I know that many of you may be experiencing hotter than usual temperatures, and I really feel for you. Extreme summer can be such a tough time to endure. I hope that wherever you are, you can find cool moments in your day to rest and relax. For those of you that are walking through winter with me, how is your winter garden going? Extreme weather can really impact our food supply, especially if we are dependant on our gardens for food security. Additionally, it can affect our farmers who provide produce for our local shops and markets. We haven't had much luck at all in the garden this year - even summer was a dud after a severe hail storm took out our flowering fruit trees and plants. But, on a more positive note, I thought I would take you all on a little walk-through my winter garden in which I have been working this past week. It doesn't look like much, I know, but every little bit helps! As Charles Kingsley tells us in his poem, My Winter Garden, is it not worth more than royal wealth to have our own food growing in our gardens? Unfortunately, we do need to put in a bit more work than he implies, but it is definitely worth it!
I hope that my winter garden walk through will give you the inspiration to start planning for the next season's garden - either spring or autumn. It's important to plan, prepare and be ready when the sowing time is right!
We keep most of our potatoes in the garden over winter for 'cold storage.' I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do or not, but we had a fair bit of rotting when I brought them all in and find that they keep much better when in the ground. Last weekend we cleaned out a couple of potato garden beds, bringing two baskets inside for eating and moving the others into another garden bed for spring. During the cleaning process, we talked and planned about what we would like to plant in spring and which beds they would be going in. We now have a plan for the coming season, and I know what seeds or seedlings I need to get and which ones that I already have can be used. Also on the spring wishlist is a couple of apple trees, to supplement the three that we have.
We had a lot of success with our spring onions and purple onions this year. This lot have been brought in, washed, chopped and put in the dehydrator. My daughter who helped me pick this crop, was responsible for trimming off the roots, which she did saying she was giving the onions a haircut!! I love cooking with dried onion flakes and this is an excellent way to preserve a bountiful crop, although be warned dehydrating onions like this is not a job for those with a sensitive nose! We had our dehydrator out on our covered deck and the smell was intense!
I also chopped some of the purple onions quite finely and put them in individual serves in the freezer. I use them for pasta sauces, soups or other minced meat dishes. As you can see, our carrot crop - not so good! The bunnies got in to that patch and after that I just sort of got into them. Our Benjamin Bunny loved getting this little treat!
I was lucky to get a couple of photos of the girls - they're usually very camera shy! This one up top is an Araucana and lays the prettiest pale blue eggs. Below is our old lady, Ducky, she is a d'Uccles and laid delicate little white eggs, but doesn't lay anymore. Then there are the two Isa browns who are champion layers, but quite greedy and aggressive with the other two. So much so we had to separate them into separate coops. I would like to get some more Isa browns to go in with the others (who have the bigger roaming space) and am checking the free postings regularly. As we cleaned out the garden beds, the girls got lots of weeds to enjoy.
The citrus trees still haven't recovered from the hail storm in January. Here you can see just one lonely orange and three little lemons. Still, I saw that Aldi was selling lemons for 59 cents each, so I guess we saved ourselves $1.77 this week on lemons!!
A few weeks ago I also got started on some seeds. We haven't had many big frosts this winter, though day temps have been a bit lower than average. Below you can see how well my seedlings are going on the deck. These little trays have a lid with little windows that can be opened or closed as needed. The delicate plants like the greenhouse effect, and you can see how well the snow peas are going as is the lettuce. Down the bottom of the tray was some squash, which I didn't really expect to take off in winter, but thought I'd give it a go anyway. In the tray to the right is spinach. In winter it's easy to forget how slow everything is to grow, so it's definitely worth starting in plenty of time! We like to have salads greens year round, so as the lot in the garden are going to seed, this lot will be coming up and be ready for transplanting.
Finally, I went through our food storage pantry; the place where we keep our 'stockpile', if that's what you want to call it. I took out everything, cleaned the shelves, then took an inventory of what we had and what we needed. We use our stockpile quite regularly so there were a few gaps. I use Mary, from Mary's Nest, and her prepper pantry guide as a guideline. You can see what she recommends having here. She has a lot of good advice on cooking, storing food, shopping and more, so if you get a chance check out her other videos.
I feel like this week has been a productive one in terms of getting our food storage and supplies in order. I'm looking forward to spring coming in a couple of months and am grateful for mild, sunny winter days where we can work in the garden. Just walking through my garden brings much gratitude to my heart and mind.
Do you garden? If so, how is your garden faring this season? Please consider leaving a comment below, sharing any tips or ideas. Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely, relaxing weekend.
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