Brrr! It’s cold out there! Whatever cold weather you northern folks in Canada and the U.S. are experiencing, somehow you’ve managed to send some our way. As I write this, it’s 32 degrees Fahrenheit (freezing!) with a 25-degree windchill, and it’s just early evening yet. That’s cold for these here parts! Looks like the low might be 16 degrees. Good weather for stew, tonight’s meal.
Yesterday the boys and I got out there and watered all the plants in the garden and also gave them a nice seaweed martini to give them an extra boost of nutrients to help protect them survive the freeze. I didn’t cover everything with sheets this time — just the citrus trees and a couple of tenders. I lost a few plants with the last freeze despite the fact that I covered them — I’m just going to have to trust that the hardy of the hardy will survive again.
The exciting news is that my veggie garden, neglected over the holidays, has been growing with a vengeance despite my absence.
The strawberry plants are all alive, yay. And the carrots, lettuce, spinach, and kohlrabi are massive! They’ve been loving their little bed, though I wish I’d managed to give them some organic fertilizer over the holidays, just because I’m learning that they like that. The lettuce heads are so big that I wonder whether the leaves will taste bitter — does lettuce do that? The spinach already is a little bitter, the leaves not being so “baby spinach” size as the seed package promised. It’s our fault for not harvesting them all when small, I suppose.
Tonight we picked a couple of kohlrabi, though I understand they are troopers in a freeze. Aren’t they beautiful? I left a little one back in the bed — I hope it doesn’t get lonely, but maybe the gigantic lettuce leaves will keep it company. And warm. *Edit: I was wrong, I left two in the bed, yay. And I plucked a bunch of lettuce and spinach to share with the neighbors before it all succumbed to the freeze.
Now all we need is for our kohlrabi-loving friends Stepan and Jen and their kids to come over and share our first kohlrabi harvest with us!
This fall I planted two varieties of carrots — one shorter, one longer (the varieties escape me at the moment). The shorter variety has done fairly well — but we gobbled the ones we picked before I got a decent picture. The one below was only mildly deformed and still tasty.
The “longer” variety has proven to be weird. Look at how short and fat this one is.
Unfortunately, it tasted rather bitter for a carrot. It sure has pretty color, though, doesn’t it? I wonder if it was a nutrient thing (remember, I didn’t fertilize over the holidays). The carrots certainly have plenty of depth to grow in, so that’s not the issue.
We gave the yucky ones we harvested to the dogs, who thought the food odd but edible enough.
I need to use some of these carrot tops in a fresh smoothie — yum! Did you know that the carrot greens are far more nutrient-rich than the orange part? It’s important to use organic ones, though — conventionally grown carrots are some of the top vegetables to expose people to pesticides.
Stay warm, all, unless you are in the southern hemisphere — then stay cool!
Beautiful veggies! That kohlrabi is just stunning. My carrots always seem to turn out as weird shapes (my fault for not thinning more vigorously) but so far haven’t been too bitter. Also, I have not found the larger leaves of my romaines or butterheads to be particularly bitter. I didn’t know that about carrot greens–thanks for the info!
Oh my, your garden goodies look sooo good! It’s 28°F here in Nova Scotia today, but not windy. We’ve been lucky to have a fairly mild winter so far. So, I didn’t send the cold! 😉
All your vegies are looking good despite your freezing temperatures.
It’s my understanding that with carrots, even watering while they are young and establishing the tap root is the key to getting the full carrot length for the variety. If the initial root development results in a short root, that’s all the plant has to work with when forming the expanded body of the carrot. Later root growth will occur below the carrot, but won’t lengthen the carrot itself.
Hey! That could make a nice science fair experiment for my li’l one. Got to write that one down.
My lettuces don’t get bitter until they bolt; the chard, however, does.
Well now, that makes perfect sense to me — thanks, Richard — though that garden bed did get a lot of regular watering from all our rain in the fall, so hmmm…. I think it sounds like an excellent science fair experiment! Well, if you have time for growing the carrots (sounds like next fall). You’re reminding me to go check on my lettuce to see how they did in the freeze — I didn’t have a chance to harvest the bunch. Haha, pun.