Fallow Ground

If you're prepared, you can yield a tasty "fall" crop during winter around these parts. Sometimes though, when you're not prepared, you end up with stark, frozen emptiness. We dream of a white Christmas, but our ground dreams of spring.

Cooking a whole chicken is cheaper than using pre-cuts, but it used to intimidate me because I like quick and easy. Then I discovered the crock-pot. Now, I toss a whole chicken in and forget it. After 8 hours, the meat falls off on its own so cleaning it is a snap. With only 5 minutes of messiness, I have a Pyrex of chicken meat ready to use and a bag of scraps for the freezer until I make stock.

If I'm ambitious, I throw it in a pot pie. If I'm lazy, it'll go in grilled cheese for extra protein. Sometimes, when I feel winter acutely, I go the middle road and use it in classic comfort soup: carrot shavings, water, onion, rosemary, salt/pepper, and some golden raisins for a touch of sweetness.

Tomato Bold

A hard frost finally came on December 9, almost a full month after the average first frost date. Our arrogance in planting tomatoes as late as September paid off. A consequence of blazing summer is a short tomato growing season. Don't be fooled by the "heat loving" descriptions of tomatoes. They like hot; they do not like inferno and will distress in July and August. If you're lucky or bold or wise enough to time your plantings just right, you might hit the jackpot. These tasty morsels are juicy and sweet and pop like the best piece of candy you can imagine, only better. Since our planting was late, we will still be eating lots of green tomato pizza this winter. But for now, these succulent treats are enough to tempt us to try again next time.

Happy Happy Mail

I define happy mail as any piece which is not a bill or solicitation. This includes handwritten letters, newsletters from friends, or magazines. The Baker Creek Seed Catalogue, however, falls into the category of happy happy mail. The pictures are beautiful, the information helpful, and the prices just right (where else can you indulge in consumerism and retail therapy for only $2.50 a packet?!). I know it's completely wrong to judge on looks, but I can't help it, these veggies and flowers are uber cool. They're like hipster plants without the cynicism: aesthetically pleasing, mysterious, and different in a way.

Since I don't own land, my backyard is not big enough to grow all the tempting varieties within those glossy pages. But I've very tempted to ask my friends if they want a garden in their backyard. :D

Onions

Once the stalk on an onion falls over, its ready to be harvested. It seems like all of ours fell over at once, even though we staggered the planting. Some plants are like that (green beans), but we're not sure if onions share that characteristic or if we just didn't notice they were ready until the whole bed laid down :D. 

The fun thing about organic gardening is, once the prep work is done, you can pretty much ignore it until the food is ready. A quick glance now and again to make sure bugs aren't around and everything is watered nicely and you're golden. If the conditions are right, the plants should have enough internal resources to fend off disease themselves. Though it's not quite that simple, often, disease is caused by conditions not being optimum. Disease is assumed in the modern agricultural world but that approach is symptom based and narrow.

At any rate, these onions are small but potent! And we use onions is almost every recipe so we should have no problem using these up. We haven't figured out how to store onions for winter (nor have we tried), but once we go down that path, I'll shoot up a post about it.

Speckled Lettuce

 

A large part of the fun with growing your own food is experimentation. Matthew takes this part very seriously, while I just poke fun at him. :D Speckled lettuce is a great variety because of it's juiciness and sweetness. It's also very easy to grow. Here in the south, it's the perfect green leaf to over-winter. Plant in November, mulch, cover with plastic during really hard freezes and January through March you'll have plenty of fresh greens. Remember early on to cut plenty of leaves off. Leave at least two for the plant to use in gathering sun for growth, but trimming always spurs more growth so don't be shy about cutting your first leaves off for a salad. You don't have to wait until the plant is full and lush (it wont' get that way unless you start cutting). Spring as a growing season doesn't really exist in Texas (groan). So come mid-March the lettuce will look beautiful but taste bitter. As pretty as it may be and as psychologically difficult as it is to pull up healthy "looking" plants, you'll be forced to do it. Once it turns bitter, the space can be better used to grow something else. The "winter" growing season is over and the "summer" growing season has begun.

Harvest

Our broccoli, carrots and cauliflower are yummy and harvesting makes us happy (and yes, I know I look funny :)!