Good bye until 2013

So the season is finally finishing up. Most of the vegetables have been harvested, though there are still a few things out there. The last few weeks have been spent cleaning the garden and removing plant material, doing inventory for seeds and supplies and organizing everything so that it is ready to go for spring.

The garden shed prepared for winter

I have also spent quite a bit of time in the office. I finalized the harvest list for the season and there were a few interesting numbers for the year.  

For example: 

• A total of 6000 pounds of produce were harvested this season
• Over 1200 boxes of micro greens were grown and taken to the kitchen for garnishes
• I pulled in 800 pounds of tomatoes and over 400 quarts of cherry tomatoes
• More than 200 quarts of baby shishito peppers were grown an devoured

Romanesco

Overall, it was a very successful season. We are currently holding our “end of the season” meetings to decide what to grow next year. The seed catalogs have started coming in and I love to flip through them in the evenings.  There are a few “new to me” vegetables that I would like to try including (but certainly not limited to) cubanelle peppers, blush cherry tomatoes, rose fin apple potatoes, and cardoons. I have to admit that shopping for seeds and fantasizing about the coming season is one of my favorite things to do.

Last radishes of the year

The last of the harvest will come in this week. On the list we have carrots, beets, romanesco, radishes, turnips, rutabaga, lettuce, spinach, pac choi, kale, collards, mustard greens, kohlrabi and radicchio.

In my free time I have been planning my upcoming vacation. I leave in a few days to visit family for the holidays.  I’m headed to the arctic north for 2 weeks in Maine and Vermont, and then I’m travelling to the tropics for a little over 2 weeks. The plan is to spend a few days in Hong Kong on an extended layover. My major plans while I am there are to eat -- I love the food there as well as the culture.  After that I am headed to the Similan Islands. They are located off the west coast of the lower peninsula of Thailand and I can’t wait. The islands are part of a national park where there are lemurs, jungles and some of the best diving and snorkeling in the world.  I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures and post them when I get back. 

Have a great winter.

A nest of baby praying mantis that will help keep the green house healthy.