carrots

What’s up doc?

The sun came out today and I ventured out to open up the greenhouse.

It’s still a little breezy and requires a sweater, but the sun feels so good.

I decided to peruse the garden and decided it must be time to test a carrot to see if it is done. The foliage is getting quite full and tall.

Spade in hand, I gently loosened the largest one without disturbing its neighbors.

I brought it in and lovingly washed all the dirt off. Then, as all garden bloggers do, I took it out to find a suitable spot to take its portrait!

It looks quite yellow and I vague remembered planting an unusual variety of carrots, but I only included a decorate label that was simply marked ‘carrots.’ A search of my blog posts didn’t find a name either, so I set about trying to find the seed packet from whence it came.

Lo and behold, there it was, on the potting cabinet in the garage, along with all the other fall veggie seed packets. At least I had the sense to save the empty or partial packets.

These seeds require 10-20 days to germinate and I planted them on November 10th. Today marks day #73. But then again, this is Texas, and they’ve enjoyed quite a bit of extra sunshine and wonderful growing weather to boost them along.

Now I know why the carrot was yellow, it was supposed to be yellow — it’s a Sunshine carrot. How appropriate — we all took a little taste of it and pronounced it sweet and delicious.

There are quite a few more as big as this one, so I will be going back outside with a basket to gather up some snacks!

Growing goodies in the garden…

Though it’s winter outside, there are still wonderful vegetables growing in the garden.

Planted in early fall, these edibles love the chill of winter.

I know my gardening friends are already harvesting and have pulled up some lovely carrots. Mine were planted a little later, but I’m eager to check one of the larger ones.

My 8-year old is a veritable bunny, and would readily crunch on raw carrots at every meal. She will have a blast when we harvest these.

Don’t you just love the little vegetable marker? It’s an antique spoon with a hand-drawn label.

This Dwarf Satsuma Orange is in the greenhouse — it would not have liked our few light freezes. The warm humidity of the greenhouse provided great conditions to help it ripen. It’s the first year for the orange (with me) and it produced 3 oranges. We’ve eat two of them and they were sweet and juicy and had very few seeds. I can’t wait to eat the third one! Doesn’t it look tasty?
Growing happily, I can’t wait to eat the cauliflower with a creamy bechamel sauce, just like my mother made it and my German Oma before her.
The red cabbage adds a burst of color to the winter vegetable garden and brightens it up. Naturally, I’ll make German red cabbage with it.
I’ve already harvested some small broccoli florets, but there are just a few still hanging on. Next year, I will plant many more of them.

Also growing in the garden right now, I have artichokes, Swiss Chard, parsley, sage, cilantro, and strawberries.

Now it’s time to start seeds in the greenhouse. I know I will be ordering a variety of tomato seeds to try, but there is a world of other vegetables that work well started as seeds before the last frost in a warm indoor environment.

I can’t wait for the spring garden. But I have to eat the winter vegetables first!

Are you eating vegetables from your winter garden?

Veggie delight…

I set out to weed the unruly vegetable garden yesterday and was delighted to find a bountiful (work with me here!) harvest for our lunch!

I thought I’d planted the carrots much too late.

I’d given up all hope of having any this season.

I hadn’t planted any in years, and then they turned out to be stubby, dwarfed mutants.

But lo and behold, today I pulled out three perfect little carrots.

And to go along with them 4 little radishes, a cherry tomato and some strawberries.

Just enough to add to out lunch and put a smile on my face.

A bowl full of love…

We are so enjoying our variety of lettuce and greens from the garden. We had salad this weekend with Sweet Mixed Greens, Oak Leaf Lettuce, Watercress, Parsley and radishes from the garden.

Also growing in the veggie garden right now:

Sweet 1015 Onions
Strawberries (blooming, no less!)
Bright Lights Swiss Chard
Flat leaf & Curly Parsley
Cilantro
Green Cabbage
Daikon Radishes
Beets
Carrot and Leek seeds have been planted — (I hope they are growing. We’ve had warm enough days and some rain coming today — maybe we will see some growth next week – cross your fingers for me.)

This weekend I also planted seeds to start inside the greenhouse – tomatoes, lima beans, peppers, lemon grass – are all sitting on a heat mat keeping them toasty warm. I’ve really missed the ‘get-them-started-early’ boat, but they will still be fun to have grown from seed myself.

It’s gray and very foggy here with storms forecast for later in the day. No gardening today, but tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and…are you sitting down? 78F. So I’ll work at school today and do some paperwork at home, paying my dues for what I hope to be a glorious day tomorrow.

Have a great Monday.

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