Saturday, April 14, 2012

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Well no silver bells and cockle shells here. I do have peas however. So far I have about 11 feet of peas up. I want to finish planting the last 5 feet of the row. I decide this year to plant them in stages. I'm hoping the harvest will be more even and last longer. I don't know if it will work or not, but I'll probably plant the last of the peas this weekend.

The allium bed is planted in garlic in the front and four kinds of onions in the back. It is growing pretty well. I'll probably give the onions some fish fertilizer soon. I don't use the stuff often as it smells dreadful, but for good onions, I'm willing.

The kale got chopped down today. It might put out side shoots as time goes on or it might not. It started to bolt. So I chopped off their heads. I'll be blanching and freezing again today.

The Asian greens are struggling. The Fun Jen and tatsoi are doing well. Both have newer seed. I think the seed is too old for the others now. I'll have to replenish the seed on my next order.

The radishes are all coming up. These are all French Breakfast. And yes I know I'll have way too many and they will all get ripe at once. At least they keep well in the fridge.

The carrots are germinating as are the weed seeds in the bed. I'll weed out that clover soon enough.

The rhubarb is jumping up. Well one of them is. If you look in the right lower corner you will see the second rhubarb. It has just a couple of leaves. I don't know why one is growing like crazy and the other is struggling so much.

This is my volunteer lettuce. I had some over winter. This would be that. It is starting to grow. I don't know whether it will make good lettuce or not, but I figured it wouldn't hurt. It might bolt prematurely. I have some lettuce blocks ready to plant but I won't put them in until the heat wave is over.

I haven't shown you the herbs. I have tons of cilanto still and the rest of the herb garden. I also have the spinach that I showed you yesterday and the brassica bed I showed you earlier in the week when I planted it up. I would say the garden is doing well. The heat wave that is going to hit might cause problems. I hope not. It won't last long before the normal cool weather is back. Wednesday is predicted to be normal temps. These swings have got to be hard on the plants.

15 comments:

  1. Hi Daphane--what is the name of the kale that you plant?

    Thanks

    Lisa

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    Replies
    1. I planted a mixed kale packet. A lot of those are Red Russian. The Red Russian is really pretty, but I think I like the other ones for taste better.

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  2. Great!
    I wanted to have so much plants (overwintered) but I just started them.
    It is too late to start peas for me? I like your so much!

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    Replies
    1. No it isn't too late. But get them in now. Usually I find that A three week difference in early spring will be about a week difference in harvest. The early ones are very slow to grow. The later ones catch up a lot.

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  3. Sunny Beach -Peas should be planted by seed outdoors 4 to 6 weeks before last spring frost, when soil temperatures reach 45 degrees F.
    Hope that helps
    Lisa

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  4. Everything looks wonderful. It's neat to see how much farther ahead your veggies are with the protection of the city and ocean. I suspect you aren't getting the 20 degree nights we've had.

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    1. The last freeze we had was the first of April. The peas have seen several freezes since I planted the ones in February.

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  5. everything looks great ... what is the purpose of the "chicken wire" over the lettuce? and will you continue to let the lettuce grow thru the chick wire?

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    Replies
    1. No I won't let it grow through the chicken wire. That is to discourage the birds from eating it. It also keeps the cats off the bed.

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    2. I do the same...not because of the birds...but my cat loves sleeping in the garden (often ON the plants)

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  6. You are sooooo far ahead of me! well, except for the radishes. Mine are larger than yours. I'm glad I'm ahead on something.

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  7. You're peas are a couple weeks ahead of ours. Like you're planning to do, we planted a second run of them with hope that we'll have a longer season, but we didn't give much time between the two planting stages, just a couple of weeks I think.

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  8. Your garden always looks amazing, Daphne!

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  9. The stand of peas look great! They are really getting some size to them. I replanted some of my sugar snap peas to fill in gaps in my long row. I think the gaps were from birds eating the emerging seedlings, so hopefully I can get a few more up before they do that again.

    kind of weird on the rhubarb plant difference. They are close enough that one would generally rule out soil differences etc. But apparently something is different between the two.

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  10. Extraordinary to see what being one zone warmer than here in Maine makes! I'm happy that our asparagus and rhubarb just broke through...

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