Sunday, May 8, 2011

Happy Mother's Day

My neighbor was walking by and asked me, "Don't you get the day off?" Snork! My response was no I never get a day off. So yes I was working in the garden on Mother's Day all morning long. It was a wonderful morning. The clouds broke up and the sun was shining.

I got the tomatoes in the bed that were ready. Along the back is four Cherokee Purple and one Amish Paste. The other tomatoes for the back had issues with germination so came up later. They will get planted in a week or two. You might notice some plants between my back tomatoes. Those are Ground Control marigolds. I probably won't have nematode issues this year because of the new soil, but better safe than sorry. In the front are eight Heinz. I have room for one more plant in the front, but again we have to wait until it is big enough to go out.

I also planted up the tomatoes that go in the mixed bed. The other half is already planted in potatoes. This side gets four tomatoes along the back and some eggplant in the front. One tomato isn't in as it is too small right now. I threw in two nasturtiums for the corners of the bed in the front. I figured I'd use up my random flowers.

Then it was on to the cukes. Eight Diamant cucumbers were ready to go in. I don't like to let them get very big. Cukes do really well direct seeded, but I'm pushing my season. I have a nasturtium near them too so it can grow up the trellis with the cukes.

The cucumber bed is right next to the greens bed under the row cover. I noticed the Komatsuna was pushing on the row cover to get out. I planted things close together so I'd pick half of them smaller. I'd done that with the bok choy, but not with the other things yet. So I lifted up the cover to check it out

The broccoli was doing well though I can't get it all in the photo. It is underplanted with some salad turnips.

The first section of Asian greens was a little crowded but not bad. I harvested half the tatsoi to let the other grow bigger.

The other side of the Asian green section was huge. The Komatsuna was taking over so picked a couple of them. In the front the thinned out boc choys needed to be harvested. I left the green stemmed ones, but picked all the white stemmed ones as they were starting to bolt. To the right not pictured the Fun Jen got half harvested. The others two left can grow bigger now provided it can compete with the Chinese cabbage right in front of it. It is getting huge. And the red cabbage is finally starting to grow. Maybe I will yet have a harvest of it. Maybe.

The end of the row is all the chard. I thought it was time for its first picking. I picked a couple of the biggest leaves off of each plant. No harvest photos until tomorrow though.

The finally thing that needed doing was to talk to my townhouse mates. I told them if they wanted greens for a harvest I'd need some place to put them as I didn't want to keep throwing plastic bags in their fridge. So they cleaned out a crisper drawer for me and I can fill that up when I want to. For now they got about half of the harvest, though I kept more of the white stemmed bok choy since it was my favorite. Tomorrow will be a really nice Harvest Monday.

18 comments:

  1. WOW! Your garden is doing great! Your row covers are really doing there job!

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  2. I'm going to have to give in and install row covers, aren't I ;-)

    Really, it's unbelievable how far along things are under those covers. And everything looks so healthy and bug free!

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  3. Everything is looking great and you got to see the sun. What a wonderful day it has been for you.

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  4. Daphne, can I come live in your garden? =0) Everything looks wonderful!!

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  5. Wow! Echo what everyone else has said! Your greens are so far along, and are simply beautiful! I bet your harvest monday post will be huge!

    What is the total square footage of your new garden? It seems like you have unending garden beds!

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  6. Yes, but can we really call it work all morning long when it's gardening? Your greens are looking quite delicious! Happy Mother's Day, Daphne!

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  7. Look at all that beautiful green growing beneath the row cover! Wow Daphne! I can't wait for your Harvest Mondays post.

    Gardening is work I could do all day as well. Reading this reminded me that I still need to seed some nasturtiums.

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  8. Your garden looks GREAT! I really have to get on with the cover. My brassica have all been eaten by horrible caterpillars and my low lying mange tout devoured by slugs and millipedes!! Hope you had a lovely day yesterday.

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  9. Katrina, those row covers are really working for me. One of the reasons though is the soil I had brought in is deep and pretty good soil. And there are no insects infesting it yet. I might get into trouble later this year if I have no beneficial insects for the things not under a row cover, but we will see.

    Granny. lol row covers are amazing. One year I did a trial with spinach. I planted some exactly the same and right next to one other. One side had a row cover and one side didn't. I was picking the row cover side a week before the uncovered ones. And of course no leaf miners. I keep checking the overwintered spinach that has no row cover here. Currently no leaf miners, but they ought to show up any day.

    wilderness, it was a fabulous day. I got to play online games with my kids in the afternoon too. I miss them since they are so far away, but I love to hear their voices over vent.

    Holly, thanks

    Megan, it will be a very nice Harvest Monday considering how early it is.

    Megan, The vegetable garden has eight 4x16' beds each 63sqft (they aren't really 16', but the boards are). And I have the pretty area in front of the compost outside my kitchen door. That is probably just under 60sqft, but I'm not sure. With the curved beds it is too hard to calculate (actually the calculation isn't hard, but I'm just to lazy to go out and really measure it). So I probably have about 560sqft of vegetable bed. I also have some herb beds which I mix with flowers. I forget how big they are, but I'm guessing 75sqft - but more than half of that is in flowers not herbs. This doesn't include the rest of the yard which has fruit trees and berries mixed in with the purely ornamentals.

    Tessa, no it wasn't really work. But I did work up a sweat and I got my exercise.

    GrafixMuse, I usually love to garden for about half the day. Then I want to do something else. But half the day is great.

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  10. Mrs Bok, well covers won't keep out slugs. I only don't have them this year because I moved last year and the house only had subsoil when we moved in. So I had to import it all and there are no insects in it. The slugs will find my garden I'm sure, but for now it is bliss to garden without slugs.

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  11. Your garden looks great, you can tell you put in a lot of hard work and have a keen attention to detail. It is impressive.

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  12. I can imagine what your harvest Monday will be like! Bountiful for sure!

    The newly planted up beds look good - but those greens under the row covers are the real show stoppers. Wow!

    Happy Mom's day to you!

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  13. Oh wow look at those healthy leafy greens. Our tatsoi is still a baby with 2 true leaves. So many green to harvest from your garden.

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  14. Daphne, when did you seed the Asian greens in the above photo? Did you transplant or direct seed? They are gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, almost too pretty to eat. Almost, but notttt quite. :-)

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  15. Kris, thanks

    Laura, I love to look under the row cover. I really wish I had one that I could see through better.

    Diana, my tatosi doesn't get as big this time of the year as in the fall, but it still grows well.

    Ali, I seeded them inside on March 15-18th. They went outside on April 7-9th. So they were just over three weeks old going out.

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  16. Wow, beautiful and healthy greens.

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  17. Impressive, most impressive. Wish our brassicas were doing as well as yours but alas, we are fighting the annual pest wars. Break out the BTk!

    http://www.media-organic.com/garden-week-in-review-5

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  18. Wow, what beautiful greens. So photogenic. Those row covers sure keep the bugs off. Good job!

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