One goal reached. It's amazing really

One goal of ours was to be self-sufficient food wise.  It's amazing how much humans have lost in ability.  So we can type, fix a machine, and wire a radio-yippideedoo, but can we feed ourselves for a whole year?  Spring is coming, and I can't WAIT for the lettuce to be edible. (Marcus practically goes out to the greenhouse everyday with dressing in hand)

  But I am eating a glorious supper made from homegrown beef, the last of the home grown carrots from last year-

 and more homegrown potatoes from last year-

tender ribeye, honey sweetened carrots, and potato soup.

 Oh, and baked mincemeat cookies, with added chocolate chips-everything tastes better with chocolate. (all ingredients for these were bought in the store.)

Such an amazing feeling of accomplishment.  Wonderful to do!  We used the last of the peaches months ago.  We have plenty of tomatoes left over, but we'll still grow some this year.  And we will NOT be growing green beans this year.  We have waaaaay too many beans from last year canned still.  This is just so cool to me.

What I've learned-the Red Pontiac potatoes have proven better in quality, quantity in harvesting, growth rate, and storage life compared to the Kennebec potatoes that are supposed to be long lived in storage but aren't.  We will use the new storm cellar that should be here in another month as a root cellar next year.  I can then tell you if it works better than this year's...experiment.  So far, storing roots in the fridge outside turned to it's lowest setting has proven effective.  Be sure to keep the dirt on, and keep the carrots in a closed container.  The potatoes were kept open in cardboard boxes.  The smallest ones went bad first, and the reds have lasted far longer than the yellows.  The white onions actually outlived the red onions, even though we researched it to be the opposite, and did fairly well too.  We also had heard that you can keep roots in the ground until the first freeze or all winter even.  This did not work for us.  The onions rotted, and the potatoes almost did.  I'll be sure to update what happens using a root cellar next year.