Ugh, Winter

I've been trying to think of a different title for this post, but just can't! Looking at the almost empty, frozen garden and greenhouse, it's hard not to feel a little sad. The growing season flew by and it looks like all the hard work has just disappeared. It doesn't help that I was out of town for the little bit of Fall we did have, as it seems winter has nestled in to stay and it's not even Thanksgiving! Ugh, Winter!

Just a few months ago, I could barely shimmy through the greenhouse, now I could almost do cartwheels!



And the garden was producing so much I could hardly keep up with it. Now Bear can barely find anything to dig up and eat anymore! (can you find Bear in this picture??)



OK, I'll stop lamenting what we don't have and focus on what we do have-let's stay in the garden.

We still have a load of broccoli, just like we did last year, it seems magical to me! This year we also still have beets, turnips, parsnips, leeks, salad and cooking greens. Since almost every night it is getting down in the 20s and for the number of days that haven't made it out of the 30s, I'm pretty happy with that!




The greenhouse looks really empty, but there is promise of a winter garden just getting started out there! Winter greens and salad greens have already been seeds and are sprouting. I also transplanted a bunch of salad greens into a hanging planter, so hopefully we'll be having big salads sooner rather than later! Hopefully when Keith gets home this afternoon, we'll be moving the cold frames into the greenhouse, speeding up the growth of the little sprouts!




And what did we do with everything that the garden produced? It's been canned, or frozen, or is in cold storage. The pantry overflowing with both sweet and savory choices like plum butter, red wine pickled beets, roasted garlic pizza sauce, and huckleberry jam. Not too shabby! And the freezer is full of blanched veggie mixes ready to be popped in soups or stir-fried.



Cold storage is a new experiment and with everything that we had a the end of the season, I had to try it! So, with buckets loaded with root veggies and damp sand living in the shop in the garage, we're going to see how long we get keep all this preserved!




Alright, so we have a lot and still a lot more to do to get everything ready to make it through winter. Today is a beautiful day and it's time to get to work. So I guess I'll stop writing this and go haul a bunch of goat poo to the compost piles! Glamourous, I know!