January and February Completed
- Ordered Pink Lady Apple tree, Ichy persimmon, and a plum with both Shiro and Redheart grafted on
- Ordered onion plants
- Ordered most of my seeds
- Started the first seeds: shallots, bunching onions, parsley, lettuce, bok choy, mizuna, celery, and celeriac
- Started sweet potato slips Garnet
- Sat in the sun drinking tea, reading books, looking out into the snowy garden, and dreaming of the spring to come
Preserving
Nothing was preserved over the winter. Winter is my time to eat it all up. Did I preserve enough to keep me to spring? Well the answer is always no or at least not for everything. But it is always fun to see how far I get on my stores. The first number is the amount I have now. The number in parenthesis is what I started with in the list below.
Somethings like celery I didn't have much of. So I have been buying it from the store when I think of it. And weirdly I totally forgot about the corn for a while. I don't usually have enough corn to freeze for the winter, so I don't think about bringing it out. I will endeavor to be better about that. In addition this is the first year I've frozen the Chinese cabbage so I have the same trouble with that. I'll work on it though. I still have a couple of months before I get anything out of the garden. The frozen carrots haven't been used as I still have fresh. I'll eat them once the fresh carrots are gone.
Tally of what is in storage from the garden:
Frozen
- Celery: 2 cups (5 cups)
- Chinese cabbage: 9 servings, 1 soup packet (10 servings, 4 soup packets)
- Corn: 10 cups (14 cups)
- Spinach: 1 servings (24 servings)
- Zucchini: 6 cups (? cups)
- Carrots: 20 cups (20 cups)
- Burritos: 8 servings (11 servings)
- Mizuna Soup: 2 servings (4 servings)
- Basil: frozen leaves
- Cilantro: frozen leaves
- Parsley: frozen leaves
- Kale: 0 servings(43 servings)
- Broccoli: 0 (19 servings)
- Chard: 0 (17 serving)
Canned
- Peach cobber filling: 4 half pints
- Peach preserves: 4 half pints
- Dill Relish: 6 jars (10 half pint jars)
Basement
- Carrots: 2.9 pounds (25 pounds)
- Parsnips: 0 (4 pounds)
- Onions: 0 (11 braids about 45 pounds)
- Garlic: 10 bulbs(3 pounds)
- Waltham Butternut: 13 avg. 3lbs each (27)
- Sweet Potatoes: 13.7 lbs (45 pounds)
March To Do
- Hope the snow melts earlier than expected
- Start indoors flowers, Asian greens, chard, herbs, broccoli, and cabbage
- Start sweet potato slips Purple
Those onion seedlings look amazing! Mine are just starting to poke through the soil - such a welcome sight, especially when its cold, cold, cold outside.
ReplyDeleteLooks like you have done a fantastic job of keeping track of your frozen veg. I only noted the total quantities that I canned, but didn't note how much veg was frozen & that is a huge part of winter eating for us. I'll definitely try to do a better job with that this year.
It must be so frustrating with the snow lingering on so long. There is only so much planning you can do, and I'm sure you are just itching to get out and dig something other than snow!
ReplyDeleteSnow still - any signs in the forecast if it thawing?
ReplyDeleteYou've had such a brutal winter this year. At least you're on the right side of it now, the end is nearly in sight and you've got seeds sown! I see that you really like your greens...
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you have a remote sensor in with your sweet potatoes to monitor the temp. I do that with mine in the basement, where it is only 55°F at the moment. That's the best I can do for storage.
ReplyDeleteI hope the snow does melt earlier than expected in your area. And that everything underneath is still okay!
I am always questioning it seems. I have never grown Chinese cabbage. Wondering if you freeze it like freezer cole slaw or shred it for soup or how?? I made breakfast burritos. Scrambled eggs and sausage and put in tortilla shell and folded over. Said I could warm in the micro but it dries them out. How do you warm yours? Thinking about just freezing the filling and put in tortilla after it is warmed? I don't grow celery and usually buy organic. Do you buy organic or how important is that? Just trying to be healthy. Thanks. Nancy
ReplyDeleteI cut it up and blanch it then freeze it. It seems to store the best for me that way.
DeleteCooked eggs don't freeze well in general. So I wouldn't even try for them. I defrost in the microwave and then do a small bit in the oven or they get really wet. But then the burritos that I freeze are filled with beans for my husband.
I buy organic celery if they have it. Celery is always on the list of the dirty dozen. So it is one of the vegetables higher in pesticides.
This winter has been the coldest in Ottawa history. We were the coldest capital city in the world for most of February. We were colder than the South Pole. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of spring arriving sometime soon.
ReplyDeleteThat snow! It looks like you have a great store though to get you through. You sound advanced in your planning also. I look forward to seeing your garden flourish in the coming months while ours in Australia slow.
ReplyDeleteI have had stupid amounts of rain and you have had silly amounts of snow. We are in complete contrast. This year I hope to organise a better storage system for my potatoes, pumpkins and onions. It gets far too hot here and I am thinking about digging an underground cellar. You inspire me to preserve more.
ReplyDeletedaphne, what happens when all that snow melts? is it a deluge, are you flooded then with water - or it so gradual you don't notice? i'd love to know.
ReplyDeleteIt really depends upon how it melts. If it melts all at once there will be some flooding especially since if that happens it will happen during a rain storm. If it warm gradually which is more normal then we mostly won't notice it.
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