Wow I wrote the post about harvesting today and I totally forgot one of my big harvests. So this is just an addendum to my last post. I harvested the komatsuna that was again trying to take over the world. Above you can see the plants cut down in the front. That is my komatsuna. Way too much of it like my chard. I haven't a clue what to do with that much. Right behind the now short plants which used to be the tallest in the bed, is my three Soloist Chinese cabbage. They are struggling for light as they are stuck between the komatsuna and the kohlrabi. They are starting to form heads which is so exciting. In the very back of this photo are two rows of full sized bok choy. What I'll do with those I haven't a clue. I have so much baby bok choy in the other bed. It sure is pretty though. Maybe I'll try to freeze it for the winter. I've never tried to freeze bok choy before. Not sure how it will come out.
While I had the row cover up I looked down to the other end of the bed. These are my two big Michihili Chinese cabbages in the back. There are two of them side by side and they are already trying to push out of the row cover. Under them is the Japanese turnips that are just starting to form. I picked the first four today and had one in my salad at lunch. In the front are my three Early Jersey cabbages. One had issues with a cutworm earlier, but seems to be growing now. I don't know if it will be given the chance to finish. When everything else is harvested I'm planting carrots. It might make it in time. It might not.
I always love how fast the Asian greens grow. I showed this section with the Michihili cabbage off exactly two weeks ago. The leaves were far from touching and you could really see each individual turnip. Now it is just a mass of green fighting for the spots in the light. I gave everything more room this year and yet they still want more. I do tend to crowd my greens a lot when I plant. But I think these ones wish they could have the whole width of the bed. Well I'm not giving it to them. I gave them three feet in the other direction, but they can only have two feet along the width.
Daphne!
ReplyDeleteI would like to thank you for your advice on floating row cover. I did use the product from the Johnny's selected seeds and last weekend, harvested beautiful asian greens (without insects holes) and they tasted great! I'll definitely use this coming fall and next season.
I think the frozen bok choy will come out too mushy for you.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the forgetful club ;)
ReplyDeleteMichihili grows wild, I didn't grow any last year, may try for fall planting later.
You could guess, this is our first Asian green year. Boy do they grow fast! We're having the same problem with komatsuna -what to do with it all! We finally pulled one row of 6 or so plants. That's the end of that bunch. The other row is still producing like mad. We're just gonna freeze what we don't use and put it in whatever through the year.
ReplyDeleteThe asian greens are a welcome first flush of big growth in the garden. Unfortunately, I only planted early dwarf pac choi and they have been done for some time now - so I am completely without regular pac choi. Not sure what I was thinking but oh well!
ReplyDeleteYour plants all look lush and beautiful.
If you have to much stuff why not just give away to some relative or neighbour?
ReplyDeleteI do. I gave some away to four different families.
DeleteI swear I left a comment earlier but I guess it's been sucked into the great vortex. If you find yourself with lots of chinese cabbage/bok choy, try pickling them. I hope your soloist cabbage does well. I planted some for the first time last spring. They started to head up really nicely but then bolted. Boo!! I hope you have better luck!
ReplyDeletewhen I make stirfry, I only use 1/2 of a head of bok choy. I cut up the other 1/2 & freeze it for the next time. do NOT cook, just cut, put the stems in one bag & the greens in another bag (i use sandwich bags & then nestle them in 1 freezer bag). as the stem pieces cook, the water evaporates (don't add sauce until then). the greens wilt & cook fine - just add them at the end as you normally would :)
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