The Potato Harvest Is Finally In

Yesterday I decided to make a push to finally dig up all the potatoes (by hand) and get them into storage.  The weather has been extremely cold for this time of year and I didn't want to chance them freezing.  I  was fairly hard work as the potatoes were deep and we have heavy clay soil. By the end I was tired out and ready to sit by the fire and warm up.

A pretty good haul (at least 75 pounds) considering that we didn't fertilize them at all and I don't think our soil is especially good there. Also it was just two short rows of  free potatoes gone to sprout that we got from the local hudderite  community last winter.   I'm starting amending the soil right now so that next year our garden will do better.

Carrots from the Winter Garden

Today I decided it was time to pull the last of the carrots from the garden. Single digit temps are coming this weekend, but instead of having a foot of snow insulating them there is nothing but bare ground now.  Believe it or not you can keep carrots in the ground almost all winter if you live in an area that has somewhat warm weather.  If the ground freezes hard however, it will cause the carrots to freeze and crack, making them useless for everything but pig feed.

These were two varieties, yellows and regular orange.  The yellows are good and are heirlooms, but I noticed they were not as uniform as I would have liked.  This is a problem you sometimes see with heirloom produce. They taste rich and carroty and look find but are a little hairy.

I love carrots and would eat them at dinner every night if possible.  I can't wait for the coming year to plant more.  My plan is to have two entire rows devoted to carrots. YUM!