The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Roast roots and frost preparation

Mixture of root vegetables to be roasted.The frost kindly waited until our return to threaten --- frost by the end of the weekend.  Most major frost preparations are long since complete, but I picked the last of the everbearing red raspberries and Mexican sour gherkins, took in a bowlful of green tommy-toe tomatoes, and picked the last big bowl of shiitakes.

Meanwhile, our first day home glowered coldly at us, so I decided to make some roast roots to warm up the house and our dispositions.  The
Carrot cell showing chromoplastsparsnip I dug clearly wasn't quite ready yet, so I filled up our roasting pan with masses of carrots, tiny sweet potatoes that need to be eaten ASAP, and white potatoes, shiitakes, onions, garlic, thyme, and parsley, all from the garden.  Toss on a storebought chicken, and our dinner was nearly as good as the ones on our cruise.

The second photo is a closeup of a carrot cell, showing the chromoplasts that give the root its color.  More on the fancy, digital microscope the photo was taken with later.

Check out our homemade chicken waterer, now shipping to Australia!


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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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wow
What a beautiful picture. I dreamed of parsnips last night. I have been very visionary.
Comment by Maggie Sat Oct 17 10:21:58 2009
Thanks! Clearly your dreams are tied to my stomach. :-)
Comment by anna Sat Oct 17 11:15:41 2009





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