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winter gardening
2009-Nov-23, Monday 10:21 amWell, I thought I had already made my last post about gardening for the 2009 season. I was wrong. (Click photos to embiggen. (Click again for original size.))
This "Dragon" variety of carrot is excellent. They grow huge in the soil here, yet they have a very soft and tasty core. Great combination, plus they're pretty to look at with their deep purple exterior. In this first photo, here are the ones that I damaged while digging them up. I gave them a quick rinse in a bowl of water on the porch step. They'll be eaten soon.
I've had to buy Dragon Carrot seeds each year because none of them survived the winter. This time, I want to keep some alive so they can flower and produce seeds in their second year of life. I'm trying two tactics to overwinter these vegetables.
1) I don't have hay for mulch. Instead, I'm going to try keeping them warmer by making a kind of terrarium dome over some of them. I upended a white plastic kitty litter container and built up some dirt around the edge to better seal in the air. We'll see if they survive in their native dirt through the cold winter.
2) I don't have sand either. I dug up some carrots and placed them into another kitty litter container then I added some more garden dirt. I guess I'll try keeping these in the basement where it's cool, dark, and dry. Maybe come spring they'll still be able to sprout and produce a flower stalk that can go to seed. I included the shovel in this picture so you can see just how huge these things are growing in the dirt here. Some of them are just massive.
I found that a second broccoli patch is doing rather well in the cold weather. I expect to have a few flowerettes to cut and eat soon. Somehow, I didn't collect seeds from the ones that flowered in the summer. Guess I'll be buying more of those for the spring.
I recently took out of the freezer the last of the stew I made with all of the garden vegetables I had previously harvested: carrot, corn, bean, tomato. Yum. I wish I had a few acres to do this kind of thing fulltime.
This "Dragon" variety of carrot is excellent. They grow huge in the soil here, yet they have a very soft and tasty core. Great combination, plus they're pretty to look at with their deep purple exterior. In this first photo, here are the ones that I damaged while digging them up. I gave them a quick rinse in a bowl of water on the porch step. They'll be eaten soon.I've had to buy Dragon Carrot seeds each year because none of them survived the winter. This time, I want to keep some alive so they can flower and produce seeds in their second year of life. I'm trying two tactics to overwinter these vegetables.1) I don't have hay for mulch. Instead, I'm going to try keeping them warmer by making a kind of terrarium dome over some of them. I upended a white plastic kitty litter container and built up some dirt around the edge to better seal in the air. We'll see if they survive in their native dirt through the cold winter.2) I don't have sand either. I dug up some carrots and placed them into another kitty litter container then I added some more garden dirt. I guess I'll try keeping these in the basement where it's cool, dark, and dry. Maybe come spring they'll still be able to sprout and produce a flower stalk that can go to seed. I included the shovel in this picture so you can see just how huge these things are growing in the dirt here. Some of them are just massive.
I found that a second broccoli patch is doing rather well in the cold weather. I expect to have a few flowerettes to cut and eat soon. Somehow, I didn't collect seeds from the ones that flowered in the summer. Guess I'll be buying more of those for the spring.I recently took out of the freezer the last of the stew I made with all of the garden vegetables I had previously harvested: carrot, corn, bean, tomato. Yum. I wish I had a few acres to do this kind of thing fulltime.