White carrots for the white rabbit?

carrot from the low tunnel February 2012

Sweet tasting!

SWEEEET!!!!

Winter carrots

Now that the cold has set in and the ground is getting cold enough to freeze, occasionally, we are pulling all of the carrots that are under ground clothes, but not in the low tunnel.  This time of year they seem to get sweeter.  Maybe it is the cold that makes them sweeter, I don't know but it is something I look forward to now in the winter.
We will harvest the remaining carrots, as needed, from the low tunnel where the ground doesn't quite freeze.  Last year we had carrots right thru February.

Farm, Garden, Homestead, home.

No matter what it is called, what it actually does and what it gives should be the same, comfort, security, and sustenance.

If we are going to be spending most of the money we earn during our lifetimes on attaining it, then shouldn't it be one of our most treasured possession, I mean, that is, as far as treasuring possessions goes?  Yet it seems that people often spend little time at their home and when given a break from the routine, leave it as quickly as possible on vacations.  It seems to me to be a bit odd.

We are trying to coax this little plot of rocky, slopped and heavily wooded area, that we call our home, into sustaining us as best it can.  The trick is in finding out how it will best do this.

The recent weather that brought down a lot of trees and limbs has given us a boon toward next year's heating.  I will go on cutting and splitting and getting my exercise out doors and providing fuel for warmth against the coming cold.

This year we found that the Sunchokes, and the wineberries, the ground cherries, and the collards and the kale and carrots, all thrived and resisted the pests and the very rainy season just fine.  I have to file that in my memory banks and play that to our advantage as we plan for next Springs plantings, which we can start doing now as we look thru the seed catalogs and think about what seeds we have saved from this season past.

Let there be colored light

A dark corner of the kitchen gets a little help.

Old dark corner of kitchen

 An antique stained glass window that was a gift from a friend now finds some application.

New window in the kitchen

Greens, late fall harvest

The collards and kale are looking really nice right now and we are enjoying eating them.  We also started taking some of the carrots that aren't under the low tunnel, those are for later.  The carrots are very sweet.  I had forgotten how good they taste.  The tomatoes are all done.  But we got the last one a few days ago.

Limiting inputs and recycling

In an effort to limit what comes into the garden and what goes out of it I took some downed limbs from the property and fashioned handles for what was going thrown out.  the rake was found and that handle was put on a few years ago.  The shovel was going into a friends trash and I grabbed it.  A few days ago I fashioned a handle from a Maple limb that came down in the last storm.  They both have a nice feel to them and I like the way they look, knots and all.

local handles

I have also put handles on an axe head and a pick head, both of which I found buried in the ground.  the really great thing about these tools aside from my personal investment in them is that I have been able to make them fit my hands and use just so.  My rake is even ergonomically curved!

A year's wait

A year and 2 months ago I ordered a small porcelain finished cast iron wood stove.  I received it about a month ago and just finished the installation.

New wood burning stove with temporary copper heat deflector and new stained glass window

The idea is that this stove is small enough to burn small stuff that would normally just be a nuisance here in the woods, stuff to small for the large stove.  It is small enough to be able to use year round, should we need to.  It is just big enough to take the edge off a cold kitchen in the winter.  The kitchen is cold because it has a tile floor that is on a concrete slab, directly on the ground, not a good choice for this part of the world unless your building a large frig or freezer.
While I was having to dirty up the corner of the kitchen anyway I decided to put in a stained glass window that was a gift from years ago.  The tile work and the table top for the stove was from material that we already had, so was the window but for the outer piece of glass that I got for a few bucks from the local hardware store.
This is just another part of the garden/farm, and an important one as it is refining the kitchen where we prepare and eat the food we grow.
Hopefully the winter will be a little less long and cold this time around.