Whats in a Name?

So green!

I always hate when they change the name of a family. The Apiaceae family will forever be the Umbelliferea family to me. I have a bed of miscellaneous Apiaceae in one bed. I love their different green textures.

The fennel has been slowly sizing up. I pick a few each week to use in my salads. Since these were sort of self sown - I tossed old seed heads on the bed - the plants are way too close together. So eating is my way of thinning. Eventually I'll let some of them go and flower.

The celery on the other hand were sown indoors and spaced fairly far apart. Celery hasn't done so well for me in the past. I've gotten the plants to grow but they never produced that much. This year I have a lot more plants and I've given each one ore space. They are growing better. I've started harvesting the outer most stalks. each week. So far they have been small, but the newer stalks are getting much bigger.

Also in the bed is some celeriac that won't be harvested until fall. But the parsley right near it is doing very well. I pick a few leaves every couple of days to use in the kitchen. I keep a bouquet of them on the counter so I have some fresh during dinner. I find I'm more apt to use it if it is always there.

I'm obviously not the only one to like this family of plants. I've got a small praying mantis patrolling for bugs. I've seen them here and there in the garden earlier on when they were tiny. It is nice to see them growing. I also saw one in the raspberry patch today. When they get full sized they will freak me out a bit. They do get huge. And they look so much like sticks from a distance that I won't notice them until I'm almost touching them. Gack! But I love them anyway. They are such cool creatures.

I do have a plant from another family in this bed. The peas which are in the Fabaceae family. Again they changed the name on me. The name legumes are in common usage here, but it is no longer Leguminosae. Why oh why do they do that? Since I can't eat the peas, they are going to be pulled out. I was just waiting for some seeds to show up.

And they did today. I wanted some amaranth seed. Ones that were bred for greens and not flowers. Though I'm sure their flowers are pretty enough. I've been wanting to try them. I figured if they had calliloo in their names they would make good greens. I've had calliloo in the Caribbean, but most of the time they made it with dasheen leaves. I wanted to know what dasheen looked like and one of my guides pointed out the plants. I'd always called them taro and hadn't a clue until then that you could eat the leaves too. I always thought it was a root vegetable.

I think tomorrow I'll get out and plant my seeds. Though I'm still contemplating starting them indoors first. I could always do it both ways and see what works. I have absolutely no experience with these plants. I just hope I can keep them small enough. The packet says three feet apart, but they are talking about for seed. Hopefully if I keep cutting it, it will stay smaller. Or I can start new ones on occasion. If anyone has any hints, let me know.

Planting Celery and Brassicas

This morning was warm but rained a bit. After the rain stopped I decided it was nice enough to plant some more seedlings. The parsley, celery, and celeriac were a bit overgrown as it was. The bed at the end was partly frozen still, but the section I needed for these was thawed. Yesterday the soil on the far end of the bed by the brick path even got to 60F (15C) yesterday when it was sunny. That last foot by the fence though still doesn't see anything but very early morning sun, so that ice takes a while to melt out. But I'm not putting any transplants there. I'm going to let the fennel pop up on its own from seed heads that I tossed there last fall.

I had two extra celery plants left over and put them right next to the other ones. That area is supposed to get peas in a week or two, but I don't mind losing some space to more celery.

Next up was to decide which of the brassica flats to go in today.

I decided on the baby Asian greens. They were more tangled and I didn't need them to get worse with time. Also since they produce so quickly keeping them longer in the blocks tends to make them bolt more easily. They are the first of the brassicas to produce and I want them to get going quickly. With the weather so nice and warm it will really jump start them.

When I put the window box plants in this bed I didn't measure. It made it a pain as doing a grid lets me get the plants in without crowding better. Those window box plants didn't fit my grid well. So there is a bit of unused space in there. Maybe I should have just crammed them in tighter.

I still have 24 more little plants growing upstairs under lights. In a couple weeks they will need to go in. I'm hoping the window box plants will be at least partially harvested by then as I don't have anywhere near that space for 24 more plants. But worse comes to worse I can shove them in or just toss them. I might just pick some at the baby stage to free up room. They are already baby Asian greens as it is - small plants naturally. There isn't much to them if you don't let them size up. But I'll cross that bridge in a couple of weeks.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get to the other flat of brassicas and the alliums. I'm not great at taking care of the poor plants that need to be watered at least once a day and sometimes twice on really sunny warm days. Sometimes I let them wilt too much. They are always happier planted.

In Hope of Spring

Making soil blocks

My schedule says on January 20th I should seed the parsley. I decided to do it today. A day or two, or even a week won't matter much to such a slow growing plant. And smelling the wet warm soil is so therapeutic on a cold day.

Seeded and covered in plastic to germinate

Last year I did the celery and celeriac very late comparatively. But they tend to be slow growing just like parsley. And like parsley they tend to be planted in mid April. I'm not sure the planting date will hold up with the cold weather we have had, but maybe the pattern will change before then. And maybe the snow will melt sooner than I think.

Labeled

Because of the possible late spring I planted some lettuce, bok choy, and mizuna early. That may seem counterintuitive, but I'm guessing I'll be chomping at the bit in spring and I might want to plant up some easy to grow greens in pots so that I can put them on the back steps to grow. I can bring them in easily at night if it gets cold and I would still get some early greens. I'm still not sure if I'm going to or not, but it gives me the option. If the weather changes radically and we get the warm temperatures the western part of the country has seen, they will just go into the ground in a month. But I really doubt it.

Shallots

The shallots and bunching onions are up. The onions germinated a couple of days ahead of the shallots. And the onions have a lot more plants in their container. So I won't have a ton of shallots this year, but it will make a good trial to see how they grow and store here.

Taming the Zucchini and Preserving

I'm not quite sure what came over me yesterday. I really have to seed some fall vegetables, but did I do that? No. Instead I was looking for zucchini in the patch and decided it needed to be cleaned out. Not pulled, but Costata Romanesca likes to put out side shoots. And it runs. The old leaves die off, the new ones look nice. So the patch was mostly a mass of foliage that wasn't producing. There was lots of yellow leaves that were trying to find light but were getting cut off by their neighbors branch.

So I found where each of the three plants came out of the ground and followed them along. I cut off all the side branches and the old leaves. It looks so much better now. And I can find the zucchini when and if it produces.

I found the main reason it wasn't producing too. Once all that old struggling foliage was off I could see the ground. That morning I watered and not a drop touched the ground. The wall of cucumbers had gotten so tall that it blocked the sprinkler from hitting it. I'm going to have to hand water from now on. Or at least until the cucumbers die off.

Once I got inside something again came over me. Usually I would eat and walk the dog. But I just had to use up some of my mass of cucumbers. So I made more pickles. I definitely don't need to make any more this year. I'll have to find homes for all the rest of the cucumbers. I did have one friend that took a pound and Donna has said she wants some for pickles. I hope she takes them all as every day I pick more and more. I need to rethink giving cucumbers 8 sqft in the garden. It doesn't seem like a lot of space. But they have given me 38 pounds already and there are tons of little cukes on the vine just waiting to size up.

The dog and I finally went for our walk about an hour and a half late. He was not very happy with that. He kept giving me this look telling me I was neglecting him all because of some weird need to do something now that could have been done later. It isn't like the cucumbers were going to walk off or anything. Though I can always hope.

And even though I hadn't been posting about it, I've been doing other preserving like making flavored vinegar with my herbs. Above are tarragon and basil. I also made an Italian flavored one, but I thought the oregano was a bit too strong in it. I might have to dilute it with more basil and thyme.

I've been freezing things too. Last week I froze some celery. And Then some chard, zucchini, and corn. Everyday now I freeze more corn. I pick what is ready and we eat what we want for dinner. I offer some to my townhouse mates, and anything not eaten is frozen. So not too much has been frozen yet, but I think over time it will add up.

Braiding Onions

Sorting onions

Yesterday after getting the lettuce transplanted and my mache seeded, I noticed that the first Copra onions that I picked were dry. The others aren't far off, but they weren't quite ready yet. The clouds looked threatening, but I figured I could get them braided and inside before it let down.

Braiding Copras

I was wrong on two counts. It never really let down. It just dribbled. And I only got through two braids before I had to go in. Some people make really long braids, but I like short ones with about 10 onions. I think they look nicer and are easier to carry.

Copra top, Ailsa Craig bottom

This morning I went out to finish the job. I got one more Copra braid, but I noticed the Ailsa Craig onions way in the back were ready enough. So I did those too. I've been eating these all through July so there weren't enough for even two braids. I just made one. And kept three onions for the kitchen. If you are interested in a braiding tutorial, I made one years ago.

I still have Copras out there drying. And I noticed that the ones on the far side of the rack weren't getting as dry as the ones closer to the left. So I moved all the onions still on the rack to the left side. The right side has a pallet in front of it and some morning glories growing up it. It really blocks the air flow. Next time I do this I'll have to remove the pallet for better drying.

I weighed the onions I braided and hung them in the basement for storage. Though I still have Copras to harvest, the final tally numbers are in for the Ailsa Craig onions. I thought they were a bit smaller than last year, but the numbers don't lie. I got about a pound more this year than last with the same number of plants. So I might have had a few huge ones last year, but they were more consistently large this year.

I'm really thrilled this year is a good onion year. You just never know what is going to do well each year. The celery is pretty sad. I had to harvest three more bunches due to mosaic virus. I ought to just rip the rest out and freeze it. The new variety, Tango, is all pulled up now and the virus took it right down, but my old standby, Ventura is still trying to hold its own. And the beans are getting hit hard by rust. Today I stripped off about half of their leaves to keep the spread down. But it is only a matter of time before they all come down. I found that the Kentucky Wonder beans are really very susceptible to it, but the new bean I tried this year, Golden Gate, isn't hit nearly as hard. Plus it put out a lot of beans before the rust got into the patch as it is an early bean. I might have to grow this one instead of KW from now on. The asparagus beans seem not as badly affected too. Though it is starting to get into them also. So it is a bad beans and celery year, but a good onion and corn year. I think I'm happy with that.

More Planting

Today is supposed to be a beautiful day. But we will be getting a cold patch next week. Even a day in the 40Fs. I wanted to get all my hardy plants out before the weekend. And I succeeded. All the smaller Asian greens and kohlrabi are planted in one bed. I didn't have enough plants to fill the whole bed which I expected. So I sowed more baby boc choy seed. This bed needs to be empty on June 1st for my sweet potatoes. They might not get full size by then, but they ought to be close.

I planted all my herbs except the basil. I have a bed where I put my miscellaneous greens. The parsley, winter savory and the sweet marjoram were put there along with the red celery. I had a lot of the bed planted in mache. Most of it was Golden Mache from Michelle ages ago. It grew well, but got way too leaf burned over the winter. So it was just weeded out and composted. But the regular mache (above from Emily) grew well and produced. I'm not picking much as I want the plants you see above to go to seed for next year.

I got a lot of little things done like weeding the spinach bed (finally done). I also spent time standing and staring at one spot along the basement foundation. I'm wondering if I ought to put in a tree to espallier. I've been growing sunflowers along the back. The cilantro is allowed to self seed there in the middle. And I have self seeding sweet alyssum along the front that grows into the brick path. I haven't been happy with the sunflowers of late. So I'm going back and forth right now. Apple tree, sunflowers, apple tree, sunflowers.

Now I just have this partial flat left which is flowers, basil, and a few extras. It has been outside during the day and inside at night. It might have to go back under the lights when the cold hits next week.

Cleaning Up and Planting

I'll see if I can remember all the things I did yesterday in the garden. Probably not. Much of the early part was cleaning things up which involves the whole yard. I didn't do any raking. I probably should. But I do know that I took down a lot of the old perennial stems that litter the garden. I cut them down by half in the fall, but don't take them out until spring usually. In spring they just pull right out without injuring the plants.

Then it was off to the herb circle. The oregano was just starting to come up so I cut all the dead branches off. The two thymes were harder. The English thyme was the worst off. Most of its outer branches were dead, but not all of them. So I tried to cut off as little of the living growth while getting rid of the dead growth and still not taking all afternoon to do it. The French thyme only had a handful of spots that were dead so I didn't have to be as careful. Usually the death on the plants is the other way around. English thyme is more hardy than French thyme is. I had already cut back the old chives and garlic chives as I do that before they come up for the year. The last plant is my only living rosemary left. "Arp" survived the winter for the second year. Though I'm thinking I should cover it with some old remay if we don't get snow next year. Some of the branches were browning out. So I cut them all off. Then I gave the whole pant a haircut since it was getting very big.

The compost from the winter was starting to smell. It tends to get too wet in the plastic over the winter. Typically we layer leaves with the kitchen waste, but when the leaves freeze solid we can't do that. So it all just gets tossed in. When it defrosts it smells on the first warm day. It is my signal to take it out of the plastic bin and put into the pallet bins. Turning it over helps air it out and the wet spots are layered with some dry leaves. Even though it was a bit wet for composting, the worms loved it. The whole patch was a mass of worms. Since my compost piles usually aren't hot piles any more they have become more like worm bins as long as I don't let them dry out too much.

The next chore was to weed out the spinach bed. The "weeds" were some chamomile and Johnny Jump-ups. I never did finish the weeding as I got distracted with other things. But I did move some of the jumpups to line the edge of the fence. They will be pretty for a couple of months before they get scraggly and have to be pulled out. I also line the edge of my raspberry patch with the jumpups. I didn't need to transplant many as they often come up along that edge.

I noticed that some of my irrigation for the circle garden had split where the construction workers stepped all over it installing my solar. I tested the other part and noticed that where all the connections were the holes had loosened up. This is were the fitting connects into the pipe, so it is unfixable without replacing the main pipe itself. I don't want to do that every year here. It just isn't worth tossing all that plastic every year. So my irrigation isn't working out like I expected. I'm guessing the frost gets into it and slowly opens it up more and more as more water can work its way into the crack. I took it out removing all the fittings. Sigh. I haven't yet checked the one at the wall garden. I'll have to do that soon. I might just get some soaker hose for that part and a Y fitting to connect them. That way I can just remove the irrigation easily every year. That part I can't overhead water as it is 2.5' wide and more than 50' long. And hand watering just takes too long.

I planted out lettuce, celery, broccoli, chard, and my Michihili, Napa, and regular cabbages. Four of the best lettuce seedlings were planted with the onions along the fence. I'm going to let those four go to seed. I've got Little Gem, Paris Island, Red Sails, and Deer Tongue.

These were not planted today but were planted in March. I think I might be able to harvest a few outer leaves this week.

The very early Asian greens are ready to start picking at least the ones I use in salad - Fun Jen and mizuna. The first bok choy should be ready in a week. Or at least the green stemmed ones. The purple ones are struggling. We had a wind storm a while back that took off part of the row cover and it was flapping in the wind, or rather flapping on top of the purple bok choy. The poor things are trying to recover. I never did get to planting my later set of Asian greens or seeding more. But I'll get to that today I hope. But my back was starting to hurt so it was time to go in.

Then later in the afternoon the doorbell rang. It was my Bluestone perennial order. I had some ferns, hostas, and coreopsis to plant. We have a shady spot and I think not much but a hosta can live there, but maybe the ferns will too. Oh and I forgot that I divided up my bleeding heart and moved it there too. And dug out my Anise Hyssop (to toss, too many seedlings for a plant I don't really use, though it was pretty). I needed those two spots as this week my currents ought to show up and they are getting planted in the old spots.

All I can say is that it was a beautiful day and if my back had held out longer I would have worked in the garden all afternoon long. Today looks like it might be just as nice.

Solar and Seedlings

I had a little happy dance today. I got my electric bill today and I had no payment. Whoohoo. Our roof panels that were put in last month are doing their job. Technically the bill was $6.49 for the connection cost, but for some reason I had a net metering credit on my bill. I could have sworn they didn't pay you for the excess electricity, but just kept the balance on your account. But maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe it was some weird credit. I did get another weird credit. I got a storm credit. What in the world is that for? I think the state penalizes the electric companies when they don't get the electricity back up fast enough. However I never had any real outage here. So I guess I'm just confused right now.

My husband wrote me a widget to put on my sidebar and one for my desktop. It lets me see how much solar is being produced during the day. It isn't completely finished but it is a nice start. I was surprised that a widget hadn't already been written for the site. It seems like a small but nice thing to hand out to customers.

Cabbages, Asian Greens, and Celery

Today it is warming up again after a day that only got into the low 40Fs. We will get into the 50Fs today and later in the week into the 60s. It might even hit 70F. And it is the middle of April. That means it is time to start hardening off my main set of seedlings. I've got them outside today to bask in the partial sun. I think on Wednesday they will go into the ground.

I also seeded some zinnia and cosmos inside. I could have done it earlier but they both grow so quickly. I'm thinking they will only grow indoors for about 2 weeks once they come up and then they will go outside. I'm shooting for May 1st as a planting date. The cosmos was from Granny. I forgot how tall she said they would get. Maybe she will leave me a comment letting me know. I think they are shorter than the average cosmos and I can plant them in front of the zinnias. But I might have to intermingle them. I've done that with tall cosmos before and it looks very pretty that way.

Seedlings

Yesterday I finally got some more seedlings into soil blocks. For now I'm just doing three each of some early lettuce (Red Sails, Little Gem, Paris Island, Deer Tongue), bok choy (Shuko, Purple), mizuna (Early, Ruby Streaks), some celery (Ventura, Redventure), and Fun Jen. I'll do the main planting of them in a couple of weeks, but for now some riskier early plants. I fully expect them to produce, but you never know what the weather will bring. Yesterday we had another foot of snow.

Today I had to shovel a spot on the back steps to put out my onions. It is already 42F. This week will be mostly in the 40Fs and 50Fs, so I figure it is a good time to teach my onions what the real world is like. I'll bring them in at night. They don't predict the warm weather will stick around past this week, but a week of warm weather is helpful. In Boston the typical outdoor planting time for things like peas and spinach is St. Patrick's Day. Some years that works, some years we have to wait another week. Not sure about this year. We haven't had the intense cold like some years, so the ground might not be frozen as far down as usual, but we have had a lot of late snow which insulates it.

Preserving the Harvest

I got a lot of preserving done in the heat last week. I was working on getting my herbs dried. So far I've dried chamomile, mint, rosemary, thyme, and sage. I need to get to the parsley, basil and some more mint. Do you see where I put my dehydrator so I don't add to the heat of the house? I have that on my front porch. There is an outlet by my front door.

I was also busy freezing things this week. I froze some beans. I blanch them for 3 minutes and then toss the into ice water before freezing. I like to freeze everything on cookie sheets and them put them into bags so I can just grab however much I need.

And some celery. And some onions. I have a lot more freezing to do next week too. I really oughtn't dry out most of the Alicia Craig onions. I should just freeze them. I don't blanch onions or celery. They just get chopped and frozen. They loose some of their structure in freezing, but I'll only use them to cook with anyway so it doesn't matter.