That’s what we pulled today!

I’m hosting a baby shower tomorrow, so the dill went in the potato salad and the radishes are cleaned and ready to eat!

I planted four different varieties of radish. Even with the hot weather earlier this month they aren’t very spicy. A few are a bit too large, and there are a lot more where these came from!

Broccoli and zucchini are next, within the week!

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Why do the herbs always need to be picked when there is no other food in the garden to season with them?

I have more chives and catnip than we will ever use, so if you’d like some… please let me know. Of course, last week I also planted catnip seeds that I bought at Monticello. Because one can never have enough catnip. (Maybe this is why we have a grey cat who visits our back yard now…)

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A delicious way to enjoy fresh grown food in the winter: sprouts!

I received two of these 8×10 Sproutmaster Trays for Christmas this year. They are stackable, and each come with a divider – so with the two trays, we can sprout up to 4 different kinds of sprouts at once! Or you can stagger start dates and always have a fresh supply. They store really well in the refrigerator too.

This weekend, we stopped by Fresh & Natural Foods, and I saw these dried sprouted mung beans sold in the snack aisle. I think we’ll have to take out the dehydrator soon to give that a try!

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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!

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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.

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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.

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The carrots are ready!

Just in time for my kitchen remodel, too. Fortunately, I should be able leave these in the ground until it freezes and they will keep on growing, and be just fine. I think carrot soup (in a crock pot) would be an easy meal to make without a kitchen – though that requires a food processor and I’m just not sure if I’m up for washing that in the laundry tub.

We have about one full month without a kitchen sink (or countertops). Cooking is going to get very creative now… and I think I’ll be taking some veggies over to my mom’s house to prepare for freezing!

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I’ve been incredibly busy with work, and the garden seems to change faster than I have time to spend in it!

We have cauliflower, broccoli, turnips, potatoes, beans … and by the time 5:00 roles around, all I want to do is crack open a cold beer and not think about making dinner. I’m going to try and make scalloped turnips tonight – but I think we might be out of soy milk. I’ll take some pictures and post the recipe when I do!

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Jessi’s half of the garden is reaching full-harvest mode!

I probably should have picked the broccoli a couple days ago – it’s just about to flower. There are some nice cauliflower heads out there that I didn’t notice last night. I have more than 20 cauliflower and broccoli plants in the garden, and they seem to be taking quite a while. I started them way back in March – you’d think they would have matured by now. It was a hot spring, though – so maybe that had something do do with it. It’s also getting a bit too hot for lettuce – Chris’s lettuce bolted already. I’ve still got a few heads out there that look like they’ll be just fine for a while.

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You know it’s summer when every meal looks something like this:

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