Sunday's Harvest

As usual, I don't have time enough to accomplish all the things on my list, including a comprehensive post on the veggie garden. For now, here's what we harvested on Sunday:

Potatoes (Carola, Austrian Crescent, Rose Apple Finn, Red Norland), Carrots (Atomic Red, Mokum, and Rainbow Mix), some Beets, with more awaiting us (Detroit Dark Red and Burpee's Golden), Pole Beans for seed saving (Gold of Bacau and Michael's strain), and more Tomatoes for a final batch of sauce. I also cut large bunches of thyme, parsley, and catnip for drying. I have oregano and rosemary to cut and then once the ground is frozen, I'll heavily mulch the rosemary in hopes it will overwinter.

One of the Carola potatoes is the largest potato I've ever seen, it was huge, with many other 1-plus pound taters. We had some that night and they were yummy! The garden sink again proved its worth, providing a great spot to pre-wash all the taters and carrots.

Frost hardy plants still producing: Swiss Chard Bright Lights), Leeks (King Richard), and the aforementioned Beets.

With most everything harvested, we decided it was time to turn the chickens loose in the garden to help put it to bed. We were able to rig the gate into the chicken run in such a way that it could serve as the garden and chicken run gate and allow the hens free access to the garden.

The big girls were thrilled to get in, they made a beeline for the potato patch and went to town digging and worm hunting. In no time, they'll have done most of our weeding, cleaned up a lot of bugs, left some fertilizer, and scratched up the mulch, encouraging it to break down into the soil. They are like deluxe rototillers, but way better.