Exciting Cabbage

Gardeners get excited about the silliest things. Today I was ecstatic because I picked my Chinese cabbage. Non gardeners just wouldn't understand the joy of harvesting something you have been watching and babying for months. These do not like growing here. We have too many pests. I've fought off flea beetles, cabbage maggot, cabbage butterflies and slugs. But finally I have my own Chinese cabbage. I envision Chinese and Thai food and lots of oriental salad. Ok some oriental salad, it really isn't that big.

He is a couple of weeks later maturing than the other plants in the bed. His other Asian green friends that were planted at the same time are long gone. Only the mizuna remains there to keep it company. I have two other Chinese cabbage plants that were planted a few weeks later. I don't hold high hopes for them since it is so late in the season and we have been getting some hot weather. I think they will bolt before they head up, but you never know. The one I picked had much of his outer leaves shredded by the slugs. I cut them away until I found the yummy blanched heart. It is not very tightly headed. The weather has just been too hot for it to grow perfectly, but it will do quite well for me.

I had other harvests for the day that weren't quite as exciting. I picked a bowl of snowpeas, a cucumber, a bunching onion (yes just one for my salad, they are only a 1/4 inch wide and I'm thinning them out a bit), one leaf of giant red mustard (yes just one leaf, again for my salad), basil, Thai basil and some more chamomile.