Monday, February 9, 2015

Harvest Monday, 9 February 2015

Path to the compost pile

The path down to my compost pile is getting buried again. I keep shoveling and it keeps snowing more. We are going to break the Boston 30 day total record in 17 days with this series of storms. And we have more storms in the forecast. One for Thursday and one over the weekend. I like snow, but even I could use a break.

I keep rescuing my peach trees when my husband and townhouse mates put snow on its branches (when it melts it can drag the branches down and break them). My husband gets annoyed with all the restrictions. No dirty snow on the garden. No heavily salted snow on the peach trees. That can only go on the grass. We have a tiny postage stamp of a yard and there isn't a lot of places to put the snow. Anyway onto Harvest Monday and what I'm doing with my stored harvests.

I'm getting down to the last handful of bags of greens in my freezer. I'll make it through February, but I'm not sure how far into March I'll get. I have my big pile of greens for dinner every night. The dinner above has more from the garden than those. The sauce has mustard seeds and garlic from the garden. The salmon patties have dried parsley and mustard.

That meal also had some sweet potato fries. Dave wrote about this a couple of weeks ago week and I figured it was a good way to use up my huge 2.5 pound sweet potato. So I've been eating them for the last couple of days and I'll be finishing them up today. Maybe. It is a lot of fries to eat for one person.

This week I also decided that I needed to make some more enchilada sauce for me. My husband gets the tomato pepper version bought from the store. But I can't eat tomatoes and peppers, so I make one with avocado, onion, and cilantro. The cilantro is frozen from the garden. And the garlic comes from the garden.

In addition I use my frozen zucchini and stuff that into the inside along with some leftover chicken. I have a few more packets of zucchini left. So again that will last me through February, but I might not have much left for March.

I know the stores won't last until my greens start producing in the spring. So I broke down in January and started buying some things for my lunch greens. I have some Brussels sprouts in the freezer and I bought a cabbage for coleslaw. My oranges and purple stores have been holding up better. I still have 14 butternut squashes and at least half my sweet potatoes. At least I think. I haven't weighed them to find out. In addition the carrots are holding up fine. I have a lot frozen for later in the spring and the fresh ones are doing OK. A couple have started to sprout. I eat any that show signs of waking up.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

21 comments:

  1. Sounds to me as if you are managing the Hungry Gap quite well... I never thought about the concept of "storing snow", but I can see the problem now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I should make Dave's sweet potatoes fries, they sure look yummy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It would be difficult to manage all that snow, especially with much of your area devoted to growing spaces. I broke down and bought some Brussels sprouts and a head of cauliflower. We have plenty of things in the freezer and stores but the variety is lacking. I do hope it stops snowing there soon!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sounds like your doing very well using up your stores. Having your greens last until the end of February means that there will be only a couple of months (or less) when you don't have garden greens...which I think is pretty amazing!

    And you must be getting all our snow! Our forecast was for snow all weekend, especially on Sunday, but we got barely a couple of inches. Still more than enough on the ground right now, though, so I'm not complaining.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hope the snow slows down for you soon. It sure is pretty though....from here. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lots of snow!! We are really starting to burn though all our winter stores too!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I feel so fortunate to have a bounty of fresh greens from my garden. It does get a bit monotonous at times, it's not like summer veggies, but at least they are fresh.

    All that shoveling of snow sounds like hard work!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow lots of snow! It's hard work to clear the paths.

    ReplyDelete
  9. You were hit harder with the snow than I was! Your greens you fix always look so good! Mine just don't seem as pretty. Doesn't it just grind your gizzard to have to buy things from the store that you grow in the garden! I forget to keep track of the herbs I use from the garden!! Nancy

    ReplyDelete
  10. The snow is amazing, we've only had a sprinkling here (though other parts of the UK have have lots).
    Your variety of stored harvests is really impressive. Hopefully as I now have a larger freezer I'll be able to store more of my summer harvests.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Those enchiladas look DELICIOUS! Is there a recipe that you could share??? There's not much left in my freezer from the garden these days. A bag of squash and some tomato sauce, I think.

    ReplyDelete
  12. It's like another world, here we are having our first heatwave of the summer and the peach tree branches are breaking under the weight of fruit. At least some things are constant - you'd have thought over the years they would have developed stronger branches to cope.

    ReplyDelete
  13. You are a dedicated composter to be keeping that pathway clear in all that snow. I'm partly too lazy in the winter, but mostly it is because I have such a small bin and it fills up quickly when everything just sits there frozen! I love the sound of that avocado sauce ...

    ReplyDelete
  14. Here in Adelaide the weather will be pushing 100 all week; it's hard to imagine snow! When we are not watering the garden we are in the pool :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. That is some snow you have there. Must get to the plot to replenish stocks,

    ReplyDelete
  16. I am soooo sick of the snow. It's terrible. Our snow blowers have been running seemingly non-stop during the past 2 weeks. At this point, we're running out of places to put the snow since the snow banks are taller than what our blowers can blow.

    ReplyDelete
  17. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  18. daphne, that snow picture is amazing. that is extreme weather and wow, now i can see why you do so much freezing an putting away of your harvest.
    can you tell me how you go with freezign your zucchini? this year i have done an experiment - i have roasted thick slices, and i figure they may only be good enough to fold thru a pasta sauce. but it's something, and a good way of keeping on top of the zucchinis i currently have coming out of my ears! (or so it seems)
    thank you for showing all that snow - i'm just so amazed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have only frozen it raw and grated. I've never tried any other way. Though I'm thinking chopped and blanched would be better for enchiladas. If I get a decent amount of zucchini, I'm going to experiment.

      Delete
  19. You all have gotten so.much.snow this winter...well, this month! I would be feeling frustrated with it all at this point, too. I hope it clears up nicely for you soon :-)

    ReplyDelete