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A garden dinner in winter

Wes cooked up a very nice dinner with garden harvest storage and some ground venison courtesy of Paula!

Black tepary beans soaking this morning.
The food! Ground venison from Texas with achiote spice I brought back from Colombia a few years ago, corn, black tepary beans from our garden flour tortillas from scratch, and salsa verde from our garden tomatillos.
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Seeds and apple tree on a drizzling morning

Paula came over and we planted many things, as well as doing some trimming and raking.

The semi-dwarf Arkansas Black Apple arrived.
We planted it and pruned it to ensure it will have lower main branches for ease of picking fruit. The hose there burst in the freeze (I didn’t drain it) so we’re using the break to water it.
We trimmed up the garlic (this picture), as well as Salvia greggii and mealy blue sage.
The potato experiment results say don’t plant potatoes when there’s about to be a major freeze. There was a lot of rot and slime.
We put the leftover seed potatoes in that I had saved from two weeks ago.
Four varieties of cabbage for Paula’s fermentation needs and Wes’ occasional soup needs. As soon as they sprout, the best seedlings will get covered with a jar to protect from bunnies. They seem to be tasty for bunnies. We also planted assorted other cool weather things (greens and carrots).
Better than nothing, Briar says, but why don’t we do something fun instead?
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Mystery consumption of coreopsis seedlings

I left the glass jar off the backyard newly transplanted seedlings last night and those two were gone. Genius move there. HOWEVER, in the front yard I also checked on the two new seedlings there. One was fine, the other was GONE and it was under a glass jar too. Earwig? Rolley-polley? We may never know. Paula has kindly and generously agreed to re-donate back one of the many I gave to her as her mortality rate is currently substantially lower. Like all of them are living. Thank you, Paula, for subsidizing my sink population.

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Lunch time front yard raised beds garden check

This front yard cilantro survived while others didn’t. No idea why.  Unless it’s I’m wrong and it’s a parnsip. Mystery.
Walking onions in their usual winter state.
Sad garlic leaves.
Helper puts her face in my face as I lean over to look at plants.
I think the onion sets might make it.
Moss curled parsley might make it.  Backyard ones much happier right now.
Lettuce seems damaged but alive.
Spinach is fine.
Oregano may make it.
Goodbye, sugar snap peas.
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Melting almost complete

I don’t think it froze overnight so the streets are mostly dry except for water flowing along edges.  Shady spots and snow piles are less melted.

The front nook, dog for scale.
The front yard beds, distracted dog for scale.
It looks like everything in the rock garden survived!  Also more of the irises by the mailbox survived, so I guess only some leaves got damaged.
Since we’re back to usual late winter temperature I went ahead and brought out the coreopsis seedlings which I had cold stratified in the fridge. They have been waiting as little seedlings on a damp paper towel for probably a week or more. They are under the glass jars. They are to replace two seedlings I planted last fall that didn’t make it. This row is back to five evenly spaced plants now assuming everything survives.
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Kohlrabi and cabbage in dinner

The chef served a pork and tofu soup this evening with rice.

The soup contained (in no particular order) carrots, garlic, shiitake mushrooms, the round chunky mushrooms whose name I can’t remember, sweet baby bell peppers, Sichuan chile peppers, pork back strap (from Paula), tofu, soy, dashi, kohlrabi slices, cabbage, and kimchi (from Paula too).
Between the chopsticks you can see the green shred of cabbage and the kohlrabi slice. We’d never had kohlrabi before. It sort of just blended in with everything.
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More survival reports

I went out to get the kohlrabi and cabbage for Wes and uncovered some more areas.

The tops of most onions seem frost damaged. Not sure about their bases. We’ll see if they grow back this week or if I need to go get more.
Adjacent snow covered onions seem similar.
The chard is definitely frozen. Will be interesting to see if it comes back from its base or if I need to reseed it. Tucked under it is a ragged little cabbage.
I cut the kohlrabi at the base. Most of the leaves are in good shape, too.
The cabbage (left) and kohlrabi (right), harvested and set on the snow.
The Dutch corn salad greens are as hardy yet tiny as ever. I think from reading recently they don’t get much bigger, so I guess you’d need to plant a lot more than I do?
At the edge of the front nook, these strawberries and mealy blue sage were
Another towel and tub protected area. Strawberries look good and so does the oregano in the upper right corner (at the edge of the snow).
I think the sad little standing cypress has survived!! I put a bit of mulch around it after my last visit to it (when it looked very sad). The other front nook one and both backyard ones are still covered by snow.
By the time I got done outside Wes had trimmed up both the kohlrabi and the cabbage for use this evening.
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The survival report

Well, on the way out to walk the dog, I started lifting up some tubs and towels to let things have sun and see what survived. I’ll go out again later and see about the kohlrabi and one cabbage as the chef wants them for dinner. Any feedback on whether to trim back the damaged perennials (irises, garlic, rosemary) would be appreciated!

The saffron leaves seem intact.
Strawberries with the saffron seem okay too! These were all under a towel and a tub.
The cilantro was under a tub. It died. The leaves of cilantro in the cactus planter also died, but there appeared to be some live bright green at the base. We’ll see if it grows back.
This native plant rosette (I think Gaillardia?) seems fine and i didn’t cover it or its neighbors at all. It had more snow on it during the coldest cold.
The oregano in the herb bed by the plant window looks a little worse for the wear. It had two plastic tubs over it. Some leaves look damaged but some seem maybe okay.
Both the front and backyard faucets and pipes seem to have survived!!! That’s a relief. I opened both slightly for a few minutes, just in case to clear any bits of ice out, but it was all liquid coming out that I could see or hear. Whew!
Front yard strawberries seem overall okay on the northwest side. These had towels and tubs in the center, and just towels around the planter base.
Even the un-toweled leaves seem okay so far.
Other parts of the bed had an aluminum trash can lid and leaves over them. I’m feeling pretty optimistic.
The irises by the mailbox got frozen. Anybody know if I should trim them back or just let them regrow on their own?
Most of the rosemary is now a very dead looking brown-green, but at the base of at least one there is still life (the brighter green branches) so I hope they can all grow back. Presumably insulation from snow helped the base.
Like the irises, the garlic is very unhappy. I hope they too will grow back from their roots.