Kale, Turnips, and Cilantro

I finally got around to pulling up the onions before the storm yesterday. I was hoping for a couple of inches of rain as we sorely need it, but we ended up with just 2/3rds. I think other places have gotten a lot more over the last couple of weeks, but the rain seems to just miss us. The rain left us with a whopping 1.5 inches of rain over the last month which isn't nearly enough. Even though I water, the soil knows it isn't rain.

The onions were in the fall kale bed and I wish they could have been pulled earlier. But I filled in the kale gaps. Hopefully the kale will have time to mature. I now have no little seedlings upstairs under lights.

I noticed the turnips under the fleece row cover were up and up way too thickly. I'm really bad at sowing tiny black seeds evenly. Carrots are easier as you can see them on the ground. Not with turnip seeds. I thinned anywhere between 3"-6" apart (the rows are 6" apart). These aren't the small salad turnips and are best picked at 3". I also thinned to really vigorous seedlings. I'm pushing our season here to plant them so late. Timing is everything in the garden. I try to keep things on schedule, but they can slip for all sorts of reasons. The good news is that they seem to be growing well. No signs of flea beetles at all.

I also got out and sowed some cilantro. I sowed a couple of weeks ago and the plants are yellowed and stressed from the heat and lack of rain. I'd like to do a couple more sowings over the next few weeks. The heat could come back and sort of has to a degree, but if I keep sowing, maybe I'll get a really nice patch of cilantro going. The spring cilantro is setting seed now and I've been picking it off as it dries. Ditto with the dill. The fennel is in bloom, but no ripe seeds yet. I think I need to grow less fennel. I didn't use nearly any of the seed I saved and I'm OK with eating fennel bulbs, but I'm not in love with them.

And in great news - the fall raspberries have just started. These three made it into my morning bowl of oatmeal. Oh raspberries, how I've missed you.

Turnips

This bed has been empty for far too long. I should have planted out the turnips about a week ago. Things don't grow very quickly in the fall as there is too much shade. So I have to start them earlier to get them to size up well first. Then they can grow slowly.

Last year this rotation got mustard seed. I still have plenty of mustard seed left, so I figured I'd grow something else in the same family. My summer attempt to grow turnips failed miserably because of the flea beetle explosion. I've picked some, but not all that many.

So this planting I've covered with Agribon as a row cover. The fleece cloth does a much better job of keeping small insects out than my netting. I hope it works. Agribon is my least favorite row cover. Water tends to bead up and not go through the cloth. It looks ugly. And this is a light version, so it is very fragile. Really there is nothing to recommend it except that it can keep flea beetles out better than any of the others I have.

Three row covers: netting, Agribon, GrowCover

My favorite row cover is plain netting that you buy in a fabric store. It does have a flaw. It is very fragile. So you have to treat it with care and occasionally repair it. I buy it in brown. After a couple of weeks in the sun it fades to green. I laugh at that as when I put it on it goes over the brown soil. In a couple of weeks the green plants are up and like a chameleon it turns green too. I like it as it is the prettiest in the garden and the most see through. The garden feeds my soul as much as my body, but it can't do that if I can't see my plants. A bunch of white tents really doesn't put a smile on my face like the sight of green leaves. But flea beetles have no trouble getting in to a netting row cover. The holes really are fairly large.

I pretty much can't see anything through Agribon, but hopefully my turnips will grow. I'll have to keep peeking under to check. And I'll give the bed extra water for when it doesn't soak in well.

Pulling the Cabbage Bed and Planting Carrots

Cabbages and kale under the row cover

Yesterday morning I noticed that my schedule says to plant my storage carrots on July 10th. Last year I did it on the 6th. You would think I would have plenty of time, but carrots won't size up here if not planted early enough. The neighboring trees and houses will shade the yard a lot in the fall. So I have to get them in early enough to start sizing up before fall hits. I can wait until November to pick them but I can't wait to plant.

But first I had to free up the bed which had kale, cabbages, and a few turnips.

It is good that I've pulled the cabbages as a couple had just started to split. No real damage had been done but there would have been if I waited much longer.

Cabbages always seem so wasteful. You grow all those wonderful leaves, but then you cut them off and just leave the inside leaves.

Well my compost is well fed. Too bad I don't have neighbor with chickens. I'm sure they would have loved those leaves.

I picked two Early Jersey cabbages and three Point One. Each kind had over 5 pounds. So these cabbages aren't huge, but that is a lot of cabbage to be eating. Luckily they keep well.

It turned out that the timing for the kale couldn't have been better either. Some aphids had started to take up residence. There weren't many of them. But as I picked them I tore off the infected parts. I suppose I could wash them off, but that was way too much work. Mostly they came in big clumps on small parts of the leaves. But with the arrival of the aphids, it means I'll have to start checking my broccoli plants. The one problem with growing them year round is that you can't avoid the aphids. So I'll be getting my soap sprayer out soon.

And in the afternoon I finally got the carrot seed planted. I hate planting in the afternoon, I much prefer to do my garden work in the morning. I don't mind sweating with hard work, but when I'm just sitting there in the sun it feels worse for some reason. And it takes a while to seed the whole bed. But it is done. I have one more bed that needs to be transitioned to fall crops. That is the carrot bed that will turn into brassicas. I think that will get done next week sometime as the transplants are almost big enough.

Carrots, Turnips, and Raspberries

Yesterday I cleaned out the last of the kohlrabies and turnips in Bed 8, but I didn't have a chance to reseed it. It is destined to hold my fresh eating carrots for fall - Mokum and Nelson. I like to seed them in rows that are 4" apart. I try to get the seed about an inch apart, but typically it doesn't happen very well. Some are clumped some are farther apart.

Getting carrot seed to germinate however is always an issue. So I cover them with two layers of agribon. It is thick enough to keep the soil moist if I sprinkle it every morning. But thin enough that they don't get squished by the fabric. I'll remove it once they are mostly up. Then I'll put on the row cover to protect from the root fly.

Next up were the turnips. I've done an abysmal job with my successions. So I elected to just sow a whole half of this section of bed. I hope they survive. The last sowing all died fairly quickly.

Raspberries by the patio

And last but not least for my chores today was the raspberries. The June crop was over. So I cut out the old canes and thinned the new ones. It was a good raspberry year so far (I have everbearers, so I'll get more starting in August), but I noticed over the last couple of weeks that the tips of some of the canes were blackening and wilting. So I looked at it and there are two girdles around each cane that had the problem. I've never had cane borers before and had to look up what it was. My instinct to cut it off well below the girdle was correct. I'm not too concerned about it as cutting off the growing tip tends to make the tops more bushy and send out more flowers. I'm more concerned about the leaves. They are a bit silvery looking, not the typical healthy green. I'm just guessing, but I think maybe spider mites. My eyes aren't good enough to see them if they are. I used to have a magnifying glass, but I haven't used it in so long I can't find it now. But if I can confirm it, I ought to do a soap spray. Spider mites aren't usually big pests here. We tend to be too wet, but occasionally they can be problematic.

Problems and Failures

You have to be a pretty optimistic person to garden. Taking a tiny seed and expecting it to become a four pound cabbage takes a lot of faith in mother nature. Every time I plant, I believe in that miracle. I never lose the wonder when it does grow, but sometimes we have failures. They aren't uncommon. Either our own mistakes get us or nature deals the blow. This week I had a some of both. Nothing devastating like the year the earwigs ate all the silks off my corn (only once, and never before or since thank goodness). Or the year the groundhog ate all my winter squash. Ouch. But this week had quite a list of little problems.

Turnips under a good row cover

Turnips seem to be getting the brunt of it right now. You know how I was doing such a good job with my succession sowing? Well this week I totally forgot until Sunday. I'm supposed to plant every Monday. Whoops! Well one week missed is not the end of the world. But for the poor turnips that wasn't all.

Turnips elsewhere struggling

At my last house I had a lot of issues with flea beetles, but they have been pretty mild here. They exist but don't do a lot of damage. Until now. They are doing enough damage to kill some of my newly sprouted turnips.

I don't spray here (except soap when the aphids get bad on the kale and broccoli), so my only recourse is to try to catch them. I won't catch them all, but the hope is to get enough that the damage won't hurt the plants too much. I brush the plants trying to get them to hop in the soapy water. I'll leave some of these bowls near the damaged plants. Over time some will die. Every day I'll chase more in. Hopefully it will be good enough.

In the other half of the bed with the turnips are my parsnips. Not many parsnips. Half the bed barely germinated and the half that was better is by no means full. I no longer have time to resow parsnips. They just take too long. If I had seed I'd use half that section to sow in amaranth. I've never grown that before. I think next year I'll try it. I could do mizuna but those flea beetles would probably take them down too. Maybe I should inter sow carrots. They have plenty of time. I will have two other carrot beds in the fall though. Will that be too many carrots? Is there such a thing as too many carrots? The issue with carrots is their germination is just as problematic as parsnips. I usually use a doubled over row cover on the soil to keep it moist. I can't do that with the parsnips growing. I could use one layer, or maybe just try without and hope. I'd have to water a lot.

Basil was one of the worst failures. I planted in three spots to try to avoid the basil downy mildew. That worked last year. One section went down fast, but the other was mildew free for most of the year. All three spots got hit already. So they all got taken out. Sigh. I did get a small harvest from the last one out. It was enough to dry so I can make Italian seasonings for this coming year, but not enough for much else. I do still have time to start again. Do I want to?

Chard bed

I love chard. It is such a good grower. I'm always amazed at the harvests I get from a small patch every year. One plant got pulled as it looked like it was starting to get diseased. I grow Argentata and it seems to handle the diseases we have around here. But safer to pull the bad one that isn't resisting so it won't spread. Also one end was getting holes in the leaves. I have this trouble every year. The earwigs take up residence in the centers and eat holes out of the youngest leaves. They can take a plant down if they get too numerous, though they usually don't.

Earwigs freak me out a little, but in the garden they can be a help and an hindrance depending on the crop. They are omnivores so eat other insects but if they like the crop they also eat that. I just don't grow Napa cabbage anymore because of the damage they do to that. Michihili cabbage works better. Sometimes they get in, but not as much. For chard I go on a search and destroy mission with my knife. They hide where the leaf meets the stem. I poke the tip of the knife down in there to get them. I won't get them all the first time. I'll go out for the next few days to get the rest. Then keep vigilant for the rest of the season. I used to mulch the chard to keep the leaves clean, but I found the earwigs had too many places to hide then.

The last one is in the Michihili/kohlrabi bed. Luckily it wasn't earwigs this time. Nope they started to bolt on me. I picked one earlier in the week that had started to bolt. Well I didn't check them for a couple of days and the next one did. So I picked them all. I was kind of hoping I wouldn't have to until next week. I'd probably be able to tell if my sauerkraut was working for me by then.

Chinese cabbage ready for the fridge

I stored most of them in the fridge. I wrap them in a damp flour cloth towel and just leave them in the main part. They are way too big to fit into anything. They are 20" long and have to go sideways in the fridge. They store pretty well. I can keep them fresh for about a month and a half to two months, but the problem is they take up so much space. And the other side of the bed is the kohlrabi. I think I have 15 or 16 of them in there. Some of them have sized up already and need to be picked soon. Winner doesn't get woody fast, but they are hard to cut when they get really large just because of their size.

And remember at the beginning of the month when I had the groundhog incursion? Well I shored up the defenses and it seems to be working. He hasn't come back. Most of the beans that he lopped off died, but four of them might make it. They have some tiny little green growth were the cotyledon leaves used to be. And the four seeds that I had left and replanted have come up and are growing pretty well. So I put up the strings to the trellis. The two plants that he didn't touch are growing strong and climbing the trellis supports. I think it was the trellis itself that saved them as they were behind the metal and harder to get to. So at least there is some good news there. My beans are recovering to an extent.

Consequences of Planting Corn

Rose arbor entrance to the garden

The other day when I was planting the corn I noticed some of the rose petals were dropping on the bed. Rose petals have been used for flavoring food for centuries. I've thought about harvesting some in the past, but never had. They are just too beautiful and smell divine in the garden. Cutting off the flowers seemed too hard. But I've been reading books on Middle Eastern cuisine. Rose not an uncommon ingredient and it seems a good cuisine for my food problems. Yes it uses beans, eggplant, and peppers, but unlike something like Mexican cuisine or Indian, I can eat most of the food with just mild changes. And I love the flavors. I never knew that mint and cilantro tasted good together. What would a rose taste like?

I only picked a handful to see how I like them. They certainly made one of my prettiest harvests. I pulled the petals off and laid them on my dehydrator sheets. I didn't use the dehydrator though. I'm just letting them dry naturally. When they are almost done I'll finished them off for an hour to get the last water out. Our climate is pretty humid and herbs (or rose petals I'm assuming) can mold if I don't use my dehydrator. The house smelled so good that first day. Heavenly.

While I was planting the corn I also noticed some white roots under the nearby row cover. I don't go down that path all that much and hadn't checked on them in a while. The row cover is over the broccoli, but I often under plant with turnips. These are Japanese turnips - Oasis - and most will tell you they are best picked at about 1" in diameter. I tend to like them just as much at 2" which is good as some were pretty large.

I'm glad I noticed them before they got way too large and woody. Strangely most of the turnips were ready to pick. Usually I'll find with turnips, especially under planted turnips, that they grow large sporadically. I rarely have a row of them ready at once. Much less a whole bed of them. Most were trimmed of their leaves, but I left a bunch on. Those I sent over to my townhouse mates. I figured they might appreciate the turnip greens and if not they will end up in my compost pile anyway.

These turnips were just lovely too. I often get some root maggot damage despite the row cover. In fact I lost one broccoli plant to them near where they were growing. But I think the flies like the broccoli more than the turnips. For the cabbages it seems to be the other way around.

While I was under there I got all the weeds out, though it wasn't all that bad. And I took off any yellowing leaves from the broccoli. And of course checked out how the heads were forming. They are looking good. It won't be long now. This one seems to be the farthest along. One though - damaged but not killed by the root maggots - hasn't even started to form. It is still trying to gather enough strength for it. It is about half the size of the other plants.

Successions

I have several succession crops going in my garden. Corn and squash for a two sisters garden was planted for the third time yesterday. I have two more to go. Also I put in another succession of turnips. That one isn't doing as well. The second sowing never really came up. The soil was too dry. So I resowed what was bare and sowed another row too.

I can squeeze through - barely

My garden is small and some of my paths are tight to keep the area cropping larger. But keeping each bed in production is the most important thing. My carrot bed will be come a brassica bed for the fall, and the brassica beds will become carrot beds. Some of my broccoli will get ripped out to plant more broccoli, but some in that bed will stay to produce side shoots. When my onions come out I'll plant kale. And I do another sowing of lettuce every couple of weeks. I really don't need 20 heads of lettuce all at once, but six every couple of weeks is perfect.

Today I got my soil blocker out and made the block I'll be using until about August. None of these needs a lot of blocks, so I put them in smaller containers for each kind of plant I need. In the spring I get flats. In the summer I get small old take out containers with holes in the bottom. Most of these will sit and dry until I need them. Then they will be rehydrated for use. My calendar has the date that I'm supposed to sow each one. Though I still haven't figured out what I want to grow for my cabbage/kohlrabi bed in the fall. European cabbage rarely does well here in the fall. I'm not sure why. It might be that my garden doesn't have enough sun in the fall as the neighbors' houses and trees are pretty close. I love European cabbages, but I tend to do better with the Chinese cabbages. I'll have to think about it.

This is my last succession of lettuce planted on May 20th with the new one seeded today. Six plants of a summer mix. I segregate the mixed lettuce seed into white and black to try to not have too many duplicates. And when they come up I keep some of the reds and some of the greens. It is kind of fun not knowing what will pop up. I hope I like them.

Weeds and the Kale Bed

I've been doing a lot of weeding over the last couple of days. Mainly because we had one coolish day. Yesterday I didn't need to rush to open all my windows early in the morning to cool down the house, then watch the weather and when it started to heat up, close all those windows and the blinds to keep the cool air in. I could keep the windows open all day long and listen to the birds sing. And be in the garden without overheating.

This morning I had a different kind of weeding. My neighbors have a tree that neither of us like particularly. I've been invited over in the past to cut it down when I asked. But it is persistent. I forgot last fall, so this year it is pretty big. I cut off all the branches that were overhanging my fence. Which really is good enough for now.

The straightest sticks of a decent diameter (not too large, not too small), I kept for stakes. They aren't perfectly straight like my bamboo, but not bad.

This morning I pulled off the row cover to my kale and cabbage bed so I could pick the kale. While I was under there I checked out the rest of the bed.

I'm trialing three early cabbages side by side this year. Point One is supposedly a very quick cabbage from Pinetree. I didn't give them as much space as the others. They are supposed to be small and quick. This and the others were planted 46 days ago. They say it is ready in 48. I'm not buying it. But they have started heading up. As you can see it is a pointed head type of cabbage. As is the next one. I have four of these and they are all at the exact same stage. They are a very pretty blue green.

Early Jersey Wakefield is listed at at 63 days. Like the previous cabbage, it has barely started to head up. I planted three of this variety and they are all exactly alike.

The last one is the only round cabbage in the bunch. It is Golden Acre. It is listed at 62 days. This one looks like it is the farthest ahead of all the cabbages. True to its name it is a slightly yellowish cabbage and looks really pretty.

The problem is of the three Golden Acre that I planted, two look like this. This is damage from cutworms. If they can't cut something off at the soil level, they will climb the plants. They like to get into the center and eat that as it is the most tender. I'm not sure if the two plants can recover.

I intercrop turnips in my cabbages. If the cutworms are there, they usually go after the turnips as the turnips are so tender. They leave the cabbages alone. Sadly they really like the Golden Acre. To be fair to the cabbage though it has been the worst cutworm season ever in this garden. I used to have really bad cutworms all the time at my last house, but here they don't seem to be as prevalent. Except this year. I might have to start planting in cutworm collars again.

Kale to Parsnips and Turnips

Spring planted Red Russian kale

For the first time this year I'm growing spring planted kale. It is going very well so far. I've had the first harvest from one side of the bed. I'll harvest the other side this week.

Overwintered kale

Usually I just have overwintered kale that bolts really quickly. I don't mind that as kale blossoms are so good. But the hard winter is leaving the plants pretty weak. The blossom shoots are getting really spindly, so it was time to take them out.

Oh and did you notice the little white flowers in front of the kale? Those are mache. This is the last year I'm growing them. I just don't get much of a crop for the amount of work I put in with them. Most of what is overwintered is too ragged to eat in the spring and the new growth doesn't last long enough before they bloom. And what is there is so tiny it drives me crazy to pick it.

Molly the cat keeping the compost area free of mice

So I pulled the whole bed. I forked up the bed to aerate it. I fertilized and raked it smooth. And sifted a wheelbarrow of compost to cover it in. While I was at it I finished sifting the rest of the compost to empty the bin. All the finished compost is in one of my black composters awaiting the next time I need it. And I now have an empty pallet bin which is good as all my others are full.

I planted the bed up half with parsnips under a row cover to keep the soil moist as they sprout, and half with the start of some turnips. I made ten rows for the turnips and will seed two rows every Monday. Well that is the plan. You all know that it doesn't always happen. So far my successions have gone well though. I'm hoping the when the sixth Monday comes up the first rows I seeded will be ready to come out. Turnips are not like radishes though. Radishes come right on schedule for me. Turnips ripen here and there. So I'm guessing I'll be picking some, but not others and I'll have a gap in the sowing. But that is fine. As soon as it empties I'll start the rotation again.

I'm a bit worried about the turnips. I had uncovered kale in this bed. I could see a horde of root maggot flies hovering around. They must be able to smell all the kale roots. I tried to shoo as many away as I could, but I'm sure I missed some. I might have maggoty turnips. I'll go out again before they sprout and do some more shooing. Maybe it will work. Just parsnips would be a much better rotation, but parsnips are still experimental and I don't want to use a full bed on them. And I really want more turnips.

Growth

This week has been below normal in temperatures, but it hasn't stopped the garden from popping up in growth. This is especially true of the spinach in the Circle Garden. A week ago I might have found a leaf or two to pick. Today once it warms up from its low of 34F (1C), I'll get to go out and make my first picking. I'm dancing with joy over that.

The lettuce on the other hand is just sitting there this week. It has made some progress but not enough to want to harvest anything from it. You can tell it has been cold as the Red Sails lettuce is all red. When it gets warmer it will be a lot greener.

Right next to the lettuce are my radishes. They have all popped up. I've thinned them out to about 4". That is enough space for them to grow quickly this spring. I could have left them closer, but I didn't. Impatience for my crops is winning out.

Off in the main part of the garden (going from bed 8 to bed 1), the peas have started to come up. Really I saw the first little green bits a week ago. I see more now, but they haven't really unfurled. They are being slow.

In the same bed but under cover my turnips are coming up. Around them are my Chinese cabbages that are doing well. I like to put the turnips down the middle as the cabbages take up so much space, but when they are young they don't. I'll have to get in and thin those turnips soon. I probably won't give them as much space as I did my radishes. These will mature in spurts over time.

I have spinach coming up in a lot of beds, but the best is the one by the brick path. The beds closer to it are always warmer and it isn't just the bricks. They get more sun here. I can even see little tiny true leaves starting to form. There is good germination in one of the other beds too, but one is being slow about it. The ground was still frozen 4" down in parts of that bed when they were planted. So it is taking a while to warm up. The warmer parts are sprouted but the parts closest to the fence are not. But spinach I've found doesn't rot out easily. So they will be up when the ground is warm enough.

The allium bed is doing very well. The garlic all came up. And the onions that I planted a little over a week ago are starting to break dormancy.

I think the hard winter really hurt the kale. I'm still going to get a decent harvest from the dwarf curly kale as it is so hardy.

The Winterbor kale didn't fare as well. A couple died outright. The tops of all of the plants died. But I cut the dead parts off and the rest of the stems are starting to sprout leaves. I'm not sure what the harvest will be, but I'll at least get some kale raab. But that is weeks away.

And last but not least, my best hope for early harvests - my baby Asian greens. They always do so well in the spring. Except for the few larger plants they were put in a week an a half ago. And even with our cooler temps this week, they have kept growing well.

I have other things in the garden growing too. The carrots started sprouting a couple of days ago. So they have taken two weeks to germinate. Some years it is three. The umbelliferae bed is growing slowly and the fennel has started to sprout. The broccoli and other brassicas are doing very very well under their row covers. The chard is surviving. It survives quite well at these temperatures, but it doesn't like them. It wants warmer weather. Which it will get come Wednesday. It looks like that is the turning point to better weather. At least for a short time.