The Modern Victory Garden

Got a good start on the annual gutter-cleaning project today.   Managed to finish all of the shop building and the entire front side of the house.   Still have the back of the house to finish, but I ran out of energy and was getting chilled.   Hopefully I will be able to do the last stretch next weekend and have this big project completed for yet another year.   November is historically our wettest month of the year, so I really want to get this attended to as soon as possible.                                                      

We had a windstorm last week and the yard and garden areas are littered with leaves, small branches, and evergreen tree needles.   The Japanese Maple trees in the front of the house are ablaze with color and began losing their leaves with the windstorm – leaving a floor and a ceiling of brilliant red.

 The garden is thoroughly into the fall/winter mode now and looks a little disheveled and unkempt.                                       

The parsnips and carrot tops are getting beat down from a combination of heavy rains, wind, and their own weight and are laying over into the walkways.   While a bit untidy, it is perfectly normal.   The crimson clover planted in several beds is getting a good stand of vegetation developed which will feed the soil early next spring when I turned it all over with a garden spade.                                        

The fall crops are slowing down to almost a complete stop in growth now.    They will continue to grow at a snails pace during November but will be all but stopped by the winter solstice in December.   Luckily, they are pretty much at maturity at this point and do not need more growth to be harvestable.   The brussel sprouts are one of those crops that has to be far enough along by the time the growing process grinds to a halt that it is ready for harvesting.   My 2009 brussel sprout crop is looking good and we already harvested our first bunch from these plants.   

The kale crop is also doing well.   I have yet to harvest from these plants but they are ready.                             

I have been using the loose-leaf cabbage (Beira Tronchuda) in the same manner I typically use kale.                      

They are quite similar to each other in taste and texture but the Beira Tronchuda produces a greater amount of harvest per square foot of bed space.    I am going to grow some more of these early next spring.          

A slow cooking, oven roasted beef and vegetable stew is prepped and cooking in the oven and a fire is glowing in the wood stove. It's damp and chill outside this afternoon and it feels good to come inside and get out of my grubby and wet clothes.    I am worn out tired from the gutter cleaning efforts and intend to watch a movie for the rest of the afternoon - sitting next to the fire with my cat in my lap.   Lazy Sunday afternoons do not get much better than that.