2nd week of November 2009

Fall planting of Mache We've been blessed with several days of gorgeous 60 degree weather to finish up outdoor tasks. I'm trimming perennials and cleaning up flower beds and creating many piles of vegetation destined for the compost pile. This fall we've been slowly taking quack grass out of the area that I hope to someday have a high tunnel and since our nice days are limited, that work has gone into high gear. It's amazing how many bucketfuls of those tenacious quack grass roots have been thrown over the fence and progress is starting to appear. Quack grass likes growing in soil with low calcium so we've added gypsum (calcium sulfate) to the area and I'm hoping once we get the bulk of the existing roots out, new quackgrass won't be happy in that area anymore. When I'm not pulling things out, I'm still planting a few final cold frame areas with mache and claytonia transplants. Here are some rows of mache ready for a barrel. We had several extra barrels this summer and now a number of friends also have greens growing under barrels in their gardens. “Hippo” PotatoGetting others started in gardening is one of my favorite things so it is exciting to see the interest in winter gardening growing.

One of the fun parts of growing your own food is that not everything turns out supermarket uniform and perfect. The kids get a kick out of wacky carrots and here is a hippo potato that the boys dug this week. Unfortunately our potato harvest wasn't stellar and I'll need to go scouting to buy more potatoes for winter storage from an Amish farm. I may look for some sweet potatoes to buy also since ours seem to be rotting quickly. Thankfully it looks like we should have a good supply of carrots, beets and turnips. Soon I need to start cutting the last cabbages and make some into sauerkraut and others will head for the root cellar.

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