Five Months of Fresh Produce

Last year was my first real attempt at growing food. This year, with more garden space and an obsession with Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, I set out to eat from the garden longer and preserve more for the winter.

We began eating produce from the garden June 1, with the first regular harvests of lettuce and radishes. And here it is November 1 and I have this lovely salad for lunch! the lettuce is "Tennis Ball Lettuce," a variety grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. The idea of seeds passed on and saved for 300 years makes me very happy. It's mixed here with radish greens, radishes and carrots, and topped with an egg from the farm.

I continue to have kale and spinach in the garden. For at least one more week of fresh greens. Having somewhat made my peace with butternut squash (thank you Vidalia Chop Wizard for making dicing so much fun!), I have a good supply of soups in our future. And I've been spending Sundays the past few weeks chopping vegetables and doing a big 2-pan roasting. During the week we scoop out the roasted veggies and add to whole wheat pasta and parmesan for a tasty dinner. Which is to say, November finds us still well within the fresh veggie zone.

To prepare for next year, Steve did some real landscaping of the garden area, including isntalling FOUR MORE raised beds (I now have a dozen) and plowing up a bed for onions, potatoes and beans. Grass was planted in the rest of the area to help control the weeds. Everything looks much more defined and ready to go! Now I just wait for the seed catalogues to arrive, as we eat down our store of food.