We’re just about to enter the best time of the year for gardeners… time to eat!

There is a lot of space left in the garden for sunflowers. We cleared out a good section in Chris’s half of the garden (not pictured….) for sunflowers as well, so assuming my planting schedule is fairly accurate, we’ll be set for the wedding this September.

The perennial beds have filled in quite a bit! I put basil in the holes in the front, and just weeded/thinned that out this weekend. I had originally planned on strawberries, but I decided that I like my concrete beds so much that I’m going to build another one, twice the size of each of these, along the south side of the garden (starting where this one ends, heading in the opposite direction). I’ll use part of that for strawberries next year.

In the back of the perennial beds are second year onions, planted for their really neat flower heads. Those are just now starting to bloom.

I picked a few heads of broccoli this afternoon (one was just about to flower, oops!). The temperatures are going to rise this week so I hope some of the smaller heads will hold out for a few days. I started these in early March, and they are just now producing, nearly 120 days later. They’re supposed to be “55 days” – not sure if this is an indication that our soil could use some more work, or if this is normal for Minnesota gardening. Any cole crop growers want to chime in? We’ve *never* had Brussels sprouts mature before October, and we also start those the first week in March.

Also above (click on the picture for a better view), there are daisies and a volunteer sunflower in front of the broccoli; tomatoes behind. In the next row is another sunflower and radishes, and more tomatoes.

Carrots and chard above. Last year my carrots were a lot thicker; we had really strong rainfall (3″ in a day or two) a few days after I seeded these, so I’m guessing a lot of the seeds washed away.

Another shot of the garden, from the back. Lots of room for fall crops and more sunflowers!

I used up the last of our red cabbage and onions the other week. We still have nearly an entire crisper drawer in the fridge full of carrots, which are surprisingly still crispy – and delicious! We have a grocery bag of them in the garage too – since they are frozen they aren’t good for eating raw, but they do work well in soups. We need to figure out a better storage method for carrots this year. We do have a second refrigerator in the garage, but I don’t know if we’ll have enough extra food to justify turning it on.

We still have quite a few potatoes, but even keeping them covered in the cool crawl space didn’t prevent them from sprouting. Chris is planning on planting them this year, so they won’t be wasted.

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.

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!

(Just for the sake of posting something).

We haven’t been very good about updating this weblog recently. Something to do with the end-of-the-season-nearing lack of motivation, I guess. Anyway, here are a bunch of carrots that Chris picked from the garden today!

The carrots in the front yard are looking good – they’re about 3/4” in diameter at the top. We piled some lake muck over them to protect them from the sun.

I brought back some lake muck from my parents’ cabin last weekend. If I make it up there again, I’m going to bring back quite a bit more. It’s really rich and I’m sure the garden just loves it.

Chris planted peas a couple days ago, for a fall crop. Also, the new windows for my house will be arriving soon, so we can start thinking about using the old ones to build cold frames for winter gardening.