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.

Weeds and Pests

I had weeds in my spinach.

Weeds in my carrots which are bigger than the carrots themselves.

Weeds in my parsley which is mostly self seeded fennel. Basically weeds all over the garden. I didn't finish but I certainly got a lot of the weeding done. The spinach had huge gapes all over. The worst was in one bed that the cutworms got to. Half the plants are missing. The carrots also had cutworm damage as did the turnips in the cabbage bed. I found a lot of cutworms. You can tell where they are because they take a leaf - or in the case of carrots, they take the whole plant - and cut it at the soil surface and drag it underground. You can see the top of the poor plant sticking up but half buried. Sadly I couldn't find all the ones where I found damage. Especially in the larger spinach beds and the chard.

Above is some cutworm damage too. The cutworms can't eat through the leaf stalks as they are too thick. So they will just go up the leaf and start eating it. Though in spots you can see that they tried to cut the leaf off and failed. Around those plants I'd just dig in the soil near the plant.

Bad cutworm! It had plenty of weeds to eat, but no it wanted my plants. I'll be out each morning looking for cutworm damage. I just hope next time I find it, I can find the cutworm. I couldn't for the last two carrots that bit the dust. Each day I miss one is another carrot that dies. Each day I find one is another cutworm that dies. If I win I get to eat. If the cutworm wins he gets to pupate and make more cutworms to annoy me again with the next generation.

Sometimes when you have your head down and focused on killing cutworms gardening seems rather futile. Especially when you can't find the little buggers and know they will kill more of your plants. But then you look up. Mostly things are growing well. Spring has sprung. A cool breeze is in the air and life is pretty good.

I so rarely take photos in this direction for some reason. From this you can see the steps to my kitchen door. I love having a garden that is right outside my kitchen. Even if it does have cutworms in it.

This and That

View on the other side of the fence from my garden. I love phlox.

I know I've done things in the garden as I really really need to weed, but somehow I ended up doing other things instead. I get distracted when I go out into the garden. I know I planted my chitted squash seed on Sunday since I wrote that down. I know I watered the front beds. And then watered the strawberries yesterday as some of them were wilting.

And I fixed my bird netting over the strawberry plants. I had simple hoops that were too small as the flowers were poking out of the top. And if the flowers poke out, the strawberries will be out of the netting so the squirrels will eat them. I should call it squirrel netting not bird netting as the birds aren't all that bad. In addition I pretty much let the strawberries run last year. Where they liked to be was right next to the edge of the wall. So If I put a hoop in the soil those strawberries right at the edge would be halfway through the netting. So I made some bigger hoops and bent them so they would hang over the edge to keep all those wonderful blossoms inside the net. At least mostly. Next year I've got to keep them from rooting right next to the wall. If nothing else they wilt too quickly there as the soil dries out fast at the edge. The ones farther back do better.

I've been fixing up the places for my herbs. I took the old Mojito mint pot and got all the old roots out. I added compost and mixed it in. Now when the plant come I can just pop it into the pot. I also took down one of my two rhubarb plants (the left one). I figure I really only need one. I'll use the spot for some rosemary. Though I still have to dig out those roots. It will be better to have something smaller so I don't have to worry about it blocking the air conditioner as much.

Bed 2W

I don't know if I was avoiding weeding or not. I usually don't mind weeding. But I had to go out after dinner to finally get some of it done. I weeded all of Bed 1 and the western side of Bed 2. You can barely see the spinach in the above bed. And some of those weeds are starting to bud. The last thing I need are more weed seeds in my garden. I've got to get to the rest of the beds. I think my priority are the carrot bed and the other two spinach beds. Then I can do the other beds that are less problematic.

There is the same bed all weeded out. I had a lot of damping off in this and the other spinach beds. So there are huge gaps. In Bed 1E I found four cut worms that were taking down my turnips. I hope there aren't more. I'll go out this morning as soon as I finish watering the beds and see if any more have been taken down and if so dispatch the culprits. Luckily the cabbages and kales in this bed are probably too big for the cutworms to hurt.

A Gorgeous Day

Today I spent a long time out in the garden weeding. It is a gorgeous day. Not too hot and the humidity is gone. At times like this I wish most days could be so perfect. With the occasional rainy day in between to make the plants happy too. But without those miserably humid days like earlier, would I appreciate it as much?

After weeding is the perfect time to take those sweeping photos of the garden. Not that I can really get sweeping photos in a 1/5 of an acre lot with two townhouses on it. And those beds might be all weeded, but the abundant dill and sweet alyssum make it look a bit messy. My circle garden is being taken over by the sweet alyssum. I wasn't going to let it take over quite this much, but somehow it got out of control. It seems so happy that I just don't want to get rid of it. I ought to at least cut it out of the melon bed so they don't get taken over. In a month I'll be saying the opposite. Because you know melons. They will spread. And I'll be trying to keep the melons out of the paths with the sweet alyssum.

The dill has taken over sections of the circle garden too. I was going to keep it weeded out of this section, but the black swallowtail caterpillars were all over it earlier. And I didn't want to hurt them. Now it is starting to go to seed. Such pretty flowers. I know if I don't get them out soon, I'll be weeding this section of dill yet again after the flowers drop their seeds. But so far the flower has convinced me to leave it be. I have dill with mind control. That must be it.

I didn't take one of those "sweeping" photos of the front yard. But I did take a photo of the entrance to our yard. The zinnia bed sits in front of my neighbor's tomato patch. In previous years I grew taller 3' zinnias that fought it out with the neighbor's cherry tomatoes. With my zinnias going through the fence into his tomatoes and his tomatoes coming through the fence into my zinnias. It might be a more peaceful summer this year. These are only supposed to get half that tall. I got tired of propping up zinnias, and am hoping the shorter ones can keep themselves upright. Or if they do flop after a rain, maybe no one will notice as they are so close to the ground already.

While I was out weeding, guess what I saw? Isn't it gorgeous. I think I'll pick it tomorrow for dinner. Tonight I'm having my first fennel ever. I've never grown it before or cooked with it. I'm going to have it on a pizza no less. Caramelized fennel and onions with a little ham. I'm still trying to decide if fig jam or plum sauce would make a better pizza sauce for it. Any opinions?

I want to leave the rest of my fennel for seed. The packet I bought had barely any seed in it and I hear it can be a real weed if you let them go to seed. It reminds me of zinnia seed. The packet I first got was so tiny with only 25 seeds. It isn't like zinnia seeds are hard to harvest or don't put out a lot of easy to collect seed. So why only 25 seeds? Since then I've just saved it myself. But Seed to Seed says that Florence fennel can't be grown for seed in the northeast. Is this true? Has anyone else been successful here? I've found a couple of mistakes in that book that say you can or can't do something here that I disagree with (not that I remember what they were, but I do remember disagreeing with it as I read it, probably out loud too). So maybe they are wrong with that too?

If you live in the northeast and have grown fennel for seed, let me know. If there are any tricks, I'd love to know that too. But I can always try stressing the plant out. Growing guides say not to transplant as it makes the plant bolt. Hmm I can do that if necessary. I hate mistreating them that way though if I don't have to.

Herbs and Mizuna Soup

Yesterday I went out in the morning to pick yet more herbs. Monday I dried oregano. Tuesday it was thyme. And yesterday, Wednesday, It was some cilantro, lavender, and tarragon. Let me tell you that tarragon and cilantro don't smell very good mixed. But I had to get the lavender and tarragon dried. So I washed them off and put them in the dehydrator.

The cilantro needed to be separated. The bolting cilantro really isn't all that good especially the ferny leaves and I was freezing for the winter. I ended up with about a quarter of the cilantro good for freezing. I don't do anything but wash it and stick it in a zipper bag. I'll break bits off when I need it. It won't look pretty as cilantro turns blackish when it thaws, but the flavor is still there. So it is good in sauces and soups.

It was a lovely day so I spent a little time in the morning doing some work. The early corn was hilled up a bit. It is getting big. Or some of it is. A few are pretty runty. And I weeded a big patch of weeds off a path I've neglected for weeks. That took me a while. Then I finally decided I had to spray. All the trees along the fence were infested with aphids. The one plum tree had some ladybug larvae on it but none of the others. And my fava beans were covered with black aphids. I think next year I'll need some more insecticidal soap mix. I also added in some fish emulsion to help them heal up. I'll probably have to do it again in a couple of weeks. The ants there are too industrious.

No one has responded to my call for extra food. So I decided since it was cool today I could deal with making soup out of the mizuna. Soup is always a great way to preserve greens. I found a recipe on a Longmont blog (not far from where I grew up). I didn't really follow the recipe but I did use some of the spicing - bay leaf, thyme, sherry, and salt.

In addition I used homemade chicken stock, my garlic, and about a pound and a half of mizuna that no one wanted. So sad. How can people not want such a wonderful green. From the store I used an onion and some celery. I did the typical. Oil, onion, celery, saute. Add the broth and seasonings. Simmer for about half an hour then remove the bay leaf. Wash and chop the mizuna.

When I saw the pile of chopped greens I thought, "Oh my God this won't fit into the pot. There is just too much." But I realized that it is a green and they really cook down a LOT. I tossed in a couple of handfuls of mizuna and stirred. And again. And again.

Yes it fit just fine. I boiled it for three minutes then used my trusty stick blender to turn it to mush.

Yum. Soup for lunch and four servings for the winter. Now I just have a pile of bok choy that no one wanted. Hmm I wonder if my townhouse mates will deal with it for me.

Catching Up

Wow. Where to start? I have been getting out in the garden, but I've been forgetting to take photos and not writing in my blog. I'm sure I'll forget half of it. But I'll start with my fruit trees. I have five espaliered trees in my rock wall garden. So I spent some time tying them up and clipping off the unwanted foliage that had grown up in my absence. The figs were especially bad. They really are trying to take over. I have one at the top of its support, so snipped off the end. Hopefully those figs it carries will ripen but who knows. In the middle of tying the two figs up I went to get more string. When I came back I noticed the yellow jackets were all going into one spot in the ground. A spot I had been a few minutes ago. I had my hands tying up the vines within a foot of their nest.

I talked to my townhouse mates about it. Normally I would just leave a nest alone and in the spring they wouldn't be there anymore. I've never researched it but I always assumed they made a new nest every year because of that. My townhouse mates looked at it and said they didn't seem all that aggressive. They park their car right in front of the nest, so I'm a little concerned. I do know that they can become more aggressive closer to fall. It might be an issue when I wrap up the figs for winter. But for now the nest stays.

And speaking of interlopers. I had the first break in. Something broke into the garden last night. I have hardware cloth going down a foot all around my garden. But this one got in along the edge of my garden gate.

And whatever it was dug a hole in the garden. I strongly suspect the neighborhood skunk. It could be a small groundhog, but I know the skunk was out and active last night. When I woke up last night I could smell him. Someone had gotten sprayed. Luck for me at least, nothing in the garden was sprayed.

As many of you might know, I have a strange sensitivity to the nightshade family crops. I can't even touch them. Well onions have now become a problem. I can eat them just fine, but I can't breath their fumes. I was drying these in my dining room. I've done it before. Well this year my asthma started to act up. So I figured my allergies were the problem. I shut all the windows and turned on the air conditioning and my air filter. The problem only got worse. I guessed it was the onions, so did a test. I went over to a friend's house one day. After a couple of hours I quit coughing. Well at least I knew what my problem was. When I got home I threw open every window on the first floor and put a fan on so it would take the onion fumes out.

They had only had a week to cure and were definitely not finished drying. But I had to get them out of my dining room. My whole first floor is open so anything messing up the air there will get me all day long. I braided all the Copras. They were the driest of the onions. I put them in my basement to hang. The basement is at 76F right now and has a dehumidifier running, so it isn't cool and damp. I hope they dry well down there. I took the Ailsa Craigs and put them in the fridge. I'm wondering if this will keep them longer than their typical two months, or shorter. So it is an experiment. The other half of the Ailsa Craigs are still out in the garden. I'll use them as I need them. The Redwing onions were mistakenly put on the marble part of my dining room and didn't dry at all. They stayed too cool there. Some foliage was mildewing a bit. I cut that off and rearranged them so they were directly in front of a window. I put a fan there. I don't have any other good spot to put them. Right now the weather is good to keep the windows open. If things change they will have to move. Next year I'll have to find another way to dry my onions. I'm envisioning putting something over my compost pile. I don't have a lot of empty yard space. I could make something with a tarp over it. But that is something I'll worry about next year.

I've done a lot of weeding over the last week. I have it almost done except one corner by the compost. I'm sure when I finish that, I'll have to start again. I've also been trimming, clipping, and deadheading things to get them under control. I feel almost ahead of it. Almost.

The first beans were picked and shelled. Whoot! I had to pick those beans a bit wet. It had rained all last week on and off. So the poor dried beans weren't drying that much. I shelled them to get them out of their wet shells. They looked amazingly good considering the conditions that they were drying in. The rest of the pea seed was history though. I pulled up the plants this morning and found a mass of rotting pods and slugs. Yuck! And speaking of rotting, my basil ended up with downy mildew. Double yuck. I know it has been going around for the last few years, but my basil hadn't gotten it. The poor plants hadn't even been looked at in three weeks and when they were, it was pretty sad. I pulled them all.

After I'd pulled the peas (and some lettuce going to seed) I had the end of one bed cleared out. I sowed some Kentucky Wonder beans for the fall. Last year they produced quite well. I hope I'm not too late this year for it. I might be. I should have done it right when I got home. I didn't feel like building the trellis I usually use for beans. So I just pounded in some T-posts with some smaller ones for side bracing. I haven't strung it yet, but I have plenty of time before they are up and start to run.

I seem to have a lot of bad news. Well my winter squash have lots of blossoms, but so far no female blossoms have opened. I do see one (yes just one) that might open in a while. I really need that squash to get to it so I will be able to eat squash this winter. I wish I knew when my squash started to set last year, but I just don't remember.

I'll leave you on a positive note. Dinner was delicious. I grilled some freshly picked Ailsa Craig onion and my first medium sized zucchini with some pineapple. The grilled bread was brushed with an herbed butter with herbs from the garden (garlic, rosemary, and oregano).

Weeding

You can't tell from this photo but I had a lot of weeding to do under my row covers. I finally finished the cabbage bed and I weeded by the compost piles. But I hadn't opened up the chard and broccoli bed for a long time. The chard was getting out of control. I'm supposed to pick it at least every two weeks once it gets big. As you can see it got big without me noticing. Row covers are like that you can lose track of how things are doing underneath.

Close up you have a better view of the weeds. The chard was so tall that it was blocking the view of all the weeds, but there were plenty there and some were starting to go to seed. I try never to let that happen.

I hate putting the noxious weed seeds into my compost pile. The pile isn't hot, so I separate my weeds. The ones that are flowering or have seeds on them go in one bucket and the second bucket is for everything else. It goes into the compost. The other goes to the town's yard waste pickup. They compost things at high temperatures.

Since the chard was getting out of control I chopped it back. I harvested just over 10 pounds of it. That is a lot of chard. I had to send out to my email list to get rid of it. I only had one response, but Allie took all 7 lbs of it. Thank goodness. I do want to freeze more chard, but I'm pretty busy this weekend and into the first half of the week. And there will be much, much more chard over the summer. I'll have plenty of time to do it when I'm not as busy.

This bed contains one row of chard along the long end of the bed. I plant at about 9" centers. Last year I put in two rows, but I think the other row wasn't doing much as it was shaded too much by the broccoli. And as you can see one row of chard is more than enough. Dare I say too much? I suppose not though if I can keep getting rid of the extras. As long as someone is eating it. Oh and as I was picking the chard I was noticing how much dirt had splashed up on it. So I'm experimenting. I put some salt marsh hay on one side of the row and not on the other. I'm hoping the slugs don't take up residence. I often forgo mulches to keep them down.

The other side is the broccoli. Last year I had two rows, one with 5 and one with 4. This year I still did two rows but only with 4 and 3. So again less crowded. As you can see my first head is forming. It looks like it is going to be just huge.

In the middle of what should be my broccoli patch I found this. One huge kohlrabi. My other Winner kohlrabi are so small. I only gave them an 8"x8" spot and they still haven't grown large. But this one had a 2'x 1.3' spot and it was so much larger. I hope it isn't woody at its center. I'll have to remember next year to give them more space if I like the taste of this variety. Kohlibri grows well in the smaller space, but this one seems to need a little elbow room. So now I have only 6 broccoli plants. I really should pay more attention to what is going on under those covers.

Catch Up

I'm having trouble figuring out where to start after not really blogging about gardening for two weeks. I've done my harvest and cooking posts, but not any gardening posts. Above are my sweet potato vines that are taking over the world. Isn't it funny how a morning glory self seeding itself in my vines? I kept thinking that I needed two zinnias in the middle to make it a very pretty bed, but it turns out all that I had to do was let this one "weed" grow. I didn't even know it was in there since the leaves are close enough that I didn't notice.

As you can see there are two different flowers in this photo. The small pink one is from my Garnet sweet potato. It has a morning glory like flower as it is in the same family, but it hides under the foliage and is smaller.

The second bed of sweet potatoes has no flowers at all. That bed has my purple sweet potatoes that Norma gave me. All the sweet potatoes are intent on taking over the world. They are in the circle garden. The center circle is my herb garden. The vines were quickly encroaching on it. So I hacked them back. I thought about just turning the vines in as I'd done in the past. But it was just too much this time. So off with their heads. Many had already rooted into the ground and I had to rip them out before cutting them off. Sweet potatoes are very aggressive. Not as bad as a squash plant, but they are persistent.

It looks like a lot of bare soil doesn't it? Well only one half bed is bare. The one with the upside down trash barrel (I put the sprinkler on it to make sure it gets over the row covers) is empty, but the half part closer to the fence has newly germinated lettuce and beets. The bed to the right near the fence (next to the single row cover) should have carrot seedlings. I tied to get them to germinate but they just wouldn't. Luckily this was my second bed I was putting in carrots and my first bed is up just fine. I weeded and thinned it the other day.

The small patch of fall peas that I planted are up and doing well. The pole beans also germinated. A handful in one section died to damping off in the heat, but the rest are growing well. The bush beans germinated spottily, but are up. The fall brassica bed is growing well. I might get to harvest some bok choy soon. Oh and that empty bed that hasn't been planted, well it is going to have my quicker maturing Asian greens planted there. I might put some kohlrabi in too, but I don't usually plant that one until the end of August or the beginning of September once the weather cools off.

My cover crop came up well. Both the section I put soil over and the section where I just raked the seed into the bed.

Each of my beds are 16' long and divided into two 8' sections. This is the same bed that has my cover crop but it is the other 8' section. I can't use the 8' section near the fence for fall crops as it is in total shade in the fall. The front section at least gets some sun - for a while. This bed was seeded in kale as you can see. It all came up well and has been thinned once. It really needs to be weeded soon.

I've done a lot of weeding in the last couple of weeks. It has been hot and I've been watering so the weeds are in abundance. The crab grass is trying to go to seed so it has been a challenge to keep it down before it seeds all over the garden.

Do you remember from earlier in the year when I told you about my monster rhubarb? It insisted on going to seed even though I kept trying to cut off the flower heads. As summer progressed it became even more unruly and very ugly. I think of rhubarb as a pretty plant. But half the plant rotted out and it was right in front of my air conditioner during a hot summer. So I decided to kill it. I took it all down. I'll be pulling it out for months I'm sure as it tries to regrow. The nice rhubarb that was next to it was harvested by half, but otherwise left. Though that rhubarb won't produce as much as quickly, it is a much prettier rhubarb and won't block the air flow to my air conditioner. Let that be a warning to my plants. You get out of line and out you go.

Usually I like big plants. I had a huge sunflower with over 20 flowers on it. It was probably just under 10' tall. I loved its monstrosity. Though it did attack me when I was trying to turn on the spigot. I had to keep it propped up with five bamboo poles it was so heavy. It made me smile every day as I bumped my head on its heavy flowers. But sadly it broke under its own weight. Not even during a storm either. It just got too heavy. The lower part and a few flowers are left. So sad. But I'm not at all sad about my rhubarb. It was an ugly thing. Now I have to keep up on pulling the leaves to kill it. I haven't yet taken a shovel to it. I really ought to dig out as much as possible, but it has been too hot for that kind of work.