Karen's Garden Delights Journal
January 2012

Birthday Supper We always start the first week of January with a birthday and if you are a regular garden journal follower, you know that means a "birthday feast" with a carefully chosen menu. Our birthday girl chose beef hotdogs (from the Shepherds Market at Local Roots) in homemade buns with sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and carrot coins. For dessert she baked brownies and planned to have snow ice-cream. Temperatures in the 50s however necessitated a substitution of vanilla pudding. It has been unusually warm for January so far and I truly am longing for colder temps, frozen ground and even a little snow.

Ping Pong A benefit of the unseasonably warm weather besides not having to use as much fuel for heat was that I could pick greens almost anytime I needed some. Mid January I came in with a large bowl full of Swiss chard and bok choy from under the low tunnels. Normally they are covered with snow and ice through January and February but this year the chard actually grew quite a bit from when I tucked things in early December. We are also enjoying abundant sauerkraut, kim-chi and dilly beans as enzyme rich winter veggies. I also shared some of our kim-chi in the Roots Fest cooking contest at Local Roots in January. We didn't win but educated many folks on the benefits of lacto-fermented foods. At most meals everyone gets at least a spoonful of one of the lacto-fermented goodies on their plate and I have used far less of our frozen vegetables as cooked side dishes.There are still fresh turnips and super sweet carrots from the fall crop too. This January we have been very thankful for the abundant veggies! I made my first seed order to FEDCO with visions of abundant harvests for 2012.

Feeding Birds On the days it has been snowy and blustery, one of the favorite activities was playing ping-pong in the newly renovated shed. I never thought of ping-pong as an aerobic sport but a couple of lively games with our oldest son really gets my blood flowing. Watching birds is another prime snow activity and our daughter even tried sitting outdoors to see if the birds would eat right out of her hand. Another snowy day activity was doing reading and homeword to finish the Family Herbalist Course that I took on-line. It was a very rich learning experience and we have been making more herbal tinctures and salves to add to our family medicine chest. My list of herbs/weeds to gather and dehydrate this summer is getting long too. It is so exciting to start to get a grasp on how to use the many medicinal herbs that I have planted in the garden and plants that grow wild on the farm. Sometimes the simplest things like stinging nettle, plantain and chickweed are the most effective and useful.

Woods Hike On the warm days, it is so nice to be outside to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air but I am fearful that the lack of cold won't knock out all the bugs and such. There are two new baby goats in the barn and it's nice they didn't have to enter the world in the bitter cold. On the last day of January it soared to 62 degrees and we decided to take a nature walk in the woods. Besides being a good workout to climb ravines and follow the stream, it was refreshing to listen to the water gurgle, wind blow and birds sing. Hopefully we will also get to enjoy weather like this in March and April without winter deciding to just show up late.