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

Now is the time that things are really starting to come in from the garden.  It's so exciting and actually quite early for New England.  Above is a pound of garlic scapes.  These were made into garlic scape pesto and frozen in cubes for the year.  Absolutely delicious!

Some lettuce is also making an appearance.  It has not been a good year for lettuce in my garden.  I don't think it's liking all the heat we've had.

Lastly are the sugar snap peas.  These joined some of the garlic scape pesto in a wonderful chicken and pasta dish last night.  The peas are 3 weeks early this year.  We're loving every minute of it. 

Check out who else is posting over at Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

Garden update

This has been a fantastic year for the garden so far.  We've had heat and just the right amount of rain.  Everything seems like it is thriving right now.  Above is the cabbage continuing to head up and some spinach that is looking like it is about to bolt.

These are the tomato trellises that J built me.  Shortly after I took the picture, I put up most of the strings to support the vines. I'm really excited to see how they work out.

These are some of the Amish Paste plants.  They are starting to put on flowers, which is just amazing to me. 

This is a miscellaneous bed.  In the front are tomatoes from seed I saved last year.  I'm calling them mystery tomatoes, since they came from a volunteer plant.

The strawberries are just wonderful.  We should have ripe fruit shortly.

My potato jungle has been hilled once already and is ready for some straw.  Some of the plants are even starting to flower.  Behind them are beans.

 

Parsnips have gone to seed and are taller than Morgan right now.  They have spectacular seed heads.  If you'd like some seeds, let me know.

The pumpkins and winter squashes are looking good as well.  I'm anxious for a good crop after last years complete failure.

Lastly the peas.  Morgan thinks these are her personal snack.  I may get enough for a dinner eventually, but for now I'm thrilled that she likes them so much.  They are easily 3 weeks early.  We usually harvest peas in late June.

How are things in your garden.  I'm just amazed at how well the garden is going so far.  It's shaping up to be my best year yet. 

Honeymoon phase

This is the time of year that I love the garden.  I walk through the paths, weeding as I go.  Everything is still so beautiful and full of promise.  I imagine the huge harvests that I'll have of everything planted.  Nothing can go wrong at this point.  Today was one of those days that I walked through feeling like a proud mama.  All is according to plan right now.  Even the fact that I had to purchase the above eggplants at that big orange store does not bother me right now. 

I love the look of cabbage.  It's one of the prettiest things in my garden right now.

The sugar snap peas courtesy of Laura are budding and we'll have peas in short order.

These are Cinderella pumpkins.  My neighbor gave me the seeds for these.  They have huge leaves already.

We've had some very high temps the last few days and the tomatoes are loving it.

There are about 20 peaches on my 3 year old tree.  This is the biggest so far.

The new perennial beds are doing well, thanks to Kiwi.  This is a Lupine and I'm very happy that I even knew it's name.  She is a fabulous flower gardener, I am not. 

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.