For our Christmas Eve dinner we made a chicken soup with potatoes and carrots. The vegetables were not only our own, but we dug them out of the garden this morning. New to gardening, we are a bit confused about this. How is it possible that potatoes and carrots remain in such a good shape so late in the season? The only thing we can think about is that the earth does not freeze in these parts any longer because of global warming, and frost would surely destroy them. Next season we will thus leave a good portion of these vegetables in the ground. There can hardly be any better way to preserve them all year long. And it is a synch for us to walk down to the garden and dig out exactly as much as we need.