Pulling the Carrots and Planting the Brassicas

I remember a post not long ago that was entitled "Pulling the Cabbage Bed and Planting the Carrots". I have two brassica beds in the spring that turn into carrot beds for the fall. And one carrot bed in the spring that turns into a brassica bed in the fall. I pick to do two carrot beds in the fall as carrots are great storage crops. And I like the two brassica beds in the spring because they produce so quickly so they get the produce flowing when I need it most.

First we will talk about the problems with the carrots. If you remember this bed was attacked pretty hard by the cutworms. They took down or hurt about a quarter of my seedlings. I planted the seedlings after last year's mustard crop to try to keep down the nematode damage. As you can see from the photo above, that wasn't particularly successful. I found though that the Nelson carrots were pretty immune to it, while the Mokums were hit harder. I'll still grow the Mokums, but I might make the bed more Nelson heavy next year.

Split carrot

In addition, Mokums are prone to splitting. There weren't a lot, maybe five or so. And the Nelsons had about three. Not too bad. I was also starting to find some carrot fly damage. If it was at the tip I just broke it off and put it in my waste bin. No need to take it in. Most of the damage was at the tip. I keep the bed covered to keep out the flies, but I have to keep the carrots weeded or they will get overwhelmed. That gives the flies a chance to get in. Not much of one, but enough for some small damage. Interestingly enough after the bed was harvested and the row cover removed, it called in every carrot fly in the vicinity. The soil was just swarming with them. Without a row cover, they would be pretty sad. Though I know if I time the harvest just right in late June, I can pick out in the open without too much damage yet. Now is way too late to pick like that though, so a row cover is essential.

Like most of my pickings, I like to clean things up outside to keep the dirt out of the house. One of my favorite garden and kitchen tools (it does duel duty) is my big enamel washtub. It really helps when you have a big harvest. The washing took a while and my back was getting sore.

So much for the negatives. Lets look at the good stuff. This was the largest carrot. It was a Nelson carrot.

And this was the harvest. This has been the best spring ever for carrots despite the issues. I harvested just under 30 pounds this spring. Wow. Last year was 19 pounds. The big question is why. Part of it is having the right variety for the season. In past springs I'd been growing SugarSnax and Mokum. SugarSnax is a terrible spring carrot. If you don't want it to taste bitter in the summer, you have to pick it early before it gets really hot. But it is a longer season carrot, so it just can't size up in that time. Nelson is a great spring/summer carrot. It tastes good even with the heat, and it sizes up well in the time allotted to it.

The other reason for the increase in yield, is not from anything I did. We might have had a late start to the spring, but it was a very sunny and warmer than normal spring. We didn't get a lot of rain (I watered a lot which is unheard of in spring), but sunshine was in abundance. Often in spring we have cool overcast drizzly days. Not this spring. So Mother Nature was kind to me this year.

Storing such a large amount of carrots (I picked 20 pounds in this batch) requires space. So I cleaned out my vegetable drawer and used that. I fit all those carrots together like a puzzle. I covered it with a damp cloth and some plastic as it will keep them crispy longer. I tried my best, but they still didn't all fit.

So I made up a basket of carrots and my largest cabbage and took it to my townhouse mates. I'm sure they will enjoy them. I would have given them the cabbage earlier, but they were out of town. Now that they are back they can help me with my abundance.

Lunch: pastured eggs over some leftover quinoa and herbs, with some cooked carrots (I like my carrot sticks partially cooked), chard, and a little sauerkraut

And what did I have for lunch? Well carrots of course. Yum. I think this harvest will have no trouble lasting for the two months it will take to grow the next batch. Well at least if I don't go crazy with them.

After lunch I decided it was cool enough to plant the brassicas. I put in six Michihili cabbage, four Golden Acre cabbage, thirteen kohlrabi, and a few rows of Oasis turnips. When I put the row cover on I trapped about a million little carrot flies. Better there than anywhere else I guess.

Broccoli, Cabbage, and Kale

The broccoli I seeded two weeks ago was doing well. I figured it was time for it to see the light of day. I didn't bother to harden them off. They were better off just going in the ground. Soil blocks don't need much hardening off and with even one sunny warm day the blocks can dry out if I forget about them. And I tend to. They were safer in the ground.

In the spring I plant 10 broccoli plants, 5 on each side of the bed. After I harvest the heads, one row gets pulled out.

Side shoots starting to form

The other side I leave for side shoots. That way I get the best of both worlds. I get some really nice heads, but I get a constant supply of broccoli over the summer too.

The huge leaves on the other side of the bed will die over time, or start to get mildewed. I tend to pull them off at the first sign of yellowing. The side shoots will put out more new leaves to feed the plant.

I also got under the kale cover to pick. I'll miss my kale harvests when it comes time to plant this bed up in carrots.

Golden Acre

Also under the same cover as the kale are my cabbages. This one had a leaf starting to crack. I was worried that it might bolt on me. I've never really gotten the hang of when you should pick cabbage. Someone mentioned when the head hardens up. But this head was tight pretty small. It would have been a tiny thing. It still isn't huge, but a couple of pounds is pretty good for cabbages in my garden. Some year I might learn how to grow them well.

Early Jersey

Despite my lack of cabbage expertise, this is turning out to be my best ever year for cabbage. Though I suppose that really isn't saying much. I might not get huge heads, but I love cabbage a lot and will enjoy eating them. Big or small.

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.

Planting the Brassicas

Not all the brassicas got planted out. I still have the broccoli to go, but those go by the fence and the ends of the beds still have some ice. It is amazing the temperature difference between the soil near the walkway and the soil near the fence.

First to get planted were the kohlrabi (15) and the Michihili cabbage (6 which are really a bit too close together). The weird structure is my pea trellis. There isn't much soil depth the first foot of the beds because of the foundation for the brick path, so I have to connect things together to make those stable.

Lastly the cabbages (4 Point One, 3 Golden Acre, 3 Early Jersey) and kale (16 Red Russian). Once they were in I had to get their row covers up fast. I did the planting early in the morning because the wind was predicted to pick up by the afternoon. Well it started getting stronger as I was out there. Usually I wouldn't plant before a really windy day, but the row covers these get are very substantial and block the wind pretty well.

The row covers I put up are the tall white ones. You can barely see the one in the back as it blends into the white fence. They look horribly ugly, but they are pretty strong and tall. They protect the brassicas pretty well and still give them plenty of space to expand upward.

The most exciting news is that the first seeds are finally up in the garden. I'll take pics tomorrow as they are barely up and not really unfurled yet. These are the radishes and turnips that were planted on April 7th. They took just over a week to germinate. Next up ought to be the spinach. I don't even check the carrots until the spinach is up. Spinach is always faster.

Hopeful Seeding

With the cold weather we have had I'm not really sure when to start my main indoor plantings. We had been having weather about 10F degrees below normal. But things seem to be moderating. Our average temperatures for the end of March are supposed in the low 50s. If I ignore Saturday which is predicted to be in the mid 30s, we will be getting that for the next week with some higher temps and some lower temps, but about what it ought to be. So some nicer weather. My seeding plan says I start my main plantings on March 20th. I decided to start them yesterday not quite a week late. I'm still a bit worried whether it will be warm enough by mid April to plant them. But I'm hopeful.

I love soil blocks, but not everyone does. I use the 1 1/2" ones for almost everything. Today I calculated that I needed 180 blocks. That makes 2 1/2 flats of them. One flat was filled with all the baby Asian greens. Usually I don't grow so many transplants of these. I often put in some for early greens, but then I direct seed the rest as it is less work that way. This year I won't have time to direct seed as the ground won't thaw soon enough. So I'm doing this batch and I'll do another smaller batch in a couple of weeks. This batch contained choy cum, Hon Tsai Tai, mizuna, tatsoi, and bok choy.

Covered to retain moisture until they germinate

The second flat was my other brassicas - Michihili, broccoli, three types of cabbage, kale, and kohlrabi. I wanted to do three different kinds of cabbage this year to try different early cabbages. I have Early Jersey, Point One, and Golden Acre.

The last half flat has my chard, marjoram, and savory. I've never had so many flats all in there at once. Usually my onions are already outside hardening off. At the most I might have three flats going. Often just two. But with switching what I grow this year (to get rid of most legumes) and the weather issues, I needed three lights turned on. I've never ever done that before. And if things don't melt out quickly enough I might just try to do spinach inside for the first time. Usually that isn't worth it, but I really want my spinach crop. We will see.

Carrots and Cabbages

Friday I went gleaning in the morning. I told myself before I left that I had to water my brassica seedlings. The weather has been hot and sunny and they needed the water. So what did I do? Yes I forgot. I came back and they were all wilted. I wasn't sure if they were going to live or not. Luckily they bounced back. A bit of some of the leaves died, but nothing major. If they had died I still would have had time to replant. Well all except the kale as I've used up my kale seed.

But because of that I decided they really needed to get in the ground. The carrots were as big as they were going to get and I needed that garden space.

So out they came. I decided to wash them off fairly well before bringing them into the kitchen as they were very dirty.

These carrots are all Mokums and Yayas. The Mokums are longer and thinner and the Yaya shorter and fatter. They both did pretty well.

Even though they both had nematodes. I did get a fair share of split and stumpy carrots from that, but all in all they grew through the problem well. There was a bit of carrot fly damage but just on a few carrots. The row cover worked out well.

I was too hot to want to plant up that day and wanted to give the poor cabbages a chance to recover from their ordeal. So I just tossed the row cover back to keep the cats out.

This morning I finally got to putting them into the ground. I have three Michihili cabbages, 4 Napa cabbages, 9 kohlrabis, and 8 Early Jersey cabbages. I picked the plants that had the least damage to their leaves. I'm hoping they will be fine. Such stress can cause plants to bolt. I hope they won't. If you notice I had the hoops up for the row cover already.

I have three tall row covers. And all three were being used, but the one on the fresh eating carrots didn't have to be tall. Most of the cabbages were out already, with just one left that is still sizing up. So I took the tall row cover off of here and moved it over. Now this patch has a short row cover. And I have a lot of those. I think my garden is a row cover jigsaw. Not only do I plan where to put my crops, but in that design I also plan what row covers to use.

Do you see the weird hump in the front of the row cover? Well my brick paths are pretty and all, but they need a foundation. The first foot into the beds is packed hard and not something you would want to grow in. The big hoops won't go in far enough to hold up. So I've been using my little wire hoops to hold it out at the ends. Those can penetrate a bit more and don't need as much support.

The broccoli have one of the other tall row covers. I removed one row of the broccoli as I harvested it. The other half will give me side shoots this summer. But the empty spot got five more broccoli plants. Half are Fiesta and half Arcadia. I'm not sure which one has one more as I didn't pay attention, but it doesn't really matter. I'm sure they will all grow well. To make sure the older plants don't shade these out before they get started, I broke off the lower leaves. I do this anyway at this time as the lower leaves start to die. If I leave them on they will spread a black mildew disease around the whole patch. So I keep the older leaves off before they die off and rot.

I now have much of the fall garden planted up but there is a lot to do still. I still need to get the next succession of lettuce planted. I need to sow the next succession of turnips and beets. I wish I could plant the kale, but it will go in after the onions, so I need to pot up the transplants I have. I think potting up once will be enough. The onions ought to be out in a few weeks. A little later in the season I'll be direct seeding (probably) my baby Asian greens and the fall spinach.

Broccoli and Germination

Earlier today when I was talking on how mother nature as being cruel with the sun? Well later that afternoon the sun went behind the clouds again and it started feeling cool. So of course I went outside one more time. Will I never learn?

The broccoli really needed to be weeded. Not that you can tell from this photo. Not many weeds make it past the huge broccoli leaves. The lighter colored leaves in the middle are not weeds but salad turnips.

This one weed did get past the broccoli leaves though. It is a much hated weed here. Not because it is hard to control. It pulls out easily, but because the stem is covered in tiny spines that can scratch up your arm. I haven't figured out what it is. The closest I've come is a wild cucumber, but they have tendrils on them to climb. this one climbs by wrapping around things. My neighbors on both sides don't control these so they go to seed and spread into my yard and climb fences over into mine. I'd be fine but I have to remember to wear gloves. Ouch!

Most of the broccoli plants are doing well, but no signs of heading yet. I lost one to root maggots. Another was attacked by them, but grew past it. It was stunted for a while, but seems to be catching up. The plants look amazingly healthy right now. I'm thinking I should get a succession crop ready when some of them come out. Some I'll leave in for side shoots.

I lifted the row cover that I had down and found the turnips and beets had germinated. So I had to get the netting up to protect them. The row cover was placed directly on the ground to help with the parsnip germination. Those haven't shown yet, and I don't expect them to for a while. But the turnips needed to be uncovered so they could grow.

Hopefully this will keep those nasty root maggots out. Though right now I think we might be between generations.

In the middle of my work the sun came out again to burn me up. So once I finished that cover I came back inside all sweaty. But at least inside I can still smell the rose with all my windows open. Oh it smells good.

Putting Up and Eating My Harvests

This morning was a big one on the preservation front. The first chore was to chop the rest of the good kale leaves off the plants. Kale is a mainstay of my winter eating. So I like to freeze a lot of it. For greens I shoot for about 40 servings of the chenopodiums with about half spinach and half chard. And about the same amount of the brassicas split between kale and broccoli.

I picked about four and a half pounds of kale from the Blue Curly Kale. Despite it being a more dwarf plant, it gave me a much bigger harvest than the Winterbor. I think that is because the Winterbor starts to bolt earlier than the other.

After blanching I divided the kale up into packets to freeze. I have two servings in each container. Once they freeze I'll take them out and vacuum seal. With 18 servings they end up being about a quarter pound each, which is a nice size.

This is the last of the kale leaves. And all told I have 28 servings frozen. So the kale did decently. Lets hope the broccoli can make up the 12 I still need. I didn't eat any of the kale leaves fresh this spring but that doesn't mean I was deprived of kale. I had lots and lots of kale blossoms to eat. I probably had them at every other meal for the last three weeks. It has been a good kale run. I'll be sad to see it go. I might get another serving before I rip the plants out, but maybe not. I do want to get the parsnips in soon.

The oregano in the herb bed was just taking over, so it was the next plant to get harvested. I only harvested half because I didn't think more would fit in the dehydrator. I'll save the other half for another day.

But I was wrong. I could only fit about half of that in the dehydrator. So I had to use the oven method for the rest. I turned the oven on at its lowest temperature which is 170F. Then turned it off and put in the herbs. Four hours later (because I forgot about it) I turned it on until it heated up again. It is slow going that way, but at least the oregano won't mold on me. I expect that when the dehydrator is empty I'll refill with what is in the oven. I could just leave the oven on at that temperature, but it is a bit hot. I'd really like to have the herbs not see anything over 115F for better quality.

I've been playing with salad dressings recently as I've been eating salads everyday for lunch. In the last couple of weeks I was experimenting with blue cheese dressing. I hated blue cheese as a child, but tastes change and blue cheese is supposed to be really good for you. So I tried it out again. And yup I do like it now. But the real garden dressings are ones that use your homegrown herbs. So today I tried making a Green Goddess dressing. It has parsley, chives, and tarragon. All herbs that grow in my garden. The verdict is that I like it, but I'll have to play with it some more. The classic Green Goddess is made with a mayo base. I'm not a huge fan of tons of mayo. I don't mind some. So I cut it in half with buttermilk which was good. But I may replace some of the mayo with sour cream too. And it needs a lot more herbs.

Trellises and Pests

Yesterday I put the strings on my trellises. The fava beans get a grid pattern to hold them upright in the wind. As they grow I'll put more layers onto the grid. Eventually I'll have three. The peas have one that is two dimensional. Just lines of string between the T-posts. I'll have to force them on it though. They would really rather climb up the carrot row cover than up the trellis.

While I was weeding the carrots I noticed a couple of spots that had plants like this. It is a classic sign of the cutworm. Cutworms hide just under the soil near where they pull in their stolen leaves. So I rooted around in the soil until I found them and then squished them. They really took down a lot of the carrots, but I wasn't paying enough attention. I should be more careful.

I'm also noticing some root maggot damage in the cabbage patch. I cover to keep those flies out, but obviously I wasn't 100% successful. The two plants that are wilting might live but I doubt it. Sadly such things are all too normal and I'm sure they won't be the last plants to bite the dust this year.

Today I was out weeding just to be outside and decided the lettuce was big enough to plant. This is my third secession so far this year. I hope I keep it up, but the odds are I'll forget about it at some point and then the lettuce will be over. Maybe tomorrow I'll get the next succession started.