After a few weeks of cold and snow, we've hit our annual January Thaw. It's been above freezing, even at night, for the past couple of days, and, according to the weather peeps, this will continue into next week. Woot!
I didn't get a winter garden going this year (renos won out), but I did leave a few things in the garden, mainly to see how they would do.
Did you know rabbits like leeks??
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| Shorn leeks |
The leeks, although shorn, are still edible, and I'm going to have to pick a few this week, just in case it freezes again. Potatoes are on sale this week, so a pot of leek & potato soup is on the menu! (Did I ever mention that my second crop of potatoes, those earmarked for storage, got decimated by a one-two punch of voles and wireworms? Grumble, grumble, grumble...)
Rabbits also like celery.
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| Leaf celery |
I was impressed at the hardiness of celery - I used garden celery in my Thanksgiving supper, and it was still going strong into December. I'm even more impressed with leaf celery - since I use celery mostly in cooking, leaf celery works perfectly fine, and seems to be more resistant to whatever it was that was gnawing on the outer celery stalks.
Rabbits also like my currant bushes :(
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| Drowning currant |
I don't know what I was thinking, but I neglected to protect my fruit bushes from the rascally varmints. The got the grape vines too :((
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| Nibbled grape vine |
And the carrots. Sigh. If I want to store more things right in the garden, I'll need to come up with something to keep the critters out.
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| Ignore the weeds, focus on the carrot - just like the rabbits did |
But, the rabbits don't like kale and collards!
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| Collards |
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| Kale - anyone know the variety? The one problem with variety packs, I don't remember what is what! |
They look good enough to eat, especially the collards, and I think I will!
The beets are doing well too. And they are HUGE. The rabbits are nibbling on the leaves, but not the roots. I purposely left some of the 3-Root Grex beets in the ground, to see if I could over-winter them and get seed this coming summer. If not, no big loss, but I am interested in figuring out seed saving for biennial species.
The other thing that is going strong in my winter garden? A herb. Recognize it?
Believe it or not, oregano! I might just have to pick some for tonight's pizza!
A flock of honking geese flew over while I was out in the garden. Too bad they don't eat rabbit...
Looks like Russian Red Kale. If you put straw and then some kind of cover (tarp, row cover) over your carrots they will keep without the rabbits getting in.
ReplyDeleteThanks Holly - I think you're right about the kale. I'm going to build covers for the plants I'm trying to overwinter next year - nothing survived :( Oh well, gardening is all about learning, isn't it?
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