  The spinach I sowed a few weeks ago didn't do anything because of the heat, so I'll re plant that.  I'm thinking of starting the mache as well.  We're really looking forward to eating fresh from the garden this year.  It seems odd to think about harvesting in the snow.  I know it's possible though!

Harvest Monday Aug 16th, 2010

It's tomato time!  After 2 really bad tomato years, we're celebrating here in the northeast. 

That's not even half of what I harvested this week.  They're coming on quite strong and we're loving every minute of it. 

I'm also still harvesting potatoes as needed.  These are Kennebecs that were used for a potato salad.  We had a big birthday party to celebrate the kid's birthdays with family and neighbors.  Since they're so close together, we always have one big party for the both of them.  It was nice to have all the vegetables come straight from the garden.

This is the second harvest of beets.  There are still quite a few more to go. 

What isn't pictured are the cucumbers, beans, green peppers, jalapenos and anaheims. 

We're finally getting some rain this week, which is wonderful.  I'm hoping these harvests keep up.  We're well on our way to having a majority of our vegetables come from my garden this year. 

This post is part of Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.  Go check out what everyone is harvesting this week.

Harvest Monday Aug 9,2010

This post is part of Daphne's Dandelions' series for Harvest Monday.  Click on over and check out what everyone is harvesting this week.

We're really into the heat of summer here.  Some things are starting to give up and others are just coming into their own.

These are the first of the Yukon Golds.  I'm only harvesting as I need them.  There are tons of potatoes (hopefully!)  still awaiting harvest, but the longer I keep them in the ground, the longer they'll keep in the house.  Most will probably stay there until October or so.  In the meantime, we'll continue to eat fresh potatoes every so often.

A typical harvest for this time of year.  The cucumbers are not looking terribly healthy these days.  I should get a few more from them though. 

Hubby had a hankering for swiss chard in his eggs the other day.  It is holding up remarkably well despite the heat.  This is actually a volunteer that showed up in the bean patch this year.  The beets need to be frozen.  They are such a winter veggie in my mind.  Can you see my sourdough starter in the background?  I'm very proud that I started that little guy myself.  It's happily bubbling away.  When it gets a bit stronger, I'll post more about it.

These poor green tomatoes are casualties of war.  I was desperately trying to tie up my overgrown vines and lost a few tomatoes along the way.  They'll ripen up nicely inside and be gobbled up just the same.  The green beans are looking to make a comeback with lots of new fruit forming these days.  I'm glad I didn't pull them up yet.

First day of planting

What a gorgeous week we've had!  After flooding rains, we've been rewarded with May weather.  It's been in the 60's all week with 70's predicted for tomorrow.  Normal for us is upper 40's for this time of year.  It's just what the doctor ordered for my winter weary soul.

I took full advantage, now that my brood is back to health.  The Cascadia sugar snap peas were planted along the fence.  In the lettuce box I planted Winter Density lettuce and Winter mix lettuce with some Bright Lights swiss chard as well.  There will be salads galore. 

In one of my new beds, I planted Detroit Dark Red beets and Nantes carrots.

The carrots were seeded with this seed tape.  I tried making my own seed tapes last year with miserable results.  I wanted to try again with less work involved.  There is a discount store near me that sells these for 40% off, so I gave them a try.  They are certainly easy to work with.  If they work out, I'll make some up with toilet paper this year.  Last year I used napkins and seeds that were of questionable age, so it was my own fault that I had a failure.  

We'll be getting more rain early next week, so I won't have to water these in.  The soil is still quite damp, but not soggy.  It's amazing, I was actually feeling a bit blah until I went out and played in the dirt.  

The chickens are liking it too.