Winter Greens
Category: Winter
December
Went to the garden today to check on things. We had a terrible rain/sleet/snow storm yesterday, the first Nor’easter of the season. Still going strong is my lonely curly kale plant and my leeks. Surprisingly, I still have baby fall greens and baby arugula. I need to collect those very soon as hard frost is in the forecast.
October Snow
As predicted, it snowed today. I am glad I harvested most of my veggies a couple of days ago.
(Almost) blank canvas
(Plot March 10)
I switched web hosts and because of a glitch I lost my posts from January and February. But there was not much there, except a post from January 11, where I cooked my last home-grown butternut squash. Roasted with thyme and rosemary, and then turned into soup. Delicious!
March
Crop List 2019
Here is my final crop list for 2019. (SHPC=Sand Hill Preservation Center):
- Cucumbers: Longfellow slicer (have)
- Tomatoes, early: Break O’Day, Paul Robson (all ordered from SHPC)
- Tomatoes, mid-season: Dr. Wyche’s Yellow (ordered from SHPC)
- Tomatoes, late: Green Zebra, Baker Family Heirloom (all from SHPC)
- Eggplant, Pingtung Long (ordered from SHPC)
- Eggplant, Fairy Tale (ordered from Johnny’s)
- Hot pepper, Thai Bangkok (ordered from Johnny’s)
- Butternut squash (have)
- Basil, Genovese (have)
- Carrots, Bolero (have)
- Carrots, Rainbow (ordered from Johnny’s)
- Radish, French Breakfast (have)
- Garlic, Russian Red (hardneck, saved), Transsylvania (soft neck, Burpee)
- Beets, Golden beets (have)
- Potatoes, Banana fingerling (ordered from Fedco Moosetubers)
- Swiss chard, Bright Lights (have)
- Kale, Tuscan (have) and Curly (have)
- Lettuce, butterhead, Kagran summer (ordered from SHPC)
- Lettuce, leaf, Bronze Beauty (ordered from SHPC)
- Greens, fall green mix (ordered from SHPC)
- Peas, sugar snap (ordered from SHPC)
- Pole beans, Kentucky Wonder (have)
- Bush beans, Tendergreen (have)
- Spinach, Bloomsdale (have)
- Bok choy (have)
- Leeks (buy seedlings)
- Rosemary, sage (have)
- Parsley, thyme (buy seedlings)
- Nasturtium, Dwarf Jewel (have)
- Cosmos, Versailles mix (ordered from Johnny’s)
- Dahlias (have and/or buy tubers)
- Zinnias (have)
- Marigolds, petite mix (ordered from SHPC)
- Sunflower Hopi Dye (ordered from SHPC)
- Ornamental kale, Crane Feather Kind White (ordered from Johnny’s)
I placed my Fedco order on January 31, my Johnny’s order on February 4 and my order with Sand Hill Preservation Center on March 9.
December Harvest
I harvested some leeks this morning. Always makes me happy to have home-grown vegetables this late in the season. There are still about a dozen leeks growing.
Wreath
I made a second backyard wreath about a week ago for a friend. This time I used thuja, yew and clematis seed heads to decorate the grapevine, plus a tiny brass ornament (the closure of a Christmas cracker). I am having fun with these.
Advent
This morning, I foraged in my own backyard for materials for this year’s Advent wreath and came back upstairs with grapevine, thuja, yew and spent spirea seed heads.
I soaked the grapevine for about an hour in the bathtub to make it pliable and then tied it into a wreath. 
