We've got our first wintery storm on the way late this evening so I did a major harvest and a bit of extra insulation today on the covered beds and cold frames. It might not have been necessary, but when I thought about how I would feel if it all flash froze after putting in all these months of effort and well...
Harvested both of the Chinese cabbages in the raised bed. Gave the one that was too wormy to the chickens and saved this one for me. There are several still in the row-covered containers, but they're too small yet and at least this way I have one to eat if they bite it.
Grabbed the two Bibb lettuce heads for salads over the next day or so. Was going to do this anyway. Wasn't terribly impressed with their production as opposed to my romaine-types, but they'll work. Just may not be in a rush to use up that seed.
Major harvest of the bok choy. Going to chop and freeze the bulk of it, but keep about four servings or so out for a garlic-soy sauté side dish. I definitely preferred the lack of slugs and milder flavor I had with this fall crop over the spring crop.
I added a bunch of straw surrounding the beet seedlings, rutabaga, and the newly pruned bok choy trying to be careful to keep it off the plants as much as possible. We're supposed to be getting rain as well as snow and I definitely don't want wet straw rotting my veggies instead of keeping them warm underneath the row cover. Hopefully things have been kept exposed enough to either kill off the pests or drive them deep instead of making use of the straw to hide in. I guess I'll find out how good of an idea this is.
We got down to 20F last night, so it was a good test run of the cold frames. They both had decent condensation on the glass this morning, so were able to retain heat despite the windy day yesterday.
Still grabbed another harvest of spinach to go with the lettuce in salads plus the biggest leaves of Swiss chard that I'll either freeze or incorporate into some veggie burgers (that I'll then freeze).
I've been harvesting tomatoes off of the potted Cherry Roma plant that I brought inside and finally had enough to start the ferment for seed saving. I think I'll give the fruits on the plant another week to ripen, then throw it back outside to finish dying. I've got too many plants competing for the light from that window. May spend tomorrow setting up some supplemental lighting, but of it's snowing I've promised myself I can snuggle in bed with cats and cocoa and reading the day away.
I also finally remembered to harvest the seed from the scavenged petunia hanging basket as well as any ripe heads from the calendula. Now I just have to get all these piles of saved seed packaged up and put away.
Nearly froze my hands off washing the last of the dirty pots that had accumulated, but hey that's less work for the spring. I do still have four hanging baskets that I'll empty once the plants are definitively dead, but that's minimal.
Bonus flower (probably last of the season):
It figures that the sweet alyssum would take off right when there's (a) nothing to feed on the nectar and (b) right when the weather is going to kill it. Made a pretty spot in my day, however, so there's that.
