A quickie, here, as it's already after eleven. But I did want to show off my kale harvest, centerpiece of tonight's veggies. I've been picking tiny leaves for salad for weeks, and had one other mid-size leaf harvest, but this is the first big collection of leaves eight to ten inches long–not counting the stems.
Posted in Food & Recipes, Vegetables
This year, I swear, I'll get all the space I have access to planted. Every year I reclaim a couple more plots from the weeds that rule them, but every year I have to reconcile myself to the fact that I can't tackle them all. Well, no more. It may take until August, and the plants I put in the ground may never produce, but by God, those plots are going to get prepped and planted.
With this goal driving me, I've been putting in four to eight hours a day in the garden(s), desperately trying to make up for an incredibly wet, cold spring, my inability to do anything significant last fall (shoulder injury), and standard issue procrastination and neglect. To my horror, it's now July 4th, and I'm still planting and, even worse, preparing to plant.
Just about everything that needs to be directly seeded is in the ground and growing. But my tomatoes and squash are still waiting for a home, and if they don't get one soon, I'll be in trouble.
The plan (ha, ha!) has been to get four new plots under production this spring: one next door, two across the alley, and the fourth along the alley outside yet another neighbor's property. (Yes, I am now encroaching on THREE neighbors' land.) Fortunately, a couple of these plots have been at least partially cleared of weeds in past years.
I'll try to report of what I tackle(d) in each case, and how it's going (or went).
Posted in Organic Gardening, Weed Control
I'm not sure where I first heard that line about letting the earthworms do your digging for you, but I'm putting it to the test this year. It's part of my effort to get away from digging in amendments every year, which is hard on the worms (they have permanent tunnels) and can even be hard on soil structure. Besides, it's too much damn work!
This year, I've got another excuse: no time. My shoulder injury last autumn meant that I barely managed to finish the harvest. As for cleaning up plots, laying down compost, prepping new plots—forget it. None of that happened.
Which means that all of that was left for spring. Which, as most of you know, has its own task list.
Now, some people faced with a particularly steep challenge will leap into action.
Posted in Composting, Organic Gardening, Soil & Amendments
This may be the rudest, crudest vegetable I've grown. It's flagrantly suggestive in rather obvious ways, but even if you manage to look past those, it looks to me like a carrot giving the finger to—what? The other carrots? The spinach?
Perhaps when it writes its memoir, The Secret Life of Carrots, we'll find out.
The real point here is that I picked it on February 15th from my basement garden, which even now remains my only source for fresh vegetables such as those in last Sunday's omelet.
Yes, I know; some of you down south are probably almost ready to harvest your first spring carrots, and your chard may be ready to bolt. But things are different here in the north, especially this year. We are flirting with spring—or it with us—but no commitment has been made. You couldn't say that there's an actual relationship here.
Posted in Indoor Gardening
Seriously, folks. Back to gardening.
This morning my long-suffering husband informed me that we had with real, local eggs for our Saturday omelet. (If you don't know why he's long-suffering, you haven't read this morning's post. It was supposed to be yesterday's post, but some cyberspace hiccup delayed it.)
In honor of the eggs, I went to the basement for fresh vegies. (Yes, basement. More on this soon.) There's not a lot to choose from at this season, but I did find enough fresh chard and carrots to do the trick. Along with a grating of jarlsburg cheese and a sprinkling of sunflower seeds, they made a truly luscious omlete.
Posted in Food & Recipes, Organic Gardening
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