With a series of -4C nights forecast, I’m harvesting and moving the last vegetables into the house and cellar. There are still many Worcesterberries (Ribes divaricatum) in perfect condition, eating with apples with muesli every morning. Harvested another load this morning as I expect that they will freeze and drop to the ground. I also harvested the last celery from the garden this morning, replanted in pots in the depths of the cellar where they will sleep until spring as cellary, ready to harvest whenever I need them. A couple of plants were also moved from the balcony, grown in pots for ease of access, to the kitchen for even easier access, one of them attractiv edimental “Red Stem” celery…
Having survived the wapato harvest last week (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=31597), our helper Daniil Titov was put to another challenging, harvesting the last apples….there are always many apples that we cannot reach with the apple picker, so tree shaking has to be resorted to as it’s too dangerous to use ladders on the steep slope. These will be dried in the near future. We already have enough for eating fresh until April in this year’s bumper harvest of Aroma apples. There are still quite a few at the top of the tree which couldn’t be shaken down, left for the birds.
We like to give our helpers /wwoofers an experience to remember.
Daniil Titov is with us for two weeks and in between the sleet showers we harvested the wapato/duck potato (Sagittaria latifolia), originally from the Mississippi River :)
The last 3 days, I’ve been harvesting as quickly as I can as it’s very cold for the time of year (max. about -6C today) and the earth is now frozen to 5-6 cm deep….at this rate it won’t be possible to break up the surface layer with hand tools…but a few things like leeks will have to wait until the weekend….hoping I can get them up…
This is my largest Nero di Toscana (Laciniato) cross with Daubenton (from Chris Homanics’ OP perennial grex selection in 2013) at the end of year two. I’ve taken cuttings and will overwinter this and a couple of other plants in the cellar as I don’t want to lose it!
Portuguese Couve Galega (thanks Maria Silva), not perennial but I love the leaves and it would be interesting to cross it with one of the perennial kales…overwintering it inside hoping it will flower…
Couve Galega
I harvested parnips, carrots, turnips and chicory root for forcing (Witloof types) and a variety for eating the root
Experimenting with burying the roots of perennial kales deep down outside, hoping this might help overwintering. This is inspired by long cuttings I took a couple of years ago in October. I buried them at a similar depth (20-30 cm) and the amazingly made it through the winter!
The edibles cellar store rooms are now completely full and I can hardly move down there now :) Perennial kales at the front in buckets
The traditional veg store with swiss chard planted in boxes in earth…root vegetables are stored in damp leaves
The veg store
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
I also harvested the last celery from the garden this morning, replanted in pots in the depths of the cellar where they will sleep until spring as cellary, ready to harvest whenever I need them. A couple of plants were also moved from the balcony, grown in pots for ease of access, to the kitchen for even easier access, one of them attractiv edimental “Red Stem” celery…
