January 12, 2015
I am combining Harvest Monday with my monthly garden update this week. It is AMAZING to see how the garden has changed in the last two months!
Beginning of November
Beginning of December
Beginning of January
Wow. In the course of two months, the bushes and trees went from green, to red, to nothing! I never realized how quickly that happened before documenting it in pictures.
We dipped into the teens multiple nights this week and never got out of the 30s many days. So I went ahead and harvested a bunch of veggies — better safe than sorry! The garden is still covered. I am hoping the kale and broccoli plants will survive the cold and will bounce back. We will see.
Celery (from store cuttings) Used them juicing and in soup.
Cabbage (softball size but again, better safe than sorry! And they made enough coleslaw for three nights!)
Kale (salad) 
Lettuce (salad) 
I remembered to take a picture one night as an example of how we ate from the garden this week:
This is my 2yo’s plate. Sloppy joe (marinara sauce from our tomatoes & wild onions), coleslaw (our cabbage), roasted sweet potatoes (ours), steamed green beans (ours). Bread is homemade from freshly milled flour.
All-in-all I spent money on pinto beans, chickpeas, carrots, mayonnaise, mustard, some spices, honey and olive oil (bread). (I buy dry beans, soak, cook, and freeze them in 15oz bags) I may have spent 50c on the whole meal (no more than 10 cents/child, including seconds). Tell me eating healthy is more expensive! Pbsh!
Most of our grocery money these days is going into buying fruit! Fruit is costing us so much, I have fruit on the brain. I ordered extra watermelon and cantaloupe seeds for next summer. I ordered ground cherries. And this past week I ordered two sweet cherry trees and two fig trees. I wanted to order concord grapes as well but the order was getting pretty expensive so I guess I’ll have to wait until next year for those.
My hope is that soon, I will not have to buy any fruit during the spring, summer, or fall and maybe we can dry some fruit so we will not have to buy very much during the winter months either.
Right now, we freeze strawberries and blueberries for use during the winter. We went strawberry picking last May and we are still eating raw strawberry jam. We eat our blueberries in cereal and oatmeal.
Are you harvesting? Are you still eating from your stores? Whether it is your goal to eat only from your land one day, eat only in season, or you just like looking at others’ gardens, check out Daphne’s Dandelions this Harvest Monday 🙂
Gardening Without... 
Lovely harvests especially for this time of the year. I’ve been envying though that actually have harvests right now. I miss the fresh produce.
Great harvest for this time of the year!! That Kale should be able to handle the cold no problem. We live in a 5b garden and area able to keep kale all winter. The broccoli might not make it though.