Carrots and Cold

Well the wintery mornings have already begun here in Michigan. This morning was a frigid 24 degrees Fahrenheit and there's no way I was going to brave the out-of-doors before the sun peaked over the horizon. The biggest thing on my mind right now is a cup of tea, and our kettle is broken! It leaks terribly, but of course that's an excellent excuse to get a new one and we've had our eyes on a couple of colored enamel kettles so it's not all bad; it just means I can't have a cup of tea this morning.
This week I picked the final carrots for the year, all of which were itty bitty baby carrots successfully grown in my experimental raised cardboard box beds, and they were the sweetest carrots I've ever eaten. I glazed them with balsamic and though there were only a few of them they were like delicate little candies. Mmm...
There are only a few things left in the garden to harvest this year, which is kind of depressing but at the same time it leaves me with a lot of clean slate to be excited about for next year. I've got leeks and parsnips left, as well as some spinach, peas, winter radish and brocolli growing under cover. Unfortunately I think I have failed yet again at growing brocolli. I've never had a lot of luck with it. This time I managed to dodge the cabbage loopers but for some reason it has refused to produce buds and thus I am left with adorable clusters of brocolli leaves and that's it. Boo.
The parsnips seem to have grown well in the cardboard boxes I had planted them in. They're are nearly all straight and plump, though a couple of them are split and look like they have legs. It was my first time growing parsnips and I'll definitely do it again. They are a long season crop so I'll have to find somewhere out of the way and rabbit-proof to stick them next year. They took up space I could've used for things more pressing this year.

My final photo is a quick shot of our Collie/GSD, Basil, enjoying the evening sun in front of the newly pounded fence posts. Other than evening out the heights of the posts, we're ready to put up the woven wire so assuming the weather remains in reasonable temperatures this week I'll be doing that.