Happenings in the Garden

I haven't really written about the garden since last Thursday, but things have gotten done. Lots of things that I probably won't even remember. So a short list. My handyman was in doing some work. He gets called in when I'm too busy or too lazy to do things. I had a huge list. Too bad I don't have an EG around to do these for me. But Mike is great. He even put in my pipe supports for my fig trees. Sadly no photos, but it is just a pipe 8" above the soil. I ordered the figs, but because of some travel I have they won't get delivered for a week or two.

View of the pea bed

One of our bare root peach trees never leafed out, so a replacement was sent. I put it in the basement for the heat wave of last week, but this weekend hubby and I planted it once it cooled off. I also did a lot of landscaping weeding and some mulching.

More of the pea bed

I've been busy training the few beans that have started to run up the bean strings. The tomatoes have been pushed back into their cages. They will all get out of control in the end, but for now I'm trying to preserve the small path I have. Today I took Allie around and showed her what to do when I'm away. She is college student living this summer with my townhouse mates. She is studying botany and I think would love to have my garden. So for a while she will.

On Monday I tested the lettuce. It had gotten horribly bitter. So I pulled about four pounds of lettuce out of the bed and tossed it on the compost pile. It was so sad. But our wild weather swings and high temps were just too much for it. I had some more summer lettuce varieties to go into their spots.

Newly planted on the left

But I was worried. The lettuce has the hottest spot in the garden. It is surrounded by brick path on three sides and even the sides of the beds are made of bricks. They really hold the heat of the day. So I covered the edges with burlap and figured when it gets hot, I can soak the burlap and get some evaporation cooling going on. I can only hope it works. But it can't be worse than the uncovered bricks.

I had a few extra lettuce plants so planted them in one of the three sisters beds. That bed gets the most shade of any of the beds in the garden. I figure the squash there won't grow all that well anyway, unless it can get through the corn to the other side. So lettuce ought to love it.

And speaking of lettuce. I have saved two lettuces to go to seed. Little Gem and Paris Island. The Little Gem is already starting to bolt. I don't think the Paris Island is long behind it.

In strawberry news, the alpine strawberries have been planted out. Some of them are still tiny, but I hope they will grow. They are planted in an arc in front of the house. Yeah I know no photos. I ought to take more photos of things, but I don't always. The smallest of the plants are at the ends so if they don't make it, it won't mess up the pattern.

The regular strawberries are starting to send out runners. I'm going to fill the bed in with them. I'll cut off any extra ones after I've got what I need.

After I planted the last of the lettuce I celebrated my lack of seedlings. Then I promptly went upstairs to the nursery and started my third wave of fast maturing brassicas and my slow maturing fall brassicas. And I planted some more of that green monster - Michihili Chinese cabbage.. It is hard to deal with coming out of the garden due to its size, but it tastes so good.

And for Ribbit. I've taken some aerials of the garden. I'll post them sometime when I'm gone.

Harvest Monday - June13 2011

This week didn't quite reach the heights of last week Though it was still a good harvest. My first spring greens are starting to be over with. All I have left from that first planting is one kohlrabi and some mizuna. The second set isn't big enough to harvest except the baby bok choy. It is about time to start the seedlings for the greens for the fall harvest for the long maturing greens and third wave of the more quickly maturing ones. The summer crops aren't quite there yet though I have seen my first female zucchini bud. It will be a while before it is big enough to open. The first wave of lettuce is almost over. The second wave was planted and is about four inches high. The third wave will be planted this week I hope. I should really do waves of lettuce more often. I think I waited too long before the second. Though the real problem is the heat. That area gets hotter than the rest of the garden and we have had two weird hot spells already.

So on to the harvest. Above is Tuesday's harvest of kohlrabi, mizuna, choy sum, broccoli, and turnips.

Wednesday's harvest had the first of the snowpeas - Golden Sweet and Blizzard. Golden Sweet is so much easier to pick because you can find the pea, but Blizzard so far is out producing it and has a slightly better taste, but just slightly. I also harvested the first of the chamomile and some more cilantro.

Then came the huge pile of lettuce. I wanted to get most of it picked before it got too bitter. The heat has been really hard on it all.

Thursday's harvest was small. It was just a quick trip out to pick some celery and some herbs. I had the first of the basil. I decided to pinch it back before the heat hit that day. It was a good decision because it doubled in size that day and it made the plants more bushy.

Friday's harvest was peas. They needed to get picked. I harvested two containers like this but the Golden Sweet I forgot to take a photo of. OK I forgot for both, but pulled this one out of my fridge.

Saturday's harvest was a mass of greens, kohlrabi, and broccoli - mostly the last two of the early spring planted Yakatta-na. They are very slow bolters, but still the largest of them started to bolt in the heat so I took out the remaining two.

Sunday's harvest started with a couple of pounds of Swiss chard.

And ended with a few herbs and some celery. I didn't pick them for me. I picked them for a friend of mine. I'm going to give her a partial CSA share every week. I have way too much to eat on my own, even with my townhouse mates help and have been looking for what to do with it. She is making me a huge dragon for my office area. So that will be part of how I pay her back. I figure I'll put some things in every week. Herbs and celery seem a good thing to have little bits of every week. I was going to only plant two celery plants for me, but I'm glad I put in more as now I'm feeding three families.

• Broccoli 1.85 lbs
  
• Greens 9.71 lbs
• Herbs 0.88 lbs
• Peas 1.41 lbs
  
• Turnips 0.35lbs lbs
• Weekly Total 14.19 lbs
• Yearly Total 64.67 lbs
• Weekly spent $0
  
• Still in the hole $-277.74

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

To Hot To Garden

This morning it was raining for the first time in a while. The land really needs it. My garden not so much. We weren't supposed to get rain in the morning. I think there are two reasons why we did. First I watered the whole garden yesterday. Second my handyman was coming to stain the condo's front porches. This is the third time he has tried to schedule it and had to cancel from rain that wasn't supposed to happen.

But today they keep predicting very hot weather. They say Boston will probably beat its old record. So I'm staying inside. Tomorrow I'll have lots of heavy work to do, but we will be back to cooler temps. Instead of gardening things, I'll do a post on what I've been eating these last couple of days.

Preparing to cook dinner on the grill

I was talking to my son on Skype and for some reason we were talking about tuna melts. They sounded so good, so of course I made some, but I made mine on the grill. I grilled the bread. Then put on the tuna and cheese and let it melt. The reason there are two bowls of tuna is that one is mine and one is my husband. He doesn't like his tuna to crunch so it is just plain mayo. Mine has onions, celery from the garden, dill from the garden, and relish I made from last year's cukes. The mizuna is to top mine. since I love mizuna on my tuna sandwiches. In addition to the tuna melt I made some grilled mixed veggies. I cut up some of the green monster, garlic scapes, kohlrabi, Japanese turnips, and some mushrooms. Though the last wasn't from my garden.

Wednesday for lunch I was craving some beans. So I made an open faced burrito. I know you can't tell it is a burrito, but I swear there are beans and cheese below that pile of lettuce and cilantro from the garden.

Wednesday night my husband wasn't home and it was the first day of the farmers market. So I got myself some free ranged eggs, some hamburger patties, some scallops, and strawberries.

The scallops were turned into my dinner. It was the most amazing dinner I've had in a while. I made a lemon and peppers sauce (sorry no recipe, just tossed things together). I pan seared the scallops in some butter. Then deglazed the pan with some white wine and stir fried up the veggies with the sauce. I really must make this again, but sadly I used the last of the green monster up in this dish. I know he scared me at the start, but I've really loved eating him. I do indeed have to grow it again. It might be too huge for my garden, but it has the best flavor. And notice the peas? I picked my first peas yesterday. I just had to use them in the dish.

And talking about using something up as you pick it.The first basil was picked today. I had to pinch them to make them bushier and that basil will all be eaten. I made a grilled pizza for lunch. And for dessert?

Strawberry ice cream setting up

I turned those strawberries from the farmers market into ice cream. It may be too hot to garden, but ice cream sure helps.

Starting To Run

Today's chores were to weed the whole garden. I try do this at least once a week. I do weed day to day, but I can easily overlook things. If I haven't walked down that row recently it tends to get overrun with weeds very fast.

Cukes in the front and melons in the back

While I was weeding I noticed the melons and cucumbers were just big enough to start training up the trellis. I had been training the melon vines to run toward the outside of the trellis and not towards the cucumbers. For now I'm trying to make them grow up their appropriate trellises, but since they touch I'm guessing at some point they will get away from me and commingle.

And look at this, my melons are starting to bloom. Only males, but the females will come.

My zucchini are getting huge. These each are 2' across now. I have four of two types. I wonder which one will bloom first.

Then I had to water the garden I always think the garden looks best after a soaking rain - or a good watering. We are getting into the nineties today and high nineties tomorrow so I wanted to make sure everything was well watered.

Certain views of my garden are my favorites. Overlooking the pea bed is one of them. A neighbor's friend was in the driveway and telling me how pretty the garden was. I agree. Vegetable gardens are beautiful.

Down the middle of the tomatoes used to be another of my favorite views, but the tomatoes are getting too big and growing together. I can barely see the carrots in the middle. After this the carrots will grow very slowly.

And I love looking down the middle of the trellises. Of course normally the beans are all the same size coming up. This year they didn't germinate as evenly. The part of the bed you see here is pretty nicely even. They are the Cherokee Trail of Tears beans.

Things Are Blooming

My last garden was surrounded by flowers. Though veggies are my first love, there have been years when I plant some of my veggie bed up in flowers. And every year I interplant a few flowers. I try to pick flowers that are edible or that the bees love, but occasionally I plant them just for me. My cosmos this year is that kind of flower one just for me. Silence sent me some flower seeds last year of a double pink cosmos. I love cosmos. So I really wanted to try them. I couldn't last year. Sadly those haven't opened up yet, but I do see a couple of buds.

I interplanted them with my two tall zinnias. I haven't a clue which zinnia is which. The one above is the biggest of the two. The one below has the most interesting structure. I've never grown zinnias before, but this year I have three zinnias total. One is a short zinnia. I'll probably save seed and get some mixed up zinnias next year. But I like that.

In front of my zinnias the chamomile is blooming.

And on the other side of the path the marigolds have started. Soon they will take over the path and I'll have to be careful to step over them. But if I break off a stem, it is no big deal. They really are weeds here. Wherever they touch the ground they root, so occasionally I chop them back hard.

The tomatoes are blooming too. Pretty much all the plants have flowers or buds on them. I can't wait for tomatoes.

Along the path is the massive horde of sweet alyssum. There are some dianthus hiding between each plant, but they haven't bloomed yet and are getting over run. I hope the dianthus make it to put out some pretty little blooms. I've got sweet alyssum scattered in a couple of veggie beds too, but they aren't nearly as big as these. They must love the heat of the path. Slowly overtaking the sweet alyssum are the mixed sunflowers shooting up.

I've also got some nasturtiums scattered here and there. I rarely eat them, but on occasion I do.

And one rangy weed of a flower is borage. I don't know why I love it. It could be because it is edible. Or it could be because the bees love it (not that I've seen any bees this year). It gets so disheveled halfway through the season. But every year it gets planted anyway.

The peas are also putting on a good show. These are the Blizzard snow peas, and they live up to their name. They put out a blizzard of flowers on them. The Golden Sweet snow peas have much prettier flowers. They are a bicolored purple. But they put on a nice flush and there just aren't any fully open right now to photograph.

In front of the peas the favas are blooming. The ants have started the aphid farm and there are no beneficials in my garden yet. I thought about squishing them all. It wouldn't be hard. But I figure the favas are old enough to withstand them at this point and the little favas have started forming. I'll let the aphids stay. Maybe some ladybugs or lacewings will find my garden and start reproducing.

And my golden lemon thyme is blooming. I swore I wasn't going to plant it again. But I saw it and had to get it. I loved the plant before, but rarely did anything with the leaves. Ah well, I love the lemon scent so it stays. At my old garden you wouldn't be able to photograph this without some bees or wasps getting in the way, but I just haven't seen them this year. I need my bees. I remember last year it took a while for the bees to find the garden, I hope they hurry up before the squash get big enough to bloom.

And last but not least is my perennial dianthus. It was originally grown from seed over 20 years ago at my first house. Then it got moved to house #2. And now it is in house #3. Eventually I want to propagate it enough to have a whole row peeking out from under the air conditioner fence. But I will probably wait until next year to split the plants up. I'll give it one year to grow and spread in its current spot.

Harvest Monday - June 6 2011

Monday's harvest was just some lettuce that never got its photo taken. My townhouse mates had just gotten back from a trip and asked if I had any salad makings. You don't have to ask me twice. I picked a couple of head of lettuce to give them.

Tuesday's harvest was the start of several new things I was harvesting this week. Now the cilantro I picked should have been picked sooner. Sometimes things just get overlooked in the garden. I picked more later in the week, but forgot to weigh or photograph it. Expect that from a lot of the herbs and probably the celery. Unless I'm making a larger harvest I'll probably not worry about the small bits here and there.

Wednesday's harvest contained several new harvests and it was huge so had multiple photos. The first up is the monstrous Chinese cabbage. The smaller one on the right is a normal sized 2 pound cabbage. But the big one that I showed you earlier in the week was over 5 pounds. These are the first and only spring Chinese cabbages this year. So they were much anticipated.

Then we had some boring things I've been harvesting all spring long. Some Komatsuna and some mizuna. OK so maybe not boring. But not new for this week.

But the above basket I was dancing about. I love broccoli. This contains three heads of broccoli totaling just over a pound. This is the best I've ever done with broccoli before. This variety is Packman and will produce a lot of side shoots too. In addition I have two other kinds that will form heads later. Also new in this basket is my first celery harvest. Right now the ribs are pretty small, but they and the leaves are very flavorful. And loved but put in the bottom was my first dill harvest of the year.

Friday's harvest was also a first and a much anticipated harvest. It was my garlic scapes. I grow both hardnecks and softnecks, but only hardneck garlic gives scapes. Softnecks can, but only will if very stressed. So far I've had scapes in salad dressing, in a stir fry, and my favorite in a grilled pizza. Yum.

Now I had been picking lettuce a couple times a week as I needed it, but on Saturday I had to clear out half the lettuce bed to put in the summer lettuce. So the harvest was just huge. That pile is not quite four pounds of mixed lettuce. I tossed a lot of it at my townhousemates and they made it into a huge salad for a party they were going to. But I have plenty in the fridge for the coming week.

Last Harvest Monday I was anticipating my snowpea harvest as the plants were in full bloom. Technically I haven't had a harvest, but the reality is that peas have been eaten, but they have yet to make it inside to photograph or weigh.

• Alliums 0.52 lbs
• Broccoli 1.07 lbs
  
• Greens 13.06 lbs
• Herbs 0.21 lbs
  
• Turnips 0.74lbs lbs
• Weekly Total 15.61 lbs
• Yearly Total 51.74 lbs
• Weekly spent $0
  
• Still in the hole $-335.90

So far this garden has produced amazing amounts of food. It is about two to three times the size of my last garden (570sqft here, about 230sqft at the old house), but my yearly total is 51.74lbs (so my old garden producing the same would have been at 20lbs). Last year at this time I was only at 10.20lbs. The year before I was at 12.98. So far this garden is 70% more productive than my last one. I wonder if it is the heat the garden gets. It is surrounded by asphalt on one side and a brick path on the other. Do close houses reflect the light? My house is light yellow and my neighbor's is white. Is it the nice soil instead of the heavy clay at my old house? Whatever the reason, I'm amazed at how much better things grow here.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Chores

I'm slowly getting my remaining chores done. Earlier in the spring I would work for hours in the garden to finish things up. Now life is easier. I go out for a short time and do a couple of chores each morning. Nothing takes too long.

The first order of business yesterday was to get my potatoes contained. Potato foliage can get really large and then flop over into my path. My paths here are very narrow to give space for actual growing, but I need to be able to walk down them. So I cut six of my 8' poles in half to get some really sturdy 4' poles. Then I strung some twine around them. I still haven't put the top layer on, but I don't know if I'll need one that high or not.

The next order of business was to stake up the eggplants. Like the stakes near the pepper plants, I'm hoping they become necessary. I really hope they grow. Last night was cold though and not really conducive to those warm weather plants. We hit 45 last night. My melons must be shivering right now.

The last chore was to harvest all the lettuce on one side of my lettuce bed and then replant with my summer lettuce. In a few weeks the other side will be done. I did not follow the pattern I had on the other side. I'm doing a summer lettuce trial and wanted the different lettuces to have about the same conditions. The garlic really does shade a lot of the lettuce bed, but not in the back. So I started each row at the garlic and went out to the edge. As usual I planted way too close together and will pull every other one when they get bigger. Though I planted five types, I'm really only trialing three. The other two are Deer Tongue and Red Sails. Which are my tried and true lettuces. I've got Red Sails going down the hot outer edge of the bed. I hope it grows fast to shade that section. The lettuces in the trial are Jericho, Manoa (from Mac), and Anuenue (from Mac). I was going to trial them last year, but with the house move it never happened. The first is an Israeli lettuce and the last two are Hawaiian lettuces. So far I've found Jericho a very slow germinator and grower. But maybe it grows slow, but well in the heat. I'll find out.

Today's chores are to water the rock wall garden and to reseed the beans that aren't germinating.

Yet Another Lunch Post

Really I didn't mean to post yet another lunch post, but maybe you will agree with me that it was necessary. I was getting lunch ready to be cooked. I had the pizza dough all rolled out. The sauce was made from tomatoes canned from last year. The cheese was grated. But I decided I needed a salad to go along with it. Last week I had made a ranch dressing. I hated it and was avoiding eating salad so I wouldn't have to eat it. Silly huh? So I tossed it yesterday. Today I was thinking French dressing which I know I love. I was looking for the recipe in my recipe box. I didn't see it. Where did it go? But I noticed my garlic scape salad dressing recipe. I look forward to it every year.

Last year I harvested scapes in mid to late June during the main pea harvest. Though I did steal a couple of baby peas off the vine today, the harvest of peas hasn't yet started. So I wasn't expecting anything when I glanced out the kitchen window thinking wistfully of garlic scapes. And this is what I saw.

SCAPES! In early June. Two weeks earlier than last year. So I made garlic scape salad dressing instead.

Mmmmmm lunch. I so love grilled pizza and garlic scape dressing. I even got rid of one more leaf of the green monster.

Trellises

I got a couple of chores done this morning in the garden. My first was to string the last section of trellis. It is over the bed where the spinach grew. Now it is planted in dried beans, corn, and squash. They have already started coming up. The squash in this bed germinated better than the squash in the other bed. I guess that isn't too surprising since the other bed gets a lot more shade.

Then I had to put the diagonal braces on all the trellises. This will make them much more sturdy in the wind when they are covered in foliage. I wanted to find long thin bolts to attach them. Something I could take off and reuse. But go figure, no one sells 2 1/2" long bolts that are only about 1/8" thick. So instead I used some brass wire I had. I think that will hold very well.

Urban Gardening

And as you might have noticed I brought out the sprinkler for the first time this year. I was going to do a drip irrigation system, but never got to it. I hope it isn't a dry year like the last one. I turned over my trash can and put the sprinkler on top. I do it on the trash can so the sprinkler can get up and over the foliage. Right now that means the peas. as they are the tallest right now.

This weekend I need to get in my summer lettuce starts which means picking what is already there. I'll have to mark the couple lettuces that I want to go to seed. If I don't, you just know they will get taken out. Remember this is the gardener that ate her Ottawa Cranberry seed beans and had to have Granny send her some more.

I also have to get the bamboo stakes in for the potato containment. The potatoes are growing very fast. Give them another week and I won't be able to walk down the aisle to pick anything.

The last thing I have to work on over the next week is getting my fall plan down on paper. I have some of the basics in my head, but haven't gotten to writing them down. I need to start transplants by mid June or they will be too late to produce.

Where Daphne Brings in Reinforcements

At lunch today I didn't want cabbage. Even really good cabbage. I've been craving tuna fish, so that is what I made. I added dill and celery from the garden. I put in some sweet relish that I canned up last year. Then topped it with some fresh mizuna. The bread was freshly made whole wheat grilled bread. Let me just say it was delicious. But it needed onions for more of a bite. I'll have to remember next time.

At dinner time I was making BBQed chicken sandwiches. What a perfect time to eat cabbage. Well the ribs anyway. The leafy part would burn off, so that was cut away. Oh yummy. I added some of my turnips from the garden. And a couple of slices of red pepper and some mushrooms that sadly aren't mine.

The pile of cabbage was getting smaller, but I really needed reinforcements. I had already sent a pile of it over to my townhouse mates. Today I sent some over to the neighbors over the back fence. Now the pile looks smaller and more manageable. I might be able to keep it out of the compost pile after all. Ok it wouldn't have gone in there. It tastes too good. I'd cook it up in broth and freeze it for winter soups. Regardless, the war seems to be over. Yes there are a few stragglers trying to put up a good fight, but I know they can be put down easily enough with a few more meals. Or maybe five more meals, but I swear I've got this one won.

As for gardening news, I didn't spend much time in the garden today. I strung up 8' of the last trellis. I just have 8' more to go and I'm done with them all. I thinned out the beans that have been popping up. The Norridgewock beans aren't germinating again. I wonder if the seed is viable at all. I'm thinking not. I've had the hardest time getting seeds of this plant. Maybe I'll try again next year.