I'm typing away to the warmth of our wood stove. My fingers were absolutely frozen by the time I got home tonight from the pick-up and I was some excited to see the smoke curling out of the chimney as I drove up the driveway. They are calling for frost tonight with temperatures going down to -1 so bring on the heat!!!
Kim and I cleaned up all the pumpkins, winter squash and cucumbers today in anticipation of tonight's weather. Last week's nasty weather did a number on many items in the garden but in particular it killed all the cucurbit families foliage (zucchini, cucumber, winter squash & pumpkins) so tonight's frost would definitely have done some damage. They are now all tucked away nicely in the greenhouse shed. Last weeks weather was particularly hard on the greens. We had winds over 100km/h for most of the day on Wednesday/Thursday along with hail and snow for most of Thursday. The Summerside CSA did not see any greens in their shares last week as they were still looking very unhappy on Friday. I was very glad to have pushed off the Summerside pick-up till Friday as the weather turned out to be very nice, although I was still lucky enough to have been able to harvest all day Thursday during the lovely hail/snow.
The car early Friday morning, brrrrr. Hard to believe that it was 23 degress on Sunday!!
The garden is definitely slowing down but the shares today were still very diverse. The large share had potatoes, carrots, parsnips, beets, onions, leeks, garlic, mixed greens, arugula, winter squash and bok choy. The grab box had brussel sprouts, dill, cilantro, parsley, leaf celery, sweet and hot peppers, eggplant, chinese cabbage & gourds.
We dug the last of the potatoes on the weekend so this will be the last week with our potatoes. We were able to provide potatoes for 10 weeks of the CSA which is by far the longest we've ever been able to go. Seeing as this year was so crappy in terms of weather and disease I think we did pretty good. We topped the plants quite early so they did not get a chance to get as big as I would have liked but we followed a strict blight control program which resulted in a clean crop and no blight.
Need another recipe for leeks? Thanks to Shannon for passing this along. Courtesy of allrecipes.com!
Leek Apple Soup
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons curry powder
3 leeks, chopped
3/4 cup diced potatoes
2 or 3 apples -- peeled, cored and chopped
3 cups vegetable broth
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup plain yogurt
Directions
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in curry powder and cook 1 minute. Stir in leeks, potato and apples and cook 5 minutes. Pour in broth and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes.
Puree in a blender or food processor, or using an immersion blender. Season with salt and pepper and serve with a swirl of yogurt.
Just a few photos for your amusement!!
Jake inspecting Derek's wash technique
Ben stealing a parsnip
Carrots, potatoes and parsnips
Boss getting a hug
Wash station
The boys really think that Boss should enjoy carrots as much as they do
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