carrots

Happy New Gardening Year

~ McArtor ~ 3 Comments
last carrots of 2010

A couple weeks ago, we covered our garden plot with one more blanket of mulched leaves and made our last harvest of 2010. We harvested spinach and carrots. The carrots still tasted fresh and crisp even though we had to pry them out of the slightly frozen earth. We loosened the ground with a garden fork and pulled out about 12 medium-sized carrots.

my new dibber for 2011

One stubborn carrot would not separate from its block of earth so my strong husband pressed down hard on the garden fork until its wooden shaft snapped in half. My husband sighed at the loss of his faithful garden tool. But he smiled after I announced, “we now have a dibber for the leeks we want to plant in early spring!”  A broken off shovel or garden fork with an intact handle  makes an effective hole digger for planting seedlings.

A garden blunder can be a gem to the gardener who dreams about next year’s garden.

Happy New Gardening Year, my gardening friends!

Goodbye October

~ McArtor ~ 3 Comments

The month of October ends with a photo-free post.   It is the start of a new tradition at Our Garden Plot.   A  Photo-Free Finish on the last day of each month.  It is a chance to practice creating vivid word pictures about our garden plot.

October garden highlights:

1.  We pulled out our last row of tired tomato plants.
2.  We pulled out big round radishes and long crunchy carrots from the ground.
3.  I made bean and noodle soups from fresh picked escarole and endive.
4.  We dug out football-size sweet potatoes from the soil below shriveled vines.
5.  Our glorious fig tree shed its leaves.
6.  Our turnip, lettuce, radish and spinach seeds sprouted leaves.
7.  We harvested a grocery bag of thick crisp string beans.
8.   We conquered the greedy Mexican bean beetles.
9.   We picked pounds and pounds of pungent, plump and pointed peppers.
10.  We roasted and froze our habanero peppers for the first time.
11.  We dumped a manure and compost mix onto our plot.
12.  We prepared the soil for next year’s garden.

What are your October garden highlights?