January Harvest

Sure there's a freezer full of summer vegetables, and there are still plenty of potatoes, winter squash, pumpkins, garlic, and shallots stored in the pantry and the garage. But those are for the nights when I come home long after dark, or those weekends when it's too miserable to want to do anything outside. On a raw but otherwise decent Sunday in early January, it's fun to push aside the mulch* and dig up leeks, parsnips, yellow carrots, and a beautiful red cabbage.


*This year I wanted to see which crops would winter over, given enough protection. I buried a couple of beds ~two feet deep in big-leaf maple leaves, kept in place with wire-mesh panels forming hoops over the beds. So far I've successfully protected all of my root vegetables from temperatures in the low teens. The kale, brussel sprouts, and cabbages seem to be doing okay without any protection.