Chilly temps sweetening are the veggies

January has been without all the typical rain we get but this past week we have gotten a good winter cold spell.

The temperatures have been in the low 30s for the past week even with there being gorgeous sunny days. It may have even dipped under freezing on the farm but we don’t have an accurate thermometer in the fields.

For a couple of the days there also has been frost on the ground in the morning. There isn’t much we can do when there is frost and on Friday when we wanted to be harvesting we had to wait until the frost was burned off by the sun before we could begin as if we didn’t it would damage the veggies.

The fall and early winter was on the warmer side so it is nice to be getting a cold spell in January as the veggies need it and more importantly all the tree crops everyone grows need as many chill hours as possible.

One of the benefits of all this cold weather is the winter veggies are loving it. The flavor in them is getting sweeter as the starches are changed into sugars with the cold.

One of the most noticeable veggies that the change in flavor is noticed in is the carrots. The Nantes carrots we grow are already sweet but the cold weather makes them even more incredible and there is not much better than a January carrot.

Last year we ran out of carrots before the new year so we’ve already done better in having them right now and hopefully we don’t have a gap in production but that could happen depending on the weather.

The brassicas have been growing so quickly that so many of them are ready to harvest all at the same time, especially the cauliflower.

It is typical for lots of brassicas to be ready at this time of the year but to have all three plantings of cauliflower being ready to harvest within a few weeks is unusual as we had a decent gap between the plantings.

Stress is not what is causing this to happen as the plants are looking really great and the heads of cauliflower are gorgeous, even if some of them are bigger than our heads. We had a pan of roasted cauliflower on Sunday and the pan was empty at the end of dinner.

In addition to the regular broccoli that is green, we are growing a purple broccoli for the first time. The purple broccoli has purple florets that don’t change color when cooked and the stem is also purple on the outside.

This week we have been on the tractor mowing cover crop and preparing some of the fields for direct seeding including spreading compost on them.

They need to be all prepared for next Monday when we seed carrots, beets, spinach, turnips, arugula and radishes.

On Monday we seeded our second round of tomatoes along with more broccoli. This second batch of tomatoes has all of our varieties of cherry tomatoes in it and more heirlooms than the first one.

The seedlings in the greenhouse are a little chilly but are growing pretty well with all the sunshine we have been getting. Once the sun is out the greenhouse can get pretty toasty in there so we have to open up the vents to keep it at a more ideal temperature.