Heading down the road for Christmas family dinner soon... and thinking how happy I am to also be part of this much bigger ATP family!

Had a pileated woodpecker on our bird feeder a couple of days ago... not the greatest photo, but not bad considering I just grabbed our Sony Cybershot and took the photo through the slightly-open front door. I wish my DSLR had been more accessible at the moment...

@farmerdill Your winter garden is impressive!
I mostly let my raised beds rest over the winter, lasagna-ed with chicken poo, leaves and newspapers. In one small section I'm growing rutabagas, which I harvested for both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Excellent flavor! And in pots on the deck are parsley and swiss chard; the chard is not very big yet but it's coming. My philosophy about winter gardening is that it when we get early spring weather in February I'll be able to harvest. This year in late summer I'm thinking of planting some sprouting broccoli. Anyone have experience with that?

Amazing to hear about planting or harvesting during December. But come July I will be happier here in the 65-70F weather.

I have grown sprouting broccoli, mostly purple, but did try green sprouting once. It is a good winter crop, seems a little more hardy than regular broccoli. I grew it in zone 6, where I could not grow winter broccoli. Here regular broccoli does well in December January, so the sprouting varieties are not in my opinion worth the trouble. You do get a ton of 1-2 inch sprouts tho.

Our temp is supposed to go down to the single digits tonight, so thought I'd better see what I could harvest from the unheated hoophouse today...

got a bag full of a couple of kinds of lettuce, some spinach, chard and mache, scallions, 3 tiny turnips, and 4 little heads of broccoli. Although the broccoli plants had been started a bit earlier and transplanted, and the scallions were planted from onion sets, everything else was planted from seed on Sept. 3rd... I obviously need to start a lot of things earlier, the cabbage has done nothing, and the kohlrabi doesn't have even a hit of a bulb at this point. But this year was fully expected to be a learning experience, so it's all good. Still to learn: whether the garlic that I planted inside the HH will do significantly better than that out in the garden. If so, I may devote more space in the HH to garlic next year. Also may think about growing the leafy greens - and possible some other things - in containers in the greenhouse, as today it was MUCH warmer in there than in the HH, and the chard that I had in there, in a flower box and covered with a couple of layers of Reemay, looked a lot better than the chard planted in the ground in the HH. I'm pretty happy to have plenty for a few salads, though -- not too often I've been able to say I was still harvesting garden stuff for a New Year's Eve dinner!

New Years dinner on the move. Have to use cowpeas from the freezer tho.

Farmerdill, are those collards? As a northerner, I'm guessing at that... but I think the traditional "Hoppin John" has cowpeas and collards, right? And, I have some collard seeds to try growing this spring and didn't quite realize that they get that large

yep. Yellow cabbage collards. Tradtional New Years meal for us old time southerners are collards boiled with smoked hog jowl and served with cowpeas. (blackeyes, Pinkeyes, or Crowders) and cornbread). Can't give them away to the young folks tho. Hoppin John is not in my repertoire and seems popular only in limited regions. It is made with Blackeyed peas, rice, ham hock and various seasonings depending on region. Usually a spicy dish.

Well -- the "spicy" part sounds really good !

I was inspired by the comments about Hoppin John so I got a ham hock out of the freezer and made some. I had downloaded the recipe and now realize that I should cut the bean quantity in half (1/2 # rather than 1#) but other than that it was yummy. I chose to eat it spooned over corn bread rather than with rice. The rice/bean mixture is surely healthier than the cornbread but max nix. Really good on a cold winter night.

I know this thread will be awhile before it gets much action but we went to the farm after being gone for almost two weeks and this is what I found:

What a fine harvest, Arlene.

Looks good to me!

Great time of the year to be in the south. Pretty radishes, all my summer radishes are gone. Expect some damage to other brassicas late week with temps dropping into the teens. Have to pick the last of the cauliflower and the heading broccoli. should not hurt the rutabagas and winter radishes.

Radishes are mild too! I was surprised any of the broccoli made it. I have a couple of cabbages about ready but I covered with floating row since it's supposed to go down to about 19 later this week. Now, if the cover stays put, I may be able to salvage the cabbage. My fava beans look wonderful but I don't think they can take that cold either. We'll see.

Wish you northern folk would keep those polar air masses home. Have to pick broccili, cauliflower and NAPA before the temps drops into the middle teens. Plants will stand it but harvestable heads won't.

It all looks good.

So jealous! It looks wonderful and I agree about the polar air masses!

Farmerdill, that's a beautiful harvest ! As far as the polar cold goes -- if I could keep it here I would, even though I don't exactly like it, either; but all of you southerners getting it now is kind of equivalent to us getting a freeze in July or something... which also, unfortunately, is not unheard of Nature can be cruel !