The Vegetable Challenge in winter

Our Thanksgiving meal was lovely and included lots of homegrown ingredients, including vegetables, eggs and herbs.  We had a nice dinner with friends;  now we're looking forward to Christmas dinner, though just with our four selves.

I'm still picking a few fresh things from the garden and allotment; this last week I've picked lettuce, cauliflower (I thought I'd already got them all), turnips and Chinese cabbage.  I still have fresh leeks in the fridge and squash in my living room, plus various bags in the freezer--and quite a lot of jars in my fridge and pantry:  dried, fermented, pickled.  The Vegetable Challenge has another seven or so weeks to run, and I'm fairly confident about achieving it this time.  I'm even confident about extending it beyond its finish date of 21st January.

Because of my garden and allotment plan this year, there's been plenty of variety and meals haven't got monotonous, at least not yet.  Eating with the season has been interesting and tasty I think.  I liked eating salads every day in summer and I've appreciated starting on the preserved veg at the start of winter:  pickled cucumbers and beets recently.  I've been trying to get through jars to make room in my fridge!  To that end, the last of the early summer sauerkraut has been cooked into most of my stews, and I'm alternating my breakfast kimchi with mixed veg salsa (which also pairs very well with eggs, regardless of having a very different flavor).

And after looking forward to it all year long, it's nice to start finally eating the first parsnips.  I don't have a lot this time, but next spring I'll try to get a full bed instead of just a few rows.  A nice treat in winter.  And I still have a small bed of pak choi awaiting me:  the anticipation is almost better than the eating.

First frost and jobs before Thanksgiving

First snow from the patio door, Nov 2025

Like last November, we got both our first frost and snow this past week, though the snow thankfully didn't last long (a few hours).  A few days later I went out and dug up my two dahlias and trimmed off their frost-blackened stems;  the same day I also went to get the runner bean tubers (seen to the left next to the wooden fence in the photo above) but as I approached with a shovel, my two ducks refused to leave their "tent."  Every day they've been sleeping under these leaves, in the shelter of the bamboo canes supporting the vines.  I could have booted them out but they looked so happy under there I didn't have the heart to disturb them:  I'll try again soon.

It's been a mix of frost and rain since, and not good weather for gardening.  I made it to the allotment one more time, this time to pick a couple of bolting Chinese cabbages.  We've been enjoying it like pak choi, which it resembles in taste and texture (I still don't know if this variety is meant to form heads or just a bunch of loose leaves like it is now).  I made a small jar of kimchi with it too.

In addition, I had to go out and pull all the remaining Lyon leeks from my kitchen garden, which had flopped over in the cold.  I was only going to pick my usual one a day, but when I touched it I realized it had gone a little mushy--I checked the others and most were in the same condition.  So I spent a cold muddy hour getting them all dug up and washed before going in to work;  the next morning I trimmed and froze most of the long green leaves, putting the white stalks in a few bags in my fridge.  I expect I'll still get a month's worth of meals of these stalks before moving on to my cold tolerant Musselbrugh leeks still growing at the allotment.  Recall that I have no more onions and per the terms of my Vegetable Challenge, while I'm allowed, I'm trying not to buy them;  leeks are my onion substitute for now.

It's Thanksgiving this week!  Our family is American as well as British and it's the favo(u)rite holiday of at least one of us.  As usual, the husband has the day off to do the bulk of the cooking;  we are having three additional guests (an adult and two big teenagers)--and we are in the midst of the Vegetable Challenge!  The pumpkin (squash) has been cooked and pureed for pie, the mashed new potatoes only need thawing and reheating (I strategically froze them back in summer, just for this meal), the other vegetable dish is to be confirmed but there is plenty of choice in the freezer, and still some standing veg in the garden and allotment too.

Cold coming

I'm waiting on a frost before attempting any parsnips from the small bed in my kitchen garden;  I sowed them interspersed with carrots which have been a bit small.  Will my parsnips be any bigger?  I may find out this week as it's forecast to freeze soon.  Although I've had some good parsnips in the past, they've not been very reliable for me;  maybe I need to sow them in bulk rather than just a few small rows.  I think interplanting/sowing with another crop (like carrots) is probably the best way in my garden, in case the parsnips do fail.

Because of the forecast, I also went and picked the very last (mostly green) cherry tomatoes at the front of my allotment:  that's it for fresh toms this year, though I have bags and bags in the freezer.  While I was at it, I picked every achocha bigger than a marble.  These don't survive a frost either, though they self seed readily every year so obviously the seeds don't mind it.  I haven't planted these on purpose for years, and I've never even planted them at the allotment!  They must have got there from seeds in the scraps for the compost.

I've read that leeks are better after a frost, which may be true;  I usually don't pick them until late winter/early spring.  This is the first time I've begun picking in autumn and to be honest, I can't tell a difference.  Maybe I'll be able to decide this coming week, if it does frost.  I still have around twenty more of the early leeks before I start on the later season ones--I would guess I'll probably get to those in about a month from now.  

One more job after a frost:  lift my dahlia tubers for winter, something I promised myself I would do this time.  Last year I had three plants and one didn't make it over winter;  I don't want to lose the other two.  I may try to lift my runner bean tubers too, something I've never tried.  I'm not committed to runner beans and don't care to take the trouble to grow them from seed next year (they've not been very prolific), but keeping existing plants is a reasonable amount of work I'm prepared to do.

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Small note about the Vegetable Challenge:  the husband (in charge of shopping) came home with some mushrooms from the store.  He defended his decision (they aren't vegetables, they're fungi!), and though perhaps doesn't break the letter of the Challenge I have noted it here.  The Challenge is still on:  no vegetables have been bought.  But I have requested than no fungi are bought from now on either.

Burning, sheet mulch, more preserving

The daughter and I went up last week to burn a barrel's worth of old pallet wood and artichoke stalks;  however it turned out to be so windy that afternoon that I burned the wood only--flames and sparks were flying and it was a bit scary.  The daughter (age 5) thought it was great;  I ran for the hose, just in case.  Luckily it's been raining fairly regularly and the ground was thoroughly wet.  And because it was windy, the fire burned fast and clean:  hardly any smoke and the full barrel was down to the last few embers in less than two hours.  I'm not sure if I'll try to burn the stalks another time (still some more old wood too) or if I'll bring them home bit by bit to burn in our wood stove.

Sheet mulching has commenced at the allotment, using some large pieces of cardboard I'd collected over the summer;  now there's space in my garage again!  I will start collecting smaller pieces and keep going over winter:  the couch grass grows over summer, I sheet mulch it over winter in order to plant in spring, then the grass grows, etc.  I can't eradicate the grass.  I also can't grow in the grass.  But I can knock it back long enough to get a harvest before it grows again.

I picked the last few cauliflowers this weekend, though I have about half a dozen plants without heads which may overwinter and produce in spring.  Actually I was expecting them all to do that but I guess I started a little too early.  I also made another batch of mixed vegetable sauerkraut, after tasting last week's mixed veg salsa (also fermented and so good!);  with the new batch I cut everything into matchsticks:  turnip, beet, fennel, chard stems, plus some of my earlier fermented spicy garlic stems.  

Speaking of fermenting, I'm down to my last jar of kimchi, made in July.  I eat it pretty much every day, usually with my eggs and bacon at breakfast.  I was a little concerned about running out!  However, I recently made a batch of kohlrabi water kimchi, something I did last summer too, and to fill out the 1.8 L container I also sliced up some (you guessed it) fennel.  I had so much fennel to use up and now it's gone till next year.  There are a couple small rows of both pak choi and Chinese cabbage, intended for kimchi soon.  In fact I was going to cut the pak choi this weekend but the kohlrabi will act as a stopgap:  I've got a reprieve for at least two more weeks.

Tackling the artichokes and making the most of green tomatoes

It was half term week off school and since I work at a school (in the kitchen) I had it off with the kids.  The husband was able to take the week off from his work too, so we had a rare week off all together.  What did we do?  Very little gardening!  

But on a sunny Sunday morning, our last day off together, we all spent two hours doing some work at the allotment.  The first job was digging out artichokes and moving some of them to the back of the plot.  The rest got cut down to the ground and we dragged a piece of carpet and another piece of rubber sheeting to cover over them (both pieces had been smothering weeds at the back where we moved the artichokes to).  Then a lot of wood chips to cover the now bare soil at the back, and my collection of pots and planters filled with overwintering onions on top of the carpet and sheeting.

I will probably have to leave that carpet and sheeting in place all of next growing season, to make sure it kills off what's left of the artichokes--they are very vigorous and we had so much plant matter to clear away first.  I prepared a tall stack of old woody stems to make a bonfire later.

On the same day I cleared away the remaining plum tomato plants and collected the fruits:  about eight pounds of mainly green ones.  We put down some large cardboard sheets over their bed (right in front of the old artichoke bed) for later sheet mulch.  We'd already done a lot of physical work and couldn't face digging out more mulch to pile on top:  soon.

In addition to the tomatoes, I also brought home another five cauliflowers, the last few bolting fennel bulbs and a pile of achocha.  Oh and a container of wood chips from the pile on site to pour into our chicken yard (I'm trying to collect some at least once a week to soak up the mud).  Once home, I started washing and weighing my veg and spent another hour making 6.6 L of green salsa, to ferment.  Although it's mostly tomatoes, I also put in most of the fennel, half of the cauliflowers and all of the achocha:  all chopped into a chunky paste.  Plus a good amount of salt, a handful of minced garlic and 10 small red chilies from a pot on my patio.  

That's pretty much it for my allotment jobs until spring.  Well, other than routine sheet mulching of bare beds and harvesting winter crops.  Maybe about half of the veg beds are still in production.  At home, none of my beds are clear yet, though I'm more than halfway through my early leeks (the late leeks are at the allotment).  Autumn is winding down and so am I.

Another glut of vegetables

I thought I was back to a slow and steady harvest of vegetables at the allotment, but it turns out I was wrong.  Last week I noticed some of my fennel bulbs were starting to bolt, so I pulled most of the bed--around 35 bulbs.  I started a 1.8 L jar to ferment with some garlic and fresh dill heads, but as I've never tried it before I didn't want to go overboard in case it turns out bad (I've done some experimental ferments which have been awful!);  I crammed the rest into the fridge to cook from fresh.  Fennel is nice roasted or added to stews;  the leafy tops also make a tasty tea which I sometimes drink in the evenings (no caffeine).

Another emergency harvest:  my second sowing of kohlrabi.  The spring sowing of kohlrabi made way for the fennel transplants, back in early August;  some of this first harvest went into kimchi and we gradually ate the rest, mainly grated into slaws and salads (just finished the last bulb out of the fridge at the weekend).  There were far fewer plants from the second sowing and I wasn't too confident about them, considering how spindly they were when transplanted out.  Suprisingly, they'd filled out nicely;  rather than let the slugs eat them hollow (they'd made a start), I pulled the remaining ten.  

And speaking of slugs, after a very dry and slug-lite summer, they were happily munching on some of my autumn cauliflowers last week:  about half of these have come home with me, after luckily noticing the damage in time.  I froze the heads, and the nicest outer leaves were dehydrated for winter stews.  I will keep a very close watch on the rest of the heads and pick at the first sign of danger.

At the same time, I checked on my turnip and winter radish bed under its net and found three big purple topped turnips;  these came home for the same reason as the kohlrabi:  I want to eat them before the slugs do (the radishes however don't look promising).  These turnips and most of the kohlrabi got sliced into matchsticks on my mandoline to make sauerkraut;  I added some freshly cooked beetroot too, filling a 3.3 L jar with the whole concoction.  And we ate the turnip and beetroot greens for good measure:  delicious. 

I was positive I'd picked the last of the squashes, but found two more this last week:  one green, one orange.  I can understand missing a green one:  it's the same color as the leaves, but the orange?  That makes 17 squashes altogether, though most of them are medium/small sized;  there are three big orange ones, though none as big as last year's monster.  All mature squashes are on mats either on the floor or windowsill in my living room, for winter eating;  so far we have eaten two that were too immature for long term storage.

Writing a plan and following it

I wrote a growing plan in 2024, to optimize my vegetable harvest;  it was a fairly simple one, with a list of what I wanted my main crops to be (and for the production crops, how many of them), with the following columns:  

Allotment Production crops Broad beans: 150 Snap peas: 350 Squash: 40 Tomatoes: 20 Beets: 150 Corn: 50 Climbing beans: 100	Garden Priority crops Kohlrabi Cabbage Salad cucumber Purple sprouting broccoli Strawberries Cauliflower Parsnips Lettuce Zucchini
Successional/Late Season Pak choi Fennel Chicory Kale Radish Turnip Lettuce	Pots and Planters Chilis Cherry tomatoes Pickling cucumbers Aubergine

I followed this plan pretty closely:  while my numbers weren't exactly on--I think only 20 squash plants survived that year for instance--it really bumped up my overall harvest, making 2024 a record year for me.  I referred to this plan while buying seeds and ticked items off the list as I planted them out.  A few things got crossed off the list for failing to grow;  these were replaced with something from the Successional/Late Season column.

In 2025, I expanded on this plan, doubling the number of both the Allotment Production and Successional/Late Season crops.  Some of these had simply been in different columns in the 2024 plan but many were newly added, such as Brussels sprouts, potatoes, onions, carrots and Chinese cabbage.

Writing a plan (in my own personal notes until now) kept me on track and I believe has made a big difference in my total output.  The newest plan (not shown) was so ambitious this year that I don't plan on expanding it at all for 2026:  it was a lot of work--maybe too much.  However, I while I won't add to it, I also probably won't subtract anything either:  I'll try to follow the same plan as it stands, with minor adjustments, focused mainly on the placement of plants (i.e. from one column to another).  If I add a vegetable, it will replace a different one--for example I won't be growing runner beans in 2026, but climbing beans instead.

I'm still harvesting and documenting for this year so I don't have any conclusive data on whether I'm on track to beat 2024's totals--but I suspect so!  I won't find out if all that work I did paid off, until I add them all up in January.