Rutabaga I had to research as never heard of it, turnip I know and enjoy. This really is something different to cook and consume, it sounds and looks healthy.
You did well with your small garden being able to keep much for the winter months, well worthwhile growing your own.
I'm surprised at how much I have stored from this little patch of ground. Not enough to feed myself fully (wish I could have chickens), but a good half of my fruits and veggies come to me from right outside my back door.
Poultry can be quite a handful looking after, we had chickens and duck as children, family had to do certain chores keeping clean and fed, was not in great numbers either more about being suburban.
I had chickens for quite a few years in my last home. The best thing about chickens is their poo. I had quite the fertile ground in that place. Here, I have to work hard to get fertility going.
Chickens for fertilizer - and for pest contol!
They eat bugs!
Our earthworms, I'm told, are not native to North America, but we now rely on them to aerate soil in every state on the continent.
New, now: a lookalike worm, NOT the earthworm, which is destroying forests.
Asian jumping worms: a threat to gardens and woodlands (has good close-up photos) | Ohio State University, 2020
Invasive jumping worms consume large amounts of organic matter and change surface soil composition. They make the soil more gravelly in structure, drier, more prone to erosion, and less favorable to normal soil microorganisms (fungi, bacteria), and plant growth. The worm castings (feces) sit on top of the soil, leaving nutrients out of reach of plant roots and increasing the risk of nutrient runoff.
Any organism that relies on the normal composition of a natural forest floor for food and/or habitat will be disrupted by invasive jumping worms. This includes native plants, insects, birds, and other animals. A forest floor depleted of its normal mulch layer is less hospitable for seed germination and native plant establishment.
In a home garden, soil disruption from jumping worms can diminish the growth of annuals, perennials, and turfgrass.
Bring on the chickens! Let them eat worms!
There was acid rain. then gypsy moths. loosestrife. Bad weather. Now lanternflies, worms, and knotweed. Always something in nature we should be battling, and never in the entities that insist we do battle. Usually government supported in some way, so we do battle with ourselves. Nifty little trick called slavery. Question everything! It's much more interesting than unthinking belief.
We had chickens when young, poo cleared added to compost heap then turned for the fruit trees and veg gardens no waste.
Young farmer of chickens, we met through friends. Turned poo into full time business, he was a millionaire within a couple of years, something not done here in 1970s large scale.