Winter returned this week, and it looks like it is here for quite some time. After a beautiful warm fall that forecast of -11 for a low on next Tuesday sounds pretty cold! We got some snow, and Ken and I would like more. the snow acts as an insulating blanket to slow the frost going deep into the ground. One year we got early snow and the ground really did not …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has salad and braising greens, potatoes, winter tomatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots or beets, onions or leeks, garlic, and herbs Field Notes. Well, We had an honest blast of cold after last harvest. Ken and I covered greens in both garden and mobile high tunnel, Ken got a hoopette over the carrots and beets, moved the chickens to winter quarters – …
Each fall we fill the root cellar for winter sales and our own use. This fall was so warm Ken has been harvesting later than usual and I have just finished getting some items in boxes and some roots buried in sand. Damp towels keep crops moist. Dry storage for squash and onions and garlic is upstairs in a dry cool corner Now I move on to book keeping and seed orders. …
Dogs and Cats live outside here. They are an integral part of the team: cats eat mice and voles when they are on the move at night, and the dog keeps nocturnal animals like deer and raccoons away from the garden and poultry. Ken creates a winter dog house of straw or hay bales for lots of insulation from cold and wind. The space is small so Oscar’s body heat keeps it warm. …
After the last harvest on November 16th we saw that cold weather was coming. One of Ken’s late fall tasks is to move the hens into the garden for the winter. This year he has two groups of hens, and they seem happier in their respective coops, so he moved both portable coops to the garden. He also moved a portable structure I call teh hog hilton into the garden for the …
This year we have a bounty of fall greens. One of my favorite ways to serve fall cabbage family – cabbage, kale, kohlrabi tops, tatsoi, Chinese cabbage like Tokyo behana, Brussels sprouts or the top part of the Brussels sprouts plant is to wilt them. I tend to cut any harder stems, and then cut the greens in ribbons I fry up a chopped onion or leek. Then add …
Each year around this time I start getting frantic requests for eggs. Some people have discovered how much better real eggs are, some have lost their source, and some have stepped up their egg use with holiday cooking and baking. Eggs, like all food, have a season. Eggs, like all food, vary in quality. Once a person has eaten a tomato from a healthy plant grown in great soil during peak season….. The same is …
After a beautiful unseasonably warm autumn, cold weather and icy precipitation arrived Friday. Ken had been watching the weather and we went to the garden and covered some plants with fiber. Ken set up a long hoopette over the fall carrot and beet crops. Then as it neared dusk we changed hats and gloves and went to the mobile high tunnel. We covered …
Once the pigs go to the locker, Ken and I make soup stock from the heads and feet. I scrub the feet, and Ken starts the stock pot outside. Once the meat is tender I pull it from the bones and return the bones and cartilage to the pot. Then once the stock is done, Ken strains it and sets it outside so the fat rises. The next morning I skim the fat and set …
Greetings for the Garden! This week’s CSA box has salad and braising greens, potatoes, squash, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots or beets, celery, winter tomatoes, and herbs Field Notes. What a season! We have had such a beautiful fall. Ken has finished digging potatoes and is wrapping up field work. The forecast is for cold weather later this week, so we will be getting the squash and onions to inside storage, hoopettes up over some …
