Sticks & twigs put to good use!

Scarlet Runner Beans planted along the base.  Don’t know if my construction skills are good enough that this will continue to stand, but it was fun to make.  Now I just hope the beans grow and find their way on up!

I can’t believe how many hours I’ve been spending out in the garden. I keep telling myself every weekend that I’m only going to spend an hour or two, and then do other projects around the house…. then I end up spending the whole day.  Not JUST because there’s that much to do out there, but also because it is just so awesome to be out there, appreciating each and every plant for its efforts, its beauty and its productivity.

Some of the crops are doing better than others.  The turnips are not doing particularly well, but I also planted them too thick.  I seeded them directly into the ground and then never thinned them out.  Some pest is eating them and boring through them – Not Good!  But the ones I have pulled up and trimmed up the bad parts, have been really tasty.   Braised in a pan with onions & chicken broth, fresh herbs, yum.  I have just seeded some more – in a flat this time, hopefully there may still be enough time to get a harvest before the first frost.

I pulled up a bunch of chard this weekend. So many of the plants were getting tall and spindly as they are going to flower.  The sheep weren’t sure of them at first, but did later go back and eat what I gave them.  I would like to interplant some new starts now for additional harvest potential into the fall.

Finally got some additional kohlrabi’s planted – purple vienna this time.  And the garden gate has finally been mounted on hinges. Yeah!

Its Monday, and its another beautiful day.  The weekend was gorgeous,  low 80’s with a breeze.  The weeks just past have each had a progression of both cool and hot days.  Occassionally we get some rain, but for the most part its been pretty dry.  The forecast for the coming week is for higher than normal temperatures, possibly in the tripple digits.  I’m not going to be happy about that.

The sweet peas are still covered with flowers and smell fabulous.  The red leaf lettuce is probably no longer useable.  Not only have the plants bolted but the remaining leaves are wilting and rotting from underneath.  The kohlrabi bulbs have grown to gigantic proportions.  I’m still harvesting them but spend more time peeling the outer skin before cooking,  just in case.  I haven’t really noticed any change to woodiness.  Lots of green tomatoes, but only a couple are actually starting to color now.  The zuchini is growing like gangbusters and so is the spaghetti squash.  Had both for dinner over the weekend.  I’ll need to find a recipe for zuchini bread soon to make use of the enormous five pound zuchini’s that were tucked away under leaves and allowed to grow beyond their optimal size.

I ran into a very helpful planting chart.  I found this on the Territorial Seeds website.  The chart indicates date ranges for seeding veggies for fall and winter harvesting.  The scarey thing about this is that it’s already time to plant most of them. 

After a very oppressively hot weekend in the mid 80’s, we’re back down to 60 degree days.  Incredible how temperatures can change here.  Its been a little drizzly since Sunday night, but we haven’ had any real real rain fall yet.  Up till now, we’ve had to keep a close eye on the plants and water many of them daily to keep them going.  We dug up the dirt mound in the front yard last weekend to plant flower starts and it was just bone dry.   We had to set the sprinkler to soak it before we could even get it planted.  I planted cosmos, lemon gem marigolds, dwarf marigolds and nasturtiums that had all been started in the greenhouse.  I sure hope there is still enough time for them to grow and bloom.  It does feel like the season is starting to come to an end.  On the brighter side, it might be a good time to start seeds for the fall vegetables.  I had wanted to get to that last weekend as well but just ran out of time.

The 4th of July weekend was a sizzler!  Mid 80’s is a bit much for us, especially when we’re trying to take advantage of the time off work to catch up on weeding, mowing, and planting. 

I ran into a great nursery website from the name tag for the started Snow Peas I purchased at Christiansen’s last month.  The website is sunseedfarm.com.   What I really like is the local planting chart they provide there.  I’ve added the link to our website on the left side of the screen.  Check it out if you haven’t already done so.  I’ve posted a picture of the Snow Peas shown below.  The variety is called Oregon Giant.

How many pea pods can you count?

I’m really happy with the red leaf lettuce shown on this picture as well.  I’ve been harvesting it daily for dinner salads.  It has a lovely crisp texture, but of course its so fresh it hardly knows its been picked.

Here’s a list of things that didn’t turn out all that well…

• Spinach – Purchased as starts, grew fast, looked great for about a week and then bolted.  I may just have planted them too late.
• Brocoli Raab – Purchased as starts, never turned into anything.  The spindly little plants bloomed immediately.
• Arugula – Purchased as starts.  They just didn’t grow very well.  Lots of flowers though.
• Pod Peas, Oregon Giant – Purchased as big healthy starts.  They didn’t seem to like the transplant into the garden and wouldn’t grow for a long time.  May just have been planted too late, the weather was pretty hot at the time.
• Tomatoes – Don’t buy so many!  They are alot of work.

Time to start a list of successes verses failures.  I’ll begin with the successess.

• Sweet Peas, planted from seed, directly in the garden.  They’ve been just gorgeous this year.
• Kohlrabi, purchased as starts from Cenex in a 2 by 4 inch pot
• Swiss Chard, Bright Lights – also purchased as starts like above.  There were soooo many in that little pot!  Great economical way to get them and they transplanted very well.
• Savoy Cabbage – Haven’t had any yet but they look like they are growing well.  Purchased them as starts and there were lots of them to transplant, way more than I need most likely.
• Shallots – Not sure what to say here.  The bulb sets grew very well and divided many times.  Problem is, I planted them in small pots so they didn’t have enough space to really grow.  Not sure how they will turn out in the end.
• Tomatoes, purchased as started plants in various sizes.  The started plants seem to do a whole lot better than the newly seeded ones.  The issue most likely is time.  Got to get a head start on them next year and be sure to keep them growing.
• Leeks, purchased as starts in a 2 x 4 inch pot.  There were 100’s in there.  Way more than anyone could possibly want.  They seem to be coming along fine.
• Celery and celeriac – purchased as starts but there were only 4 – 6 plants in each pot.  They seem to be growing well, and how many could I possibly need anyway.

I can’t believe its already July.  Time sure does fly. I harvested my first  zuchini the other night.  There are several others but they are all pretty small yet. 

The kohlrabi’s are getting huge and they look great!   They have been one of the best surprizes this year.  I like the bulbs but I really love the greens.  I cut the bulbs up into matchstick like pieces and saute them in some EVOO.  As for the leaves, I discard the stems, pile the leaves on top of one another, and roll them up in a tight roll.  Then I cut across the roll in thin slices forming long thin shreds.  These are then saute’d in the pan much like a stir fry.  Sometimes I also add thinly sliced carrots, onions and radishes, or whatever else I happen to have on hand.  It all picks up an oriental flair when I add soy sauce and sesame oil and serve over rice.

We have been really lucky with the chard this year.  One little pot of starts and so far 3 dinners from it, and still lots more out there.  Wish I had planted more brocolli rabe too, but have been having some troubles with it bolting.  Perhaps starting the rabe indoors a month earlier, and getting it in the ground in April instead of May would have made all the difference.  Will try to get a fall crop later in the season, start seeds next month? 

The carrots are coming along but still have lots of time left to go.  The radishes are doing great and I have already eaten a few on salads.  The fingerling & Yukon gold potatoes are doing well, but I need to get out and mound around them today.  I hae been most excited about the lettuce this year.  Granted, when the weather gets real hot it will all likely bolt, but so far I have been able to grow my own lettuce for the past month and new additional crops have been planted for continued harvest potential.

The corn has been a complete and total bust this year.  I think the robins must have stolen the seed.  I have started another package of Early Sunglow (63days), in flats on the deck. It probably won’t have enough time, but we’ll give it a go.