November 27^th

Wow November has been a really cold month. Much colder than the November we had last year. We have even had one night below 20 degrees.  That means almost everything, under cover or not, is dead, and my record of harvesting until Christmas is now blemished. Luckily I harvested all of vegetables before they actually died.

slug eggs hiding under a beet

spinach

The only things left in the garden now are beets, carrots and spinach. The beets and carrots will be harvested next week, as will the last cutting of spinach for this season.  After I cut the spinach, (carefully, so as to not damage the growth tip) I’ll cover it with straw for the winter.  I can pull the straw off in March and we will have a nice early crop.

I have spent most of my time this month cleaning up the garden and organizing the shed and greenhouse for the winter. I’m still producing micro greens, and we have bumped up production for the busy holiday season, so they are keeping me pretty busy as well. I planted the garlic last week and covered it with straw.

garlic clove waiting to be planted

And finally, we have been holding our end of the season meetings.  We use this time to sit down, farmer, cooks and Chef Patrick, and discuss both the failures and the successes from the past season. We also discuss potential new crops to try for next season.  There are quite a few interesting varieties coming out for next year.  I saw a daikon radish yesterday that was purple all the way through and a green when ripe cherry tomato covered in pink stripes.

I finished all of the harvest records and we were well over last year’s numbers with a whopping 8000 pounds of produce pulled out of the garden this year.  I was surprised as a lot of the heavy vegetables such as eggplant and peppers didn’t produce so well, but I guess we made up for it in cucumbers and sweet potatoes.  Over the next couple of weeks I will be spending my time still cleaning, organizing and getting the crop plan ready for next year.

Romanesco