Thursday, June 20, 2013
Friday, June 7, 2013
Spring Harvest
We are just starting to enter a bigger harvest season so I thought I'd recap.
We have been harvesting about a pound of lettuce a week since May 1. We also have plenty of greens - a big bunch of chard, kale, or collard each week. We've been using herbs liberally - even cilantro which was a very appreciated gift from the cold frame.
Today we will pick our first zucchini (also from the cold frame). It's small, but it'll be nice on tonight's salad.
So I'd estimate total harvest so far:
5 pounds of lettuce
1 pound of spinach
2 pounds of kale and chard
2 bunches of cilantro
1/4 pound of beet greens
1 jar of dill (dried)
2 bunches of green onions.
tarragon, sage, oregano, mint, and rosemary as needed.
Strawberrios!
That's Ames' way of saying it anyway! Picked two this morning. It was a little premature but he scarfed them down anyway. The patch is looking good, but I'm afraid the birds might be thinking the same thing.
Monday, June 3, 2013
June 2, Full Status
Things are looking good out there. Definitely my best year yet - mostly because my effort was more sustained. So... here goes:
This is the first year for this blue iris to bloom. It is a descendant of my grandmothers. Her white ones have been blooming for several years (although this year I think a frost took them out).
Here's the asparagus patch. We stopped cutting about 2 weeks ago. We were gentle with the patch this year since it was only it's third year.
The cold frame continues to produce. Lettuce is still providing a steady harvest (along with romaine from the larger vegetable garden), the cilantro has already been put to good use, green onions (replanted from the grocery store) are being used as cut-and-come-again, swiss chard leaves are coming off regularly. I pulled half the arugula (and replanted with a second crop of cilantro, and we ate all the spinach when my parents were in town because it was starting to bolt. The zucchini is a tester. I have had BAD issues with squash vine borer in the past. My intention was to cover the cold frame with floating row cover cloth to prevent the moths from flying in with their eggs, but that hasn't happened yet, and the to-do list is pretty long with row-cover acquisition pretty far down the priority list. Maybe they won't find this plant.
And now for the vegetable garden. I should have cleaned up before I went taking pictures. You can still see the scar in the lawn where we ran the hose underground out to the sink. Hopefully it will heal by summers end.
To the left from the sink, the glorious sage shrub followed by tomatoes. Two beefsteak varieties (Beefmaster and 4th of July), one cherry, 2 Amish Paste, 3 San Marzano (roma style), and 1 heirloom from Doug's Gram Henry - we don't really know anything more about it except it is a descendant of one she grew. All the tomatoes were planted with a little Epsom salt (I have read completely contradictory reports on whether this is a good idea or not). The first three were put in holes with some Garden Tone all purpose soil conditioner. Those were planted weeks ago with Wall-o-waters to protect them from nighttime cool temperatures. They clearly have a jump on the ones I put in today, but will the fruit come sooner? Stay tuned. The last 6 were put in holes with epsom salts and Jobe's Organics Vegetable and Tomato. Atomic Red and Purple Haze carrots are planted between the tomatoes. I just installed the soaker hose today. I'm going to be putting a lot of money into soaker hose over the next couple weeks and I do hope it saves me an equivalent amount of watering time. Yes, I know I haven't tied up all the bamboo yet. Good grief, I really should tidy up before taking pictures.
To the right of the sink, we made a last-minute plot plan revision and put in a long row of sweet potatoes instead of the cosmos and other flowers intended to attract beneficial insects. Watch - a plagues of locusts or some-such will attack the garden this year. I did put a patch of cosmos on either end of the sweet potatoes. When it comes to cutting anything off the planting list I am disabled.
Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly which varieties of sweet potatoes I planted. Most of it was Jewel, all came from Brush Valley Greenhouse. Behind the sweet potatoes next to the bamboo poles I planted scarlet runner beans. Something ate almost all of them. I have replanted with yard long beans and multi-colored pole beans. Hopefully there will be a wall of SOME kind of beans by summers end.
Moving around the corner toward the shed, this is the state of the perennial bed. Everything is bolting. One new addition here is the White Straussburg edible pod radish grown from seed my friend Jim Eisenstein grows for the Seed Savers Exchange. Looking forward to this experiment! Dill is doing fabulously.
Behind the perrennial bed I just planted the edamame alongside the Sugar snaps which will climb the strings I just hung. Boy - I really do pack the stuff in, don't I? This bed was full of kale and dill (self-seeded) 2 days ago when I got ready for the edamame. The dill has been washed and is drying. The kale went into the quinoa kale patties I just posted the recipe for.
Beets are backing up to the small fenced area. They don't get as much light in this location as previous years, so they are growing a little slower, but coming along. Germination wasn't perfect, but the holes have been reseeded and should be filled in by the next update.
Inside the fence, everything is doing well. A new patch of lettuce is looking forward to stepping up when our current lettuce gives up. I planted one hot pepper in the middle of that patch. It'll take over when this lettuce is done. (I like to keep the hot ones out of Ames' reach - that would be a cruel lesson since he's so used to running around the yard just picking stuff and eating it.) The garlic is thriving, but no sign of scapes.
I was committed to pulling the strawberry patch and replanting with something I thought would be more productive, but now I'm kind of glad I never got around to that. There are LOTS of berries in the making here. We stopped by our local farm today to check, and they said their's were about 2 weeks out. Ours might be a little more, but we shall see. (Yeah, the photo should be rotated but Blogger doesn't offer that option. Really?!?)
The bed behind the bench is doing pretty well. I still need to reseed some of the parsnips, but the leeks, daikon radish, kale, and collards are doing just fine. Okra seeds are in behind the greens, just a small patch.
Next to that we have a bed with a patch of the beneficial insect attracting mix (from Fedco), 4 rows of carrots (Atomic Red, Purple Haze, Nantes, and Danvers). In front of that will be a patch of beans, not sure which yet, with parsley at all four corners of the bean patch.
A long row behind all these smaller patches has the onions. They aren't getting quite enough water, but I guess they are doing OK.
Potatoes are in laundry baskets this year. Easy to harvest, but will they produce well?
And finally, the favas. Aphids still seem to be under control, and celery and celeriac in front of them have survived the transplant.
This is the first year for this blue iris to bloom. It is a descendant of my grandmothers. Her white ones have been blooming for several years (although this year I think a frost took them out).
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To the left from the sink, the glorious sage shrub followed by tomatoes. Two beefsteak varieties (Beefmaster and 4th of July), one cherry, 2 Amish Paste, 3 San Marzano (roma style), and 1 heirloom from Doug's Gram Henry - we don't really know anything more about it except it is a descendant of one she grew. All the tomatoes were planted with a little Epsom salt (I have read completely contradictory reports on whether this is a good idea or not). The first three were put in holes with some Garden Tone all purpose soil conditioner. Those were planted weeks ago with Wall-o-waters to protect them from nighttime cool temperatures. They clearly have a jump on the ones I put in today, but will the fruit come sooner? Stay tuned. The last 6 were put in holes with epsom salts and Jobe's Organics Vegetable and Tomato. Atomic Red and Purple Haze carrots are planted between the tomatoes. I just installed the soaker hose today. I'm going to be putting a lot of money into soaker hose over the next couple weeks and I do hope it saves me an equivalent amount of watering time. Yes, I know I haven't tied up all the bamboo yet. Good grief, I really should tidy up before taking pictures.
Behind the perrennial bed I just planted the edamame alongside the Sugar snaps which will climb the strings I just hung. Boy - I really do pack the stuff in, don't I? This bed was full of kale and dill (self-seeded) 2 days ago when I got ready for the edamame. The dill has been washed and is drying. The kale went into the quinoa kale patties I just posted the recipe for.
I was committed to pulling the strawberry patch and replanting with something I thought would be more productive, but now I'm kind of glad I never got around to that. There are LOTS of berries in the making here. We stopped by our local farm today to check, and they said their's were about 2 weeks out. Ours might be a little more, but we shall see. (Yeah, the photo should be rotated but Blogger doesn't offer that option. Really?!?)
The bed behind the bench is doing pretty well. I still need to reseed some of the parsnips, but the leeks, daikon radish, kale, and collards are doing just fine. Okra seeds are in behind the greens, just a small patch.
Next to that we have a bed with a patch of the beneficial insect attracting mix (from Fedco), 4 rows of carrots (Atomic Red, Purple Haze, Nantes, and Danvers). In front of that will be a patch of beans, not sure which yet, with parsley at all four corners of the bean patch.
A long row behind all these smaller patches has the onions. They aren't getting quite enough water, but I guess they are doing OK.
Potatoes are in laundry baskets this year. Easy to harvest, but will they produce well?
And finally, the favas. Aphids still seem to be under control, and celery and celeriac in front of them have survived the transplant.
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