So many vegetables, so little space

Now that the failing concrete wall is gone, and the kitchen is as done as it can get until the weather warms up (the finishing touches involve paint & stain), we have turned our attention to the yard.

A few weeks ago, we took some time to plan out the space -- roughly what will go where & when. We had planned to put in a brick path at the entrance to the yard today, but another rain storm has come in, so that's out. Only one thing to do: plan the vegetable garden!

Now that we have the area along the wall to work with, we can expand from about 20 square feet to about 40. I'm spending the morning looking at seed packets and notes from previous years, trying to remember what did well in various parts of the yard, and researching dwarf lemon trees. First planting on March 4!

In related news, even though I didn't officially plant anything last year, I had some random carrots come up in the carrot box. We ate them every now and then, but mostly we left them for Pickles -- she loves to nibble carrot tops. The other day, I decided to pull one just to see how big it was:

Dog for scale.

It's about six inches long, which is about two inches longer than this variety gets if you pull it in a reasonable timeframe. This thing is so old, it had next to no flavor. It pickled well in the Japanese rice bran fermenting bed (read about that here) that AJ gave me for Christmas, though. And note the well-trimmed top. Good job, Pickles!