State of the Garden

Chef's Garden Overwintered Broccoli and Cauliflower

We finally received the season’s first freeze to ease us into December. Fortunately, it wasn’t brutal since the daytime temperatures were above freezing. We are prepared and have the garden ready for winter. We have finished the fall cauliflower. The overwintered cauliflower and broccoli (in the photo above) will continue to develop slowly until about next March harvesting.

Radicchio

Chef's Garden Radicchio

We harvest radicchio regularly. We planted several different varieties with differing maturity dates. We plan to have harvestable radicchio into March or April. It does well in our Pacific Northwest maritime climate.

Sunchokes

About half of the sunchokes are harvested, and there is still plenty in the ground to last us through the rest of winter.

Celeriac

We still have a lot of celeriac for harvesting. It should be good unless the temperatures dip below the low teens.

Rosemary

Chef's Garden Rosemary

We can harvest rosemary all winter. We are also still able to harvest parsley and thyme. We started a second planting of both of these herbs, which we are now able to harvest into winter.

Garden Tools

New Garden Hoes

We use this time of year for our annual tool maintenance. Yes, we keep tools sharp and washed clean all year, but in the winter, we sand and oil wooden handles, de-rust and oil metal parts, sharpen shovel and hoe blades, and replace parts. This year, we replaced the blades of two of our garden hoes. The photo shows a new and old blade for comparison. Quite a difference!

Come on out to the garden to see what else we have growing.
-Anna