Harvest Monday, 4/22/18

Kale and kale flowering buds. This is about a third of what we harvested on Saturday.

Spinach salad with pea shoots, raisins, and cashews.

We cleared out the garden on Saturday. I picked a ton of overwintered kale, spinach, and turnip greens, while the kiddo and husband dug up some carrots. We had hoped to till soon but it rained all Sunday and more is expected this week, so we'll probably end up planting late just like last year. It's been a very wet cold spring.

The carrots were seeded in the fall and grew slowly over the winter, and now we have a fifteen foot bed of baby carrots. They're excellent cooked with their young leaves. (My husband had accidently mowed down their tops in March.)

I had seeded a flat of peas last month to get an early start on a spring garden, but since it's much too late for that we've found that pea shoots are wonderful in salads. It makes me curious about the world of microgreens. I believe Dave at Our Happy Acres grows sunflower sprouts which looks very intriguing to me.

Most of the tomatoes and peppers have been potted up and they're growing quickly in the greenhouse. I've been debating about potting up the onions which have been in a 72 cell tray for two months, I'd much rather put them in the ground but either way they'll need to be fed soon.

Please join us for Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres. A place where irrepressible gardeners share their harvests and what they've been preparing in the kitchen.

Harvest Monday, 4/9/18

Harp and Clarinet spinach harvested Sunday. The spinach is staying nice and tender even with all the weird up and down weather. We had some last night in an omelet with a light sprinkling of cheddar, even the stems are delightful.

Red Russian kale was also harvested on Sunday. The kale did end up dying down with this year's extra cold winter, but it came back only to be bolting now. I can already see the florets forming which I imagine are very much edible.

Please, join us for Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

Harvest Monday, 3/26/18

Spinach picked on Sunday. We grew two varieties of spinach, Harp and Clarinet, both are F1 hybrids which overwintered without any protection. The leaves are large and amazingly tender. They've really started to grow now that it's gotten warmer and the days have lengthened a bit. Harp has serrated margins and a long stem, making it easier to pick and the stems are nicely crunchy and juicy.

We've been eating the spinach in salads as well as soups.

Corn salad picked on Sunday. The corn salad overwintered without protection as well. This variety is Coquille de Louvier and has a mild flavor, but it's already starting to run to seed. Even so, leaves are very tender and we've been enjoying them in salads, soups, and sandwiches.

The same bed that has the spinach and corn salad is also home to Red Russian kale. The kale had died off during our sub zero weather, but came back from it's roots and should reach harvestable size in another week or two. Everything else in the garden was killed off.

Lots of spring seedlings are growing in the greenhouse. I'm hoping the ground will dry out in the next couple of weeks so we can start planting. Pepper seedlings are starting to form their first true leaves, and tomatoes are just starting to germinate. Fingers crossed things go well.

Please join us at Harvest Monday, hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

An Early Fall Vegetable Garden in September

The bed on the left has carrots, radishes, and newly sprouted spinach. On the right is the kohlrabi, turnip and daikon radish bed.

Carrots and radishes intermingling, these were seeded on August 27th.

Where the carrots didn't come up, spinach was seeded amongst the already growing radishes on September 14th.

Kohlrabi planted September 5th are forming their first true leaves.

Shogoin turnips are leafing up well, planted August 27th.

 Ta Mei Hwa daikon radishes growing quickly, seeded September 5th.

This bed was newly seeded September 14th with spinach, chicory, radicchio, sima di rapa, cavolo broccolo, beet, turnip, and carrot.

Beet seedlings with their pretty red stems.

Teton spinach came up great but there is no hide nor hair of Harmony spinach to be seen.

We've been having some beautiful fall weather in western Kentucky. Lots of sunny days in the 70s and 80s (21 to 27 degrees Celsius) and today it rained for the first time in forever, a nice drizzle that went on for a couple hours. Now we are enjoying the humid aftereffects.

The fall garden is doing wonderfully. Although the directly seeded radishes are slow to bulb up, it's probably too warm for them but they'll need to come out in a week or two to make room for the carrots that are sharing the same space. In the beds where the carrots didn't come up due to ancient seeds, I've seeded some spinach which are already starting to emerge. Yay spinach. And yay to no slugs in the new garden.

I still haven't cleared out the tomato and pepper beds. Which will need to happen soon if I want to get some garlic, lettuce, and fava/broad beans planted, and maybe more carrots and turnips. On the Baker Creek seed packet for Kuroda carrots it states they generally plant carrots up to a month before they're first frost date, so I'm going along with that especially since we are close to the same latitude. I have another couple weeks to plant carrots and turnips even if it takes them till December to mature.

I've been purchasing winter hardy varieties of lettuce, spinach, chicory and radicchio. Hopefully I can get these planted in the next couple of weeks giving them about a month to size up before the first frost.

Is it too late to plant beets? Beets seem especially slow to get going compared to turnips, carrots and kohlrabi.

Our first frost is usually the very end of October or first week of November, so I'm wondering when will it be too late to plant beets. Do beets have the same winter hardiness as carrots and don't they take just about as long to mature?

Looking through my blog, in 2011 we didn't have a hard freeze until the week of November 22nd and I was still picking lettuce and radishes at the beginning of December.