Gardens Don't Keep

Gardens wait for no man.  It doesn't much matter that I'm tired of gardening and want to be sewing :)  The last of the vegetables are ready to be harvested, so everything is grinding to a halt and food is rolling into the house in record quantities!  We are digging 50-60 pounds of carrots each day ~ it seems we've hardly made a dent!  The rows just don't stop. We top the carrots in the garden, hose the major dirt off outside, scrub and rinse in the kitchen sink, sort and bag, then pop the bags into the basement fridge.  I've got room for another day's harvest in there but the rest will have to go into sand in the garage for the winter.  I hear it's an effective method to keep them all winter but time will tell that story.

 The last of the tomatoes were pulled from their tired vines today and hauled inside.  Such color and tangy, sweet taste.  Tiger Stripe and Taxi Yellow were the last ones standing this year.

The last of the onions (approximately 50lbs) are basking in the sunshine under the eaves on the sunny side of the house to cure for a few days before they join the 40lbs already stored.  I've been saving mesh bags to hold them and they are working well to suspend the onions in the cool dark corner of the garage.

We haven't even touched the potatoes yet, and frankly, I'm a little scared to!  We must have at least 500lbs of potatoes to unearth.  What an incredible and fortunate "problem" to have - so much food!  We've shared quite a lot of veggies already and I suspect that we will have an abundance to share once again...

What to do with all those gorgeous root veggies that we are harvesting?  A splash of locally grown, organic cold pressed canola oil from Mighty Trio Organics a sprinkle of seasoning and a slow roast yields the MOST incredible flavour...

I pull the pan out half way through roasting to turn and thoroughly mix the veggies for even cooking and to re-distribute the oil and juices from the bottom of the pan.

Carrots, potatoes, onions and beets all just dug from our warm soil...  absolutely fresh, 100% organic simple fall food at it's best.  Fancy, no - but delicious, YES!