late November vegetables

November greens have been a high point of an otherwise quiet gardening period, distracted by dog-sitting and coursework.

The Hakurei turnips continue to amaze me. Even unthinned, they've been remarkably productive (and tasty!)

Without a hard frost, the arugula has continued to flourish -- it's remarkably tasty as a cooked green, which tones down the heat-induced bite of the raw leaves, especially the larger ones.

I've been waiting to harvest much of the kale, since it's one of the cold-hardiest greens, and supposedly tastes better, too, after being subjected to cold weather. 

But probably equally important, it's also really attractive next to the parsley, leeks, and chard!

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Hakurei turnips

LW harvesting turnips

I've been ridiculously pleased with the turnips in my raised beds in the mountains.

I'm not sure exactly when I sowed the seeds (my search for blog posts about turnips resulted in this array of disparate thoughts about turnips and other greens), but it was sometime in late summer.

There were at least five (maybe six) weeks that I didn't get back to the mountains at all this fall, between traveling and tending to Woody.

But I've been recently harvesting turnips, for sure.  Amazing.  I didn't do anything for almost six weeks and have harvested huge amounts of Hakurei turnips (Japanese white turnips) and their greens.

Here was a (final) small bunch harvested today from one of the beds (I transplanted Tuscan kale into all of empty spots and am hoping for rain overnight and tomorrow to keep the plants well-hydrated!)  And I still have another block of turnips to harvest, too.  Not thinned, so the turnip roots are modestly-sized, but the tops are lovely.

Turnips are ridiculously easy to grow

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