Harvest Monday, March 23, 2015 – Overwintered Root Crops + Thyme Harvest

Happy Spring!

March, 20, 2015 did not look or feel like the First Day of Spring. Can you believe we had snow? Not an awful lot, about 3 inches.

But spring will arrive, the sun will shine, all the snow will disappear, the grounds will thaw and I will be planting in my garden with harvest to follow in the not too distant future.

Below photo shows the last of my overwintered root crop that were stored in foam ice chests in my unheated garage.

Overwintered Root Crop. Left to right Top: Sunchoke, aka Jerusalem Artichoke (from LGHVG), Lutz Beet, Celeriac. Center: Parsnips, Carrots. Bottom: Purple & Orange Carrots from Transplants

I forgot to take photos of how I stored the root crop in the foam ice chests so you will just have to use your imagination, so sorry.

This is how I prepared the root crops for storage:
∞ Placed about a 1-inch thick layer of pro-mix (sand will work also) in the bottom of a clean foam ice chest
∞ Placed unblemished and unwashed root crop on top of pro-mix and covered all with a layer of pro-mix (some of the mix will settle between the root crops)
∞ Covered ice chest with lid (slightly askew) and placed along outside wall of the garage.
∞ Used throughout the winter as needed.

This is how I cooked the above root crops:

Peeled the sunchoke (Jerusalem Artichoke), celeriac, parsnips and carrots. Cut into bite-sized chunks. Placed on sheet pan with a few crushed garlic cloves (from indoor storage), few sprigs of thyme (from garden). Tossed with olive oil, S&P. Roast in 400º preheated oven until tender, about 40 minutes. Served as a side.

Cut the beet in half lengthwise. Tossed with a bit of olive oil and salt. Wrapped in foil and placed in oven same time as the other root crops. When cooled, peeled and cut into small cubes, tossed with unseasoned rice vinegar, bit of sugar, salt, minced ginger and lemon zest.

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You may remember the thyme photo below from my February 9 post.

Overwintered Thyme

The thyme in the photo below is the same thyme plant as the one in the photo above when a lot of the snow disappeared this past week.

Overwintered Thyme

Harvested a few sprigs of the above thyme to add to the roasted root crop (oops, again no photo, can’t believe my first harvest of the year and I forgot to take photos).

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Overwintered Scallions

The scallions survived the winter. This week, weather permitting, I will clean up the area, carefully remove all the dead scallion parts and new plants should be coming up along the sides of each.

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Overwintered Sage

The sage also survived the harsh winter. After tidying up the area I will prune the plant to keep it under control.

The twig in front is the seed stalk of a cilantro plant that I never got around to take care of last fall. The seeds have fallen to the grounds. As soon as the soil warms up I should see many volunteer cilantro plants appearing. The benefit of a lazy and disorganized gardener.

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The celeriac seeds germinated, took 10 days.

Did more indoor seeding: Radicchio/Chicory, Chard, Kohlrabi and Collard.

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Copyright © by Norma Chang. All Rights Reserved. Do not use/repost any photos and/or articles without permission.

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