This is probably the coldest month this winter, but the garden is pushing through. I definitely didn’t get done everything I wanted to in January, but that’s because I was battling something digging up the garden. It was hard to do much when every time I came home there was a new hole in one of the beds. No clue what happened to the seeds I had there.

It's a new year and a new month. More to plant and a bit more construction are on the list for this month, but first, let's review what I accomplished last month.

I planted brussels sprouts, onions, and greens. I didn't plant carrots because I don't have a bed deep enough, but I'll ignore that for this month. I cleaned out the old plants that didn't survive the first frost (tomatoes, peppers, egg plant), and trimmed back the oregano. I dried the oregano trimmings and put the leaves in a jar for later use. I also cleaned up the garden by pulling out most of the weeds and tilling the unused squares before planting.

I thought Sunday’s update would be my last for the year, but I think I can sneak one last update in before the new year.

Before leaving town Monday, I ran by Producers and picked up some onion sets and seeds for some greens and brussels sprouts. The onions and sprouts should do fine with the cold. The other plants in the garden that are similar to greens did well through the recent freeze, so I’m trying the greens.

It’s the week of Christmas. Here in Texas, we don’t usually expect a white Christmas, and this year is no different. Our first freeze was a couple weeks ago. I took that as an opportunity to clean out of the garden anything that couldn’t survive a really cold night. What was left were the various greens: lettuce, radishes, kohlrabi.

The weather is finally getting cold. It’s been drizzly all afternoon and in the upper 40s. Current forecasts indicate a 40% chance of snow Friday. Looks like I’ll finally need to pull out the last remaining plants from summer.

This is also a good time to put together a list of things I need to get done this month. I won’t have much time to get outside around the new year, so I need to make sure everything’s done and ready for January. I can’t wait until the last minute this time.

Today is the Thanksgiving dinner at Friends UCC, where I sing in the choir. I was out of town for most of last week, so my partner signed us up to bring a side dish. Saturday morning, we stopped in at the farmers market and picked up four pounds of carrots and a bottle of olive oil.

Carrots aren’t that different from parsnips, so I like to try parsnip recipes with carrots. Today, I made maple glazed carrots using a recipe from Joy of Cooking (1997 edition, page 394).

The weather is getting a lot cooler now. My utility bill arrived the other day and it’s under $200 for the first time since the beginning of summer. My garden is liking the cool weather and rain, too. I don’t have a lot growing right now, but what is there seems to be a lot less stressed than it was during the summer.

It’s a little early to start working on the spring planting, but I think this is a good time to look back at what worked, what didn’t work, and what I want to do differently.

We’ve finally had a few weeks of less than scorching temperatures. Almost nothing in my garden survived August. The beans, squash, radishes, and spinach all withered away eventually. I was out of the state for most of June, so I wasn’t able to give the garden the daily attention it needed. The heat hit while I was gone.

The peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage, kohlrabi, and greens survived, though they didn’t thrive. With the cooler temperatures and intermittent rain, they should get back on their feet and produce something.

I started making my own yogurt a few weeks ago.  I had thought about doing it before, but I figured I’d need an incubator and a lot more time than I could spare.  I also wasn’t sure what to use for starter or what I needed to do regarding sterilization of jars and milk.  Would the yogurt be sour?  Would it be too liquid?  Lots of questions and no answers (though I could have asked Heather over at Simple-Green-Frugal since she’s been making her own yogurt for a year or so).

The heat of summer is coming. We’ve been hitting the the high 80s and even 90 the last week or so. Everything is blossoming though, adding a nice bit of yellow in the morning—-no blossoms have come in yet that aren’t yellow and can still be seen from a distance. The lemon tree’s blossoms are a nice white with some purple coloring. The beans, squash, tomatoes, and lemon tree are all blooming. Even the volunteer prickly pear I’ve been avoiding the last few years when I mow has produced its first blossom.