Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Last Harvest

In my last post, while pointing out the dismaying state of our neglected garden bed, I mentioned the carrots we never dug up from last year.


Truth be told, it wasn't pure laziness that kept us from finishing that harvest.  As serendipity would have it, the garden made a wonderful cold cellar over the winter for them!  So we occasionally found ourselves, in the middle of January, for example, me with the shovel, Miss Chef with the flashlight, digging up some dinner in the dark.  Fresh carrots, all through the winter--it was total luck, but I felt like quite the clever gardener.

Now however, as the temperature's already climbing into the low 80s (about 27C for my metrical friends), I figured they wouldn't last long out there.  Besides, they were in the way of my ongoing weeding.  They'd had their fun; almost a full year's cycle.  They were nearly free range carrots, and I had no qualms about digging them up and tearing their heads fronds off.

So I present to you, the final harvest of 2010!

Fresh out of their bath
Now grow little peas, grow!

12 comments:

  1. Low 80s?!!!! Man oh man we're nowhere near that here. I could write a few more lines about feeling sorry for myself, but instead I'll congratulate you on your singular carrots - those are roots with character! (That reminds me of one of my favourite t-shirts I wore as a Math teacher - it had a picture of a boxy-looking carrot, and the caption was "Square Root". That's a mathematician's sense of humour for you...)

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  2. I'm slightly disturbed that it appears the carrots were run through the dishwasher or something? I mean, that could be clever, wash and steam all at the same time.

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  3. Silly Garret, that's our dish rack...above the dishwasher. I have heard of people steaming fish in the dishwasher, though...

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  4. How exciting!!! Your pictures are giving me encouragement to finish our raised bed... Don is almost done and we'll be planting soon!

    It's good to know that carrots will last in the ground through the winter. The boys will be ever so happy about that. :)

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  5. Justina, I don't know if that's something you can count on. It may just have been luck that they didn't freeze and didn't rot! (Some of them did, as a matter of fact.)

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  6. I have something growing in my garden- I'm seeing some sprouting green amongst the brown that needs to be pulled. I think it might be my leeks! I need to get out and see...

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  7. Are you going to eat them? Come on. I dare you to eat them.

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  8. What fun!
    Carrots often do well over winter. Ours got frozen, though, and turned to mush.

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  9. We're looking at 20 degrees tonight.

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  10. We'll all keep our fingers and hooves crossed. :D

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  11. 80?!! It's 35 here. Right now, leftover carrots waving in the air would definitely look like Spring to me! How did they taste?

    Nancy in Iowa

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  12. They look kind of like mandrakes. Did they scream when you pulled them out of the ground?

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