As great as it would be to have a nice, long growing season … I wouldn’t have it any other way!

The 2011 Seed and Fruit catalogs are already rolling in, and Chris picked up a stack of gardening books from the book store the other day. Winter is a great season for gardeners. It gives us time to think about previous years, and dream about the new things we want to try in the spring. (Artichokes, perhaps? We read a very interesting article in one of Chris’s books about growing artichokes in cold climates).

One of the things that I’ve been researching is the best – and quickest – way to make our fence green. We put up a functional, but not terribly pretty, chain link fence closing in an entire acre of land. I think we are going to break down and buy 100 second year grape vines (wine, table, and cooking/jelly varieties) to plant along the 180-foot stretch of fence across our front yard in the spring. There is a Vineyard in Lake City, Minnesota that looks like it has quality plants at a pretty good price. According to one of the gardening books that Chris got, “grapes thrive in less than adequate conditions” – so with any luck, in 2012 we will see a small crop and a green fence filling in.

These are two terrific plants that can handle a hard freeze and 4″ of snow.

These pictures were taken last week, before we had finished clearing out the garden. This morning we woke up to a white yard. I picked the Brussels sprouts last night, and Chris was just outside in the snow picking the collards before they disappeared into the winter. He also picked the greens from his sprouting broccoli, which taste pretty similar to collards. I think we have enough greens to last us until spring!

Our boy is 9 years old today!

Happy, happy birthday Puck!

We’ve spent much of the weekend outside, working on cleaning up the yard and garden before it snows. I finally picked all of the carrots and onions, and they are stored for winter. The soil at our old house was mostly clay, so we’ve never had much luck with root crops. Now, we live on the “Anoka County Sand Plain” and the the root crops did well this year. The addition of compost helped a lot. We’re considering getting another load year but haven’t decided yet.

I should have picked the onions a while back, as they died off mid-summer and some were starting to grow shoots again. We go through a lot of onions in our house though, so I’m sure we’ll use those before they go bad. These were just the standard red, yellow, and white sets you pick up at any local garden store. One of the things I’d like to do next year is spend some time finding good varieties of onions that store well.

Now that it’s November, we’ve actually been gardening.

Actually, Chris dug up his potatoes the other week, and they are stored for the winter in our crawl space under the steps/pantry. There are two bread racks full – hopefully they will stay cool and dark enough to last through the winter.

He grew red, blue, and white varieties. The red don’t store as long, so we’re using them first.

Today we spent most of the day outside cleaning up the garden for the winter. I pulled a lot of onions and carrots out of the ground, and hope to have time over the next few days to post some more photos.