turnips

Harvest Monday – November 14

~ McArtor ~ 3 Comments
Turnips

We are getting our garden plot ready for winter. We pulled out the last of the pepper plants and covered two beds with three tall bagfuls of mulched leaves collected from our yard and my mother’s yard. Some cold hardy plants are not ready for the winter “tuck-in” yet. Broccoli, brussel sprouts, turnips, lettuce and parsley are still growing in our plot. I harvested over three pounds of turnips, a handful of cherry bomb peppers and a large bunch of parsley this week.

We had our largest turnip harvest this season. This is the first year the turnips were larger than golf balls. I had enough turnips to fill up a casserole dish. I made a delicious Turnip gratin by adapting a recipe I found at Simply Recipes.  I peeled, then cut the turnips into thin slices with my mandolin slicer, blanched the slices for 3 minutes in boiling water.  I double layered the casserole with turnips, bread slices, onions, goat cheese and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. I baked the gratin at 375 for 30 minutes. The pungent flavor of the turnip decreased after baking.  My husband and son even enjoyed this not-so-popular root vegetable.     I am glad since it is loaded with vitamin C.

Turnips and Spinach

~ McArtor ~ 8 Comments

We visited our community garden plot at Howard County Conservancy yesterday. We found some treasures in the soft thawed soil.

our winter spinach

one of our many winter turnips
Turnips and spinach are growing under our row covers. Our first experiment of over-wintering our late fall crops worked!  Last fall, I planted lettuce, turnips and spinach seeds a bit late.  We did not have a good fall harvest of these crops.  In November, I covered the growing crops with row covers.   What a thrill to peel back the row covers yesterday to find green turnip tops and purple and white turnip roots, tender dark green spinach leaves and curly bright green lettuce sprouts.  I even pulled weeds out of the spinach bed.  Row covers are good winter blankets for the garden!

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?