Garden update: November

Remember the (multiple) posts I’ve written about how much chickens love pumpkins? Well my husband did a wild and crazy thing: he bartered with the local Walmart and struck a world-class deal to help rid them of all of their end of season pumpkins. (After all, as soon as Halloween is over they have to make room for those Christmas decorations! 🙂 )

He came home with is 4-Runner stuffed to the gills with pumpkins of every size, shape, color, and some even with painted features (one had a frog!). The chickens are now in pumpkin heaven, and as a side benefit, our yard is very extravagantly decorated for fall. 🙂

Since we were having a warm day in November, I decided that would be relatively painless to check out what was left of the garden. I was thinking I’d harvest the dregs of the carrots and beets and check on the lettuce.

Well, the lettuce is not growing very much yet; maybe we got it into the ground a couple of weeks later than we should have (totally my fault). Hopefully there will be some that is harvestable and edible before the snow comes. The carrots were a big surprise though. Since I wasn’t having much luck pulling them up by the green above-ground fronds, I gave up and started to harvest them like potatoes: I dug into the ground under them and pushed them up through the soil. I couldn’t believe how many of them were lurking under there, just minding their own business. Had I not gone in after them, regardless of the presence of waving fronds, I would have missed at least half of them.

Up for next weekend: carrot soup.

P.S. Chickens also love carrot tops and beet greens.

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