Winter Veggies...

Spent a good deal of time yesterday afternoon in the garden... finally for the first day in what seemed like weeks the rain had ceased and the sun was shining (I felt like a reptile as I sat with my back against the south wall of the house, the warmth heating me up). I harvested potatoes - about 8 whole pounds worth! Not a bad harvest at all, considering I had only planted about 8 sq ft of potatoes - so I guess you get about a pound for every square foot? In the spot where the potatoes came out I planted 3 dozen kale starts - green curly, red russian, white russian, and rainbow tuscan kale (just like aleesha over at http://aleeshasrawlife.blogspot.com/, I love my kale!! I usually blend it into a green smoothie, but I'm looking forward to kale salads, too - and last week I dehydrated some and added it to my veggie soup mix). I am so excited at the thought of harvesting fresh greens from the garden throughout the winter!

My next step is to close the garden in for winter - to turn it into a greenhouse of sorts. I have the framework in place - and I have some 6mm poly that I am planning on putting over the existing fence/frame structure. All I need is 7 - 10' 2x4s that I can make rafters out of. Sounds simple enough but I've been procrastinating on this for many weeks - nay, months - now. But now that we are at the end of August I am wanting to get on with it.

I picked up the veggie starts at a plant sale earlier this week. I got cress, the different types of kale, broccoli (purple sprouting & green goliath), cabbage, a couple varieties of chard, silverbeet, raddichio, spinach, cilantro, bunching onions (apparently like a perennial green onion), and others I can't even remember. Greens, greens, greens! I also planted two packages of lettuce/mesclun mix yesterday (mild & oriental), but realized afterwards I should've maybe planted them in what will be the "covered" garden, as opposed to the herb garden that I usually leave uncovered in the winter, but which is next to the house and doesn't usually freeze (not that we get your typical Canadian winter where we live - at most we'll have one week below 0C). I'm not sure how the lettuce will manage uncovered.

Put the potato plants on the compost, which incidentally is hovering at a lovely 110F at the moment. I am intending to add some horse or chicken manure to it and with regular turning and adding, am hoping to get OVER 110 at some point! Wouldn't it be nice to have it heat up to 120 or even 160 or 170 like in hot composting? Well, okay, so maybe you don't share my enthusiasm for compost (I am a Master Composter, after all, LOL). Still, it would be kinda cool. I toy with the idea of getting 3 or 4 chickens every now and again - just for the manure that I'd have on hand to add to the compost. But I chicken out every time I think of it (collective groan for the bad pun there, please). Still, I might one day...

And today I stopped by the local farmer's market and picked up some lovely carrots, celery, onions, cucumber, and heirloom tomatoes. I was about to make some flax crackers last night when I realized I had no carrots for the recipe (actually, they're the Pizza Crust crackers from RawRose's Uncook book - check her out at http://www.rawrose.com/, and they are delicious).

Hope you're enjoying your Saturday!