The Modern Victory Garden

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone submits links to their blog posts summarizing their harvest for the week.   It’s fun to see what everyone else is harvesting from gardens in so many different regions.   Check it out and join in!                       

The young plants growing in my shop (under lights) have already produced their first harvest and they have not even made it out to their final planting area yet.   The lettuce and young kale provided me with the foundation of a nice salad to go with some steaks and sautéed parsnips (last week’s harvest item).           

On Sunday I harvested some carrots that I combined with my storage garlic and onions (and many other ingredients!) to make Beef Bourguignon.   I failed to get a picture of the harvest itself, but I did take a picture of the grow tunnel bed I dug them out of and you can see the carrots sitting on the edge of the adjacent bed edge (left side of the picture)                 

The bed of carrots are not very appealing to look at as the tops are largely died back due to the severe freeze we had about two weeks ago, but the carrots are just fine down in the soil and are providing a nice supply of fresh harvests to supplement the stored and preserved garden harvests.                 

I used another of the storage pumpkins Saturday to make another “Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good”.   It was as good the second time I made it as the first time.    I bet it would be great with other small sweet fleshed winter squash that have a similar shape – i.e. a Buttercup squash etc.              

Harvest totals for the week of December 6th through December 12th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Carrots 0.50 lbs
• Lettuce & Greens 0.25 lbs

Total For Week 0.75 lbs

Total Year To Date 445.25 lbs              

Eggs harvested this week - 38

The hens joined me in the greenhouse on Sunday afternoon for a while, and grazed on the clover and weeds growing at the base of the containers and under the sawhorse table set up in there.                          

I can only do this when I am around to supervise as those clever girls go straight for the greens growing in the containers if you do not keep a constant eye on them.   They know a good thing when they see it!   The hens are such a delight and I enjoy just hanging out with them.   I think they were appreciative of not only the lush greens to nibble on but also a chance to get out of the rain for a short spell.   We had considerable rainfall on Saturday night and most of the day Sunday.   We were lucky however, in that we did not get near the amount of rain as some of our neighbor areas did.   For example, Bremerton got over 6 inches of rain in the 24-hour period.   Some places in our state don’t get that much rainfall in an entire year!   While the weather kept me out of the garden much of the weekend, I did make use of the indoor time to begin the planning process for the 2011 garden.   I will save that as a topic for another day’s blog post though.   Keep dry and warm.              

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener