1st week of November 2009
It's the first week of November and the snow started flying this week. Not enough to stick for long but it made the boys want to don boots and mittens to see if they could make snowballs! It does mean that it was time to put cold frame covers in place. Here the greenhouse plastic is going back on and attaches with “wiggle wire” that locks into a C-channel. We've used this plastic for six seasons and with a few duct tape repairs, it looks like it will serve well through another winter. Pictured is also the inside of the greenhouse. It isn't as full and organized as I hoped and I ended up planting some of the empty areas with lettuce and spinach for overwintering that will provide spring salads. There is an abundance of arugula that came up from seeding off along with clumps of mache and claytonia in several corners. The beauty of letting some plants go to seed is that I end up with an abundance of seedlings even if I forget to plant at the right time.
Even though it is November, there still are an abundance of fresh vegetables. Here is red and green bok choy plus some very sweet carrots that I just picked. There is still broccoli, cabbage, kale, Swiss chard, celery, radishes, turnips and many salad greens along with a few handfuls of sugar snap peas. It's been nice to not have to dip into our stash of frozen and canned food much yet, just a few jars of tomato sauce and tonight I added frozen beans to our stew. We still need to finish digging potatoes to see how much we have for the root cellar. I'll be watching the weather and be bringing in the cabbages for the root cellar once the temperatures dip to the mid 20's.
If you're curious, our final garlic tally was 3925 cloves in the ground. I'm trying two experiments with garlic this year. I planted a little area with the bulbils, the actual little seeds that form on the flower heads. They say it takes two years for these to form a full bulb and I want to see how it works. I also am trying to plant a few cloves in a container inside after I was asked by a new gardener if that was a possibility. So I have one pot of garlic in a sunny window and another that will go in the basement for the winter and brought to a window in March. Another “experiment” is that I am helping a group plan the first ever Sustainable Food and Farming Retreat at Camp Luz on November 20-22. It looks to be an interesting weekend with a keynote speaker who is a soil nutritionist and world traveler, a variety of workshops, the movie “Fresh”, worship times, meals including local fare (some from our farm) and more.
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