Forecasts show lows of 23 degrees overnight into the morning and tomorrow lows down to 19 degrees overnight and into the morning. This has sparked a flurry (pardon the pun) of activity in getting things taken care of and ready. Yesterday, I wrapped all the pipes in the attic, the faucets attached to the house, and then all the water pipes and spigots in the garden and out in the pasture. It took quite a while but we got prepared as best as we can. Hopefully we can make it through the cold weather without any broken pipes.
Late this afternoon after church, we bundled up and got all the tarps out, covering everything that's out in the garden, trying to save what's there. I'm not really worried about the root crops, so I'm leaving the beets and carrots and turnips alone. The cabbage are said to fare very well through a freeze, too. I did check on the cauliflower. We have a LOT of cauliflower that's ready. I learned that if your cauliflower freezes, it gets mushy and is ruined. Not gonna take any chances with the cauliflower. Gotta pick 'em!
Most of the cauliflower are very nice, bigger than the size of your hand. I pick the head of the cauliflower off and feed all the leaves to the cows. How they love that! Cauliflower is one and done. By that, I mean once you harvest the head, no more will grow. Broccoli is a different story. Once you pick the main broccoli head, little broccoli florets pop up all over the place, so you can continue harvesting as long as you have patience to get out there and pick. Pound for pound, you probably get more broccoli from the little florets cumulatively than you do from the main head.
In pulling all the cauliflower off so they're not ruined in the freeze, we got a huge haul. I don't really have anything for perspective, but that's a big basket in the photo below. We'll be busy eating cauliflower and blanching and freezing it.
I like to also pull some beets (bull's blood and chioggia varieties) and carrots (Danvers and Cosmic Purple varieties).
As a kid, I often turned my nose up at vegetables, but no more! We eat lots of them. One of our favorite things to do is roast cauliflower, broccoli, beets, and carrots in the oven with some olive oil, butter, salt and minced garlic. I cannot stress how delicious this is.
Fresh spinach is coming in too, right now in the garden, so Tricia made a beautiful spinach, ham, pecan and cheese quiche. That paired nicely with lettuce from the garden and the roasted vegetables. It made for an enjoyable lunch.
After two days, we'll take the tarps off the garden and see where we stand. Will everything we covered survive? Tune in and we'll report toward the end of the week. Stay warm!
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