One of our neighbors stopped by the other day and asked if she could have my garden greens because they were “going to waste.”  Au contraire!  They are overwintering, and we have been eating from the garden pretty regularly even though it’s late November.  In fact, the only plants actually killed by the cold so far have been the peas this weekend.  They went down still in flower, even!

Harvested the past couple of weeks: collard greens, chantenay and little finger carrots, purple top turnips + their greens, arugula, lettuce, mesclun mix, beets + their greens, radishes, Asian greens, parsley, and two types of kale.  Crazy!  I think I like the winter garden even more than the spring.  My carrots in particular germinated like champs even though I had endless trouble with them the rest of the year.  The only pest problem was cabbage white butterflies.  Their caterpillars made swiss cheese out of my collards.  Nobody noticed once they were shredded and cooked up though (although it was pretty gross when a boiled caterpillar floated up in the blanching water).  It is definitely true that the garden is pretty much holding in place, though: Swiss chard I harvested in October has not grown back much at all, when earlier in the year it was hard to keep up with it.

A couple mistakes to fix next year: plant the brussels sprouts earlier (the plants made it about 6 inches and then stopped.  Hopefully they’ll resume in the spring), and don’t plant turnips.  I have never bought a turnip in my life and I can’t say they are my new favorite thing.  I made mashed turnips the other day, and we ended up cutting it with mashed potatoes to mask the flavor.  The greens are ok, but they’re not my favorite.  I also should have been more ruthless in thinning the big plants, like collards and broccoli.

We’ve also been eating some of my stored winter squashes.  A delicata was sliced into rings and roasted with a little brown sugar and red pepper.  This monster blue Hubbard got roasted, mashed with a little butter and spices, and layered with apple slices for Thanksgiving dinner.

We’ve broken into the canned goods too.  We already dispatched one whole jar of strawberry/raspberry jam, plus an entire jar of bread and butter pickles, and most of a jar of salsa.  The tomato jam turned out pretty interesting, though I think I’ll try a different recipe next time.  I also used a jar of tomatoes for pasta sauce the other day.  Now that the summer rush is over, all the canning books no longer have giant waiting lists at the library, so I’ve been looking for possible winter recipes (pickled beets are on the agenda for sure).  And good thing, because my mom got me a set of beautiful Weck jars for my birthday.  :)