Happy Groundhoe Day to one and all. Feb 2 is a big day here in our neck of the woods. Phill saw his shadow again, as he always does, and we will have 6 more weeks of winter. In over 100 years he has only predicted an early spring about 18 times. But today was a beautiful day here in Pa, above 40 and very mild. I went out to my garden and harvested the last of my carrots. I have not grown carrots for many years because they did not do well for me here. Two reasons for that were my compacted soil, and the fact that I do not thin them the way you should. Oh I know, I know, you have to thin them or they won't do well, but I hate to kill a seed that wants to grow in my garden. So I let way too many live. This year I decided to try them again after many years of not growing carrots. They did fairly well because I planted in an area that I had double dug, but I still did not thin as much as they needed. I have been digging them out of the ground for a good while now, we have not bought carrots in low these many months. I have never had anything in my garden that I could harvest over winter, winter here is a dead time for the garden. Maybe a garlic or two peeking up, but nothing else. My old friend Rocco told me that you can let carrots in the ground and they will get sweeter after the frost. So I tried it and he was right, they have wintered over very well and are nice and tender and sweet. So this was my 1st harvest of the year. I have this thread open so that anyone can post info about their 1st harvest of the year. I am sure that many people will be picking tomatos way befor me, but for now harvesting produce on Feb 2nd is a big 1st for me. Maybe I can post some pics tommorrow.
After I dug up the carrots I started double digging my next section. Again this is a very early start for me here in Pa, March is normally when its warm enough to be out digging in the garden. I am doing the section next to my hugalculture experiment so maybe I can see how the end of the logs are doing. I will keep you posted.
PS If you want rocks lolly you had better hurry, I will be down to the rocks in a day or so,