As the snow flies...



Out relaxing after a few meals of harvest



It has been a wonderful summer, a beautiful fall and now we are all ready for winter, the garden is all put away and the yard is tidy and ready for its winter blanket.  I was going through photos (looking for possible Christmas card pics) and I came across a few 2010 harvest pics and I just thought that you would enjoy seeing these!  This is just a small portion of the harvest.  This day we just harvested enough for a few meals.  

The potatoes this year were absolutely huge, not as many in quantity as last year but just as much if not more in weight.  We have eaten through them quite quickly this year but that is much more satisfying than having them stick around and begin to sprout.  We left many of the carrots in the garden until just a few weeks ago, they had a few good frosts and cool nights which as I have been told gives them a sweetness that store bought carrots never have.  And the carrots this year are as sweet as we have ever tasted.  This was the last of the beans, not a bad bean season, not quite as prolific as last year but still had a few good meals plus some to share with family.  Next year we want to grow a few more onions.  They were fairly small but very flavourful.  You'd better be prepared to shed a few tears while chopping onions or else invest in some onion goggles!  This was not the year for zucchini, (so different from last year where we had pounds of them) we only had a few small ones that got chopped into salad as they were so small and tender we thought... why cook them?  We planted spaghetti squash this year just for something fun to try. They didn't turn yellow though, we need a longer and hotter growing season for them to really turn yellow and develop all their flavour, but they were still edible.  Baked and served just like spaghetti with a home made tomato sauce and cheese.  A great fall treat.

Tomatoes gave us another interesting growing season.  The plants in the garden grew to new heights as you can see in the photo below and these plants have even been trimmed a bit too!  It was found that the garage reflected so much heat from the day that the tomatoes fluorished, plus a drip irrigation system gave them their much needed drink consitently. We snaked the drip irrigation hose through and around the beans, peas (when they were still there), carrots and into the zucchini as well. 

Over all this harvest was a success, an experiment I must say, but when dealing with Mother Nature what else can we expect?  We have already began talking about next year; what to try again, what to avoid and some new things to try and grow.  Gardening is meant to be exciting and rewarding, because why on earth would we do all that hard back breaking work day after day and always be worrying about the rain, the sun and the frost to not be able to enjoy a sweet crunchy carrot?  Especially while laying out in the sun on the cool grass!

That is what it is all about... and cooking with it too! 


See you next time, in the kitchen.
xoxox