Harvest Monday 5/10/10

This week we enjoyed our first garden fresh salad. It was wonderful to taste the different flavors of the oak leaf lettuce, tatsoi, arugula, and baby kale. We picked 3.5 oz.
I'm looking forward to many more fresh salads to come. We bought some bagged arugula at the store a week ago for a potluck meal and I think that's the last salad we'll be buying until fall. I hope I can keep up with succession planting the lettuces and greens.

This week I also got a tour of my own garden from the seller of our house. I'd offered to let her divide some of the perennials to take to their new home. It turned out to be a great deal for me because she let me know what all is coming up in the perennial and herb beds. She also mentioned one area in the back that had been her garlic patch. We noticed garlic sprouting that she had missed harvesting. It looked as though she had missed two heads because there were a cluster of sprouts together. So I got out my trowel and dug them up to spread them out. In the process I missed the roots on a few and harvested about 7 green garlic stalks.
About 14 others were separated and planted better spaced out in the vegetable garden. I may have home grown garlic after all this year!

The Last of Seed Starting

Tonight I started my squash and melons.
Here's the list:
2 pie pumpkins
2 Jarrahdale Pumpkins
3 Butternut Squash
1 Buttercup Squash
2 Delicata Squash
2 Golden Yellow Zucchini
2 Green Zucchini
2 Minnesota Midget Melons
2 Iroquois Melons

The pumpkins and melons are thanks to Miss M. I'm glad to have the room to let all these squash and melons grow and spread out in the garden. I think this is the last big batch of indoor seed starting for this year. From now on, everything should be sown in the garden.

Early May Garden Update

This past week was a beautiful week for early May. We had temperatures in the 70s and no frosts all week. With that weather in the forecast I decided it was time to get my early tomatoes in the ground. On Monday night I planted out 2 Sweet Chelsea Cherry Tomatoes and 2 Green Zebra Tomatoes.
We filled up the walls of water to protect them and they seem to be doing well. You can see I only dug the section of the tomato bed where these needed to get in to the ground. The rest will have to wait.
With the warm sunny days and the good rain showers, the onions are coming right along. I like how they look back-light as the sun sets in the evening.
My peas are sprouting and the cold frame is filling up inside. I have oak leaf lettuce & tatsoi in the first window.


Arugula and more tatsoi under the middle section.

Lacinato Kale, Mache (going to seed), spinach, and swiss chard fill up the last section. The kale will be eventually moved to one of the brassica beds but was put in early when this was the only section dug.
Unfortunately the good weather didn't continue and today was rainy and damp. I did manage to transplant in some herbs a friend shared with me ( lemon thyme, lemon balm, & oregano).

Seed Saving

Here are some plants that I will be saving seeds from this year.

From my cold frame at the old house I transplanted:
One Winterbor kale,

six to ten assorted carrots,
two Chicory or Italian Dandelions,
and five to ten mache plants.

In the new garden I found four red kale that survived the winter after being pushed over and buried under the snow. I don't have any red kale seeds so I'm excited to expand my collection with these.

I have the kale plants at opposite ends of the garden so they don't cross pollinate. I'm looking forward to having more free seeds from these plants!

Potatoes in the Ground

This weekend I got the potatoes in the ground.
I bought 10 pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes and planted a whole row.
I also received some All Blue and Irish Cobbler potatoes as a housewarming gift. I'm very excited about the All Blue because I love colorful potatoes. I planted the seven All Blue at the free end of the onion bed and the five Irish Cobblers by the newly planted raspberries.
I've read conflicting reports as to whether the Yukon Gold are mid or early season potatoes. The Irish Cobblers are early and the All Blue's are late so we should have a good range.

I also dug one of the beds for the Brassicas. The only thing that I put in so far is five Red Acre Cabbage seedlings. Broccoli and Brussels Sprouts seedlings are hardening off and should be joining them later this week.
Here's what the garden looked like by the end of the weekend.
Unfortunately all that green towards the front and behind the first two rows is rapidly growing dandelions I still have to conquer. I have four and a half beds dug, and six and a half to go.

Fruit Trees in Bloom

The sour cherry tree began blooming on May 1st.
Two Cortland apple trees started blooming on May 3rd.
I'm looking forward to the fruit they'll produce.