Carrots!

We've had some amazingly warm weather over the weekend.  Both days reached to 60 or so.  By Sunday morning, so much had melted that all my beds were uncovered and even defrosted.  I was so excited to check the carrot beds.  They hadn't gotten covered properly and I was anxious to see how they did.

Some had gotten soft from all the freezing, but many of the carrots had made it through unscathed.  It was like digging for buried treasure.  Overall, about half of the carrots made it.  After our hard, cold, snowy winter, they were a welcome sight. 

I got them cleaned up and ended up with a good little crop.  The 2 on the left are huge.  There were quite a few that had forked.  That was surprising.  These beds are raised and have loam and compost in them.  There are really no rocks.  I'm not really sure why they forked. 

The strawberry plants were also starting to peak out.  I started to pull the shredded leaves away from them, but they were just too wet to get very much done.  It was nice to see that they had made it through quite nicely though.  What a mood booster to be able to spend a few hours outside and in the garden.  There is still a little bit of snow at the top of the driveway from the plow guy, but it should be gone very soon.  The weather is predicting highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s all week.  That's pretty typical March weather for us and its nice to see the progression in the temperatures.  Spring is almost here!

This post is part of Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.  I'm so excited to have a post finally!  Head on over and see what else is being harvested and what everyone is using from last year's harvests.

Christmas Dinner

As I wrote in my last post, Christmas was not what we had originally intended.  Dinner was wonderful nonetheless.  I was excited to be bringing an entire feast of foods that I had grown and made to the table.

I almost forgot to photograph it, but did get a snapshot just as we started to eat.

It's not the best, but you'll get the idea.  The prime rib was of course from DenBesten farms.  The carrots and green beans were from the garden.  I'm really hoping that all of this snow will melt and I'll be able to harvest the last of my carrots.  The potatoes were Yukon Golds that I grew.  We've almost used all of the yukon golds, but since they're starting to sprout, that is just as well.  They also had bacon that I made earlier in them and some Cabot cheese. 

Dinner was delicious, but would have been better if my parents could have been there.  I was able to get another meal from the prime rib and made stock from the bones for later meals.  Nothing goes to waste here.  Toby even got the carrots and last of the meat from the bones after the stock was made. 

This was the 4th meal for the Dark Days Challenge at the (not so) Urban Hennery.

Harvest Monday Dec 6, 2010

This week I went and pulled enough carrots to get us through a few weeks.  The fall harvest has been gorgeous.  It's really getting cold here lately and the ground is starting to freeze.  I have a feeling this will be my last harvest for quite a while.  There are still some odds and ends in the ground, but I will most likely leave them there until the next thaw.  I love looking at all the greens that everyone is harvesting and we have a few in the garden.  Unfortunately, my family only eats greens under protest.  It's all about babysteps. 

The rest of the garden has been put to bed for a few weeks, so nothing to report there.  I'm starting to plan for next year and will be adding another raised bed in the last space I have in my side yard.  There is a free planner on the Mother Earth News site that is very easy to use, so I've been playing with that.   The seed catalogs are dribbling in.  I've gotten 2 so far, one from Pinetree and the other from Totally Tomatoes. 

This post is part of Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.  Head on over and see all the wonderful harvests. 

Harvest Monday Nov 8,2010

I can no longer say that carrots are impossible.

Apparently, the trick is to plant them in July and let them grow in the fall.  At least at my house.  I'm still in shock that these gorgeous carrots came from MY garden.  The really great thing, is that there are still lots more out there.  My new plan is to forgo the spring planting(well maybe a small one) and after I harvest the garlic, to plant a whole bed of these beautiful roots. 

These were planted by making seed tapes on toilet paper.  It took just a few minutes and then they were ready to go.  I'm thinking that I'll do the same thing with the beets when I harvest the onions.  We don't really eat beets in the summer anyway.  It's all about the rotation baby!

This post was part of Harvest Monday.  Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions and see what everyone is harvesting this week.

Harvest Monday Oct 4, 2010

We've been getting lots of rain and wind over the past week.  As a result, I still haven't been able to harvest the last bed of potatoes.  We've been getting plenty of other harvests though.

The tomatoes just keep on coming.  Although, the plants themselves are looking awful.  Most of them are fully diseased and looking awful, but they're still pumping out plenty of tomatoes.  If we get a break in the weather this week, I intend to pull them out.  I got a load of fresh cow manure yesterday, so I can put the garden to bed now. 

While I was looking at the tomatoes with a neighbor, I decided to take a closer look at the carrots that I had planted in between the rows.  They looked far better than I had anticipated.  The variety is a shorter type, so many of them are a decent size.  I'm not a fan of carrots, but my family had them for dinner last night and said they were incredibly sweet.

The broccoli continues to do well also.  In addition to the head pictured, there was also a meal of side shoots that I didn't get a picture of.

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions to see what else is being harvested 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!

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.