Late Fall Garden

This year I expanded my fall garden to include more greens that we enjoyed in the summer (mustard, kale, chard), as well as some new ones to try growing (gai lan and pak choy). I also did some carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and turnip. The last item into my garden was garlic. My fall garden is somewhat limited because it is in a north facing backyard with very little direct sunlight.

The broccoli, cauliflower and gai lan are not faring very well. Maybe when the warm weather returns in the spring the broccoli and cauliflower will give me a nice early harvest. Fingers crossed. I hope whatever ate my gai lan enjoyed it.

Although I am not going out into the backyard frequently enough, I am pleased with how things are going. The kale and chard from the summer are still going strong and we use these whenever we remember to go out before dark. With the early evening in the northern hemisphere in November, I had to go out with a flashlight this past week to get some greens for my pasta sauce.

I planted red mustard in the early fall and it is doing well. I am pleasantly surprised to see that the green mustard that I let go to seed in the summer reseeded on it's own as well. 

The Brussels sprouts are filling out and getting big and round. I harvested some for our Thanksgiving dinner in October but made sure to leave the stalks growing so I can harvest the rest for our Christmas evening dinner with the family. It always makes me proud to have homegrown food for such a special family dinner.

My turnips and pak choy are the surprise hits of the fall garden this year! I shouldn't be amazed, yet I am delighted at the difference fresh pak choy tastes compared to the store bought variety. It tastes perfect sautéed in some oil, garlic and ginger. And oh the turnips! I realize that they aren't to everyone's taste, but they have so much flavour when served garden to table. I was raised with them either boiled or steamed, then mashed with cooked carrots, but I want to try roasting them, as an Instagram friend suggested.

Next year I want to remember to add cabbage to my fall garden.

I regularly post in-process photos of my garden and its results on Pinterest, as crustyroll35.