I currently have about 7 different varieties of lettuce growing in my garden. I have seeds for about a dozen varieties, but 7 are consistent in germination. All have distinct flavors, but just looking at the masses of color it is simply beautiful. Rather than giving you a run down on the flavors of the varieties (believe me they are all good) I thought I’d share with you some photos of the different lettuces.
Cross posted at Life of Elle.
My neighbor went out of town for two weeks (please don’t rob his house). Before he left he asked if I could collect his mail and recycle his papers. I agreed since he is a nice guy. If he were an asshole I might steal some of the plants in his yard and replace them with crappy ones. Good thing he doesn’t have very many good plants and that he’s nice. Anyway, he also asked if we could use some fresh produce. Um, yes. We can always use fresh produce (she says as she ignores the 3200 square feet of vegetable garden and that every other week box of organic produce that comes to her doorstep). Why YES! Bring it on. He said that he gets a weekly CSA share from Zestful Gardens and that we are more than welcome to pick it up for the next two weeks. He would let them know that it would be us picking it up and that we would collect it at a church in the North end. The next day he arrives with a note about where to pick up the produce and other things. The note says he gets a full farm share, a greens share and 2 dozen eggs… on Tuesdays. As in every week. We weren’t sure what we were in for and we went to pick up the share and then to the farmer’s market.
The Zestful truck parks in a church parking lot and like any other CSA they put out their wares and a board that says what that week’s share is. You then go through and fill your bags. We walked away with 2 giant bok choi, 2 head of endive, 1 bunch of radishes, 1 bunch of chard, 1 bunch of chives, 1/3 pound of snow peas, 1/2 pound of snap peas, 1/2 pound of salad greens, 1/2 pound of spinach (that was the farm share). We also got a Chinese cabbage (the greens share) and 2 dozen eggs. Needless to say we didn’t buy any vegetables at the farmer’s market.
To add to it we have bunches of spinach (leftover from his last week share and our garden), 3 bunches of radishes (leftover from his last week share and our vegetable box), mustard greens, salad mix (from our vegetable box and the gobs from our own garden), kale, spring onions, spring garlic and carrots.
The question is, what do I do with all of this? I’m going to get another farm share next week and our vegetable box and I have stuff coming ready in my own garden. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but I can only eat so many salads a day. I may have to add a 3rd breakfast salad.
So give me your best suggestions. Given everything in my fridge, give me your best recipes. Help me out here. What would you make with all of this stuff?
This year our weather has been about 30 days behind. In February and March we were 30 days ahead, but due to the abnormally cold May we are now 30 days behind in planting. I just put out my tomato plants the first weekend in June. Shortly thereafter we had a rain storm like none I’ve seen before and I was sure that my tomatoes were goners. Luckily they were not and the weather warmed up. With the warmer weather the tomatoes started growing and I started to panic about support.
Last year my tomatoes grew to nearly 7′ tall and they snapped metal stakes. I am taking no chances this year and went with the grand-daddy of all tomato supports. No, it isn’t a Texas Tomato Cage. I don’t think those would even work. I’m a do-it-yourself kinda gal and used an idea I found at the Puyallup Fair last year.
Since I’m not taking any chances on a reduced yield because of the weather so I added 5 more plants to last year’s 10. That is 15 tomato plants in all. Only two are the same variety.
To create the supports I used 1×3 lumber and 2×2 lumber. I used a 8′ piece and cut 18″ off. I screwed the 18″ piece to the top of the the long piece and used a 12″ piece of 2×2 to make a diagonal support. My husband then dug 12″ holes and attached the uprights to the raised beds. I (my husband) attached eye bolts in the cross piece and ran a string to the bottom of the tomato plant. I used bamboo stakes and zip ties to hold the string down and taught. I then attached the tomato plant with tomato clips from Johnny’s Seed.
The tomato section of the garden looks rather strange, but I’m hoping it will work to keep the tomatoes upright.
Here are a few photos to illustrate.
Tatiana requested I write a little bit about eating greens. I will be truthful and say that I didn’t start eating greens until just a few years ago. Even then it was only Broccoli Raab and I wasn’t 100% sold on it. It wasn’t until last fall that I had the most delicious sauteed kale that I fell in love with (most) greens. There are still a few that I don’t care for. I’ve tried, but I can’t seem to love collards or chard.
Greens come in a wide variety. They can be “winter” or “spring.” As a general rule of thumb the winter varieties are a little tougher in the leaf and can stand a cooking. The spring types are often the tops of other greens (beets) or softer leafed varieties that are good eaten fresh. Here is my personal guide to greens. Feel free to add your own tips and tricks.
Arugula: We eat arugula fresh. Put it into salads or on top of pizza. I grow a large stand of arugula all at once, but after I harvest this batch (that is currently starting to flower) I will sow 1/a row and then another 1/2 row about 3 weeks later.
Collards: As I mentioned, we don’t eat collards. I tried them in a cornbread, but I was not impressed. I bet that if I cooked them like I do kale I would be much happier.
Corn Salad: I’ve never purchased it, grown it or eaten it. Any suggestions?
Cress: I also love cress. I grew it last year, but ran out of seed for this year. I put it into salads.
Mustard Greens: Mustard came in our vegetable box for the first time this year. I had never had it, but I can say it makes a wonderful addition to salads.
Bok/Pac Choi: I’ve never grown Bok Choi, but I have eaten it. We will cut it up and throw it into stir-frys. We’ve also had baby bok choi cut in half and sauteed with oil and garlic… oh so good. Pac Choi is similar, but it also makes a great salad green.
Endive & Escarole: Never grown it, but is great in salads.
Kale: I could eat kale every day. I love kale. I don’t eat much red meat so I make up for the lack of iron with this dark green veg. My favorite preparation is to saute the kale in a generous amount of oil (I use grapeseed) and garlic. Salt well and cook until it is just wilted, but still has some crunch to it. Baked kale is also a hit in this house. I add it to a pasta dish from the Splendid Table cookbook. I am currently growing a Russian Red Kale.
There are many more greens out there. I didn’t cover any of the Raabs. The category of greens is quite vast. I’m enjoying getting to know this highly under used dinner option.
Over the years I have tried every possible method of supporting my vegetables. I am married to a frugal husband (aka cheap Swede) and I have a bit of a budget when it comes to… well, everything. This isn’t always a bad thing because it keeps me from spending willy nilly on things I don’t really need to spend money on.
My peas have always been a bit of a pain for me. I love the pole style snap peas and even my so-called bush peas and beans have needed support. I have tried using a single bamboo pole, a bamboo A frame, and other various support systems for my peas. All have failed and by the end of the pea season they are unruly and broken. I lost tons of peas due to heavy vines snapping in a light wind.
Last year I came up with a plan to use a more rigid structure, copper. I used copper tubing, some copper elbows and bird netting and made a fairly effective pea trellis. It worked mostly ok for the beans and moderately well for the peas. The peas I grow get so tall and heavy they push over most anything I build.
This year I modified my copper pipe system for the bush peas and my husband build me a new and totally improved pole pea system. Today I wanted to showcase copper pipe system.
My pea beds are 5′ wide by 10′ long. I planted my peas across the beds with rows 18″ apart. This was the first improvement. In past years I’ve tried to plant too much into these beds (as they were the only ones I had) and the vines intermingle if they are too close together. This makes harvesting quite difficult.
At the end of each row I drove a 3′ piece of 3/8″ re-bar into the ground so about 2′ was still showing.
From there I slid 5′ copper pipes over the re-bar and secured it with a copper strap. Last year I did not use the re-bar and just used the copper strap. Over time the strap will stretch and the supports will flex.
Once the base of the frame was in place I connected the two uprights with a 5′ cross bar and attached bird netting to the pipes with zip-ties.
So far the peas are grabbing the bird netting and the structure is sound enough that it won’t sway to badly. I am hoping that it will be sufficient for my bush peas. I am not confident that it will work for the pole peas so for that we’ve built a larger more substantial system. I’ll cover that for next weekend’s project.
I hope this gives you some ideas on how to support your garden.
I’m a little behind in updating what I’ve planted in the week. Mostly because it has been an on going thing this week. I find little bits of time here and there to throw things into the ground or into containers. Here is what has been done this week.
In the Greenhouse:
Basil
Cilantro
Pac Choi
Marigolds
Zinnias
In the Garden:
Kale (I could eat it year round)
Leeks (starting from seed for winter leeks)
Brussels Sprouts (direct seed outside)
Ok, that didn’t seem like that much, but it took me forever to do. Today/ this weekend I need to sow another few rows of lettuce, beets and carrots. I need to finally get my first set of beans in (I’m a week behind on that) and get the last of the beds built since we have another 5 yards of Tagro coming on Monday. Once those are filled I can add corn to one bed. After these last few items are finished I can just do successive plantings until late May. Once May arrives I’ll have tomato and pepper starts to plant, all of the various squashes to plant out and watermelon to start indoors (yes, I’m trying watermelon again).
My great Tagro experiment has mixed reviews on my part. Everyone told me that it wouldn’t work (for review, we are starting this giant garden with straight Tagro Mix, not potting soil). So far most all of the seeds that I’ve planted have germinated. There are a few lettuces that have yet to come up, but I had low germination rates with those last year too. The only issue I’m facing at the moment is slow growth. For now I am blaming it totally on the weather. We have not see more than 12 hours of full sun in weeks. The weather guy keeps promising sun, but it never shows up. I’m not giving up hope.
The sun has come out around here and it is time to get planting. I am in a unique situation because I built myself a cold frame outside so I don’t have to hassle with lights, heating and indoor space. This week I started squashes and cucumbers in the cold frame and planted out a few things.
In the Cold Frame:
Pumpkins, Summer Squash, Winter Squash and Cucumbers
Planted out:
Broccoli, Cabbage & Cauliflower seedlings
Onion starts
Raspberry Canes
Strawberry starts
I was late in purchasing my raspberries and strawberries this season so I ended up ordering them from Raintree Nursery. I drool over their catalog every season wishing I could order on of this and one of that. It wasn’t until this season that I had a need to purchase. I ended up with Cascade Delight Raspberries and Jewel Strawberries. Both are summer bearing and sound wonderful. The quality of the plants I received was outstanding. The likelihood of me getting raspberries off of the canes this year is rather slim, but it was fun putting in a plant that will add a little winter interest in the garden.
What did you plant this week?
My schedule for planting this season has me planting something every week from the last week of March through the middle of July. I have to stop before the 15th of July because I will be leaving for China for 2 1/2 weeks and I’m not sure my husband will have time to harvest food, plant food, work and take care of our house and son. I’ll set him up with plenty of fresh food and the boys can have at it.
The reason I have something scheduled to be planted every week is that I want to have constant food. Items like lettuce and arugula don’t keep so I’m spacing out the plantings to have a continuous supply. I intend to plant lettuce and beets every two weeks and beans and carrots every two weeks. The theory is that I will be able to harvest a row and replant the next week. Of course this is only for the quickly growing items such as lettuce. I also prefer my spring beets small for salads and then I let the summer beets go for storage. Same with carrots.
I also intend to keep a record of what is planted each week and then update with germination rates and harvest dates. Unfortunately, I doesn’t look like anything will be planted this weekend since I happen to be suffering from a freak roller skating case of owwee.
I did get a few things thrown into the ground last Saturday.
Arugula
Carrots – Chantenay Royal & Amsterdam Minicor
Beets – Choigga (my favorites), Bull’s Blood, Ruby Queen & Early Blood Turnip
Spinach – Giant Thick & Bloomsdale Savoy
Lettuce – Ruby, Kagraner Summer, Tango, Summer Bibb, Yugoslavian Red Butterhead, Buttercrunch, Flame & Salad Bowl (my favorite)
I still do not have peas planted. I know that is terrible, but my Tagro pile is a long ways away from my pea bed and I simply cannot push the wheelbarrow that far. Hey, I can’t even bend over to tie my shoes. Cut me some slack.
Five yards of crushed gravel was delivered Friday afternoon and we spent the weekend laying landscape fabric and shoveling gravel. My husband also made a trip to the lumber store to purchase the cedar for the beds and those were also constructed. All but two that is.
Our Tagro was delivered Tuesday afternoon after I frantically spent an hour laying down cardboard and wetting it down. I then spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday shoveling Tagro. I did have help from my husband and son.
I didn’t have the opportunity to take photos yesterday, but this is the progress by the end of the day Tuesday. One half of the garden is complete and two of the beds are filled. I am go to go with planting the lettuce, beets, carrots and onions… finally. Theoretically I could plant pumpkins too since that bed is done. However, the weather is not that nice.
As things progress I’m noticing that I have much more space than I thought I would have. I’m considering designating a special part of the garden for my son to plant whatever he wants. I go back and forth between “oh dear lord what did I get myself into” and “holy cow look at how much I can grow!”
Now if the rain would stop and I can find more newspaper I can get it all finished.
Michelle at Michelle Smiles decided last week that she was going to start a vegetable garden. Why do you care? She lives in Tennessee after all. I care. I love it when people decide they are going to plant their first vegetable garden. Secretly because I know if they get at least one edible out of the whole thing they will be addicted for life. Gardening does that to people.
She posted a list of the plants she wanted to try in her garden and I gave her a little advice on each one. Then my husband and I got into a discussion about what veg were the best choices for someone who is just starting out and possibly doing so in containers (as Michelle is doing). We came up with a reasonable little list and I’m going to share it with you.
First and foremost are herbs. That’s a big fat duh. You can grow herbs on your kitchen window sill. I don’t, but you could.
As far as veg goes pick stuff you will eat, but the big ones are carrots, peas, lettuce, zucchini (if you have room) and beans.
Carrots should be planted in a straight sided container and thinned to 1″ apart. Start them directly in the container. They don’t transplant at all.
Peas: start them early in the season and look for a bush variety and not a pole variety. Bush peas, and beans, are stout and well suited for containers with minimal staking. Don’t be fooled. They will still need staking, but you can get away with little bamboo stakes and not the elaborate copper pipe system I have.
Lettuce won’t germinate in soil temperatures above 72 degrees. This will be your spring and fall crop unless you have a partially shady portion of your garden.
Zucchini needs room. Lots and lots of room. Also, you won’t need more than two plants if your family only eats a minimal amount of zucchini. It is prolific. So prolific that I only grow it every 3 years or so since we eat so much of it that my family begs me not to bring anymore into the house. I only ever plant 3 bushes. This year I’m doing a few other squashes to change it up a bit.
Beans and zucchini are susceptible to black aphids. Or at least in my garden they are. Ok, maybe it was just the conventional varieties that were. I switched to an heirloom bean and haven’t had any issues and I haven’t grown zucchini in 2 years so I don’t know. Either way, have a spraybottle of soapy water on hand to tackle the little buggers before they get out of control.
The key is to start small. Keep track of what you are purchasing at the farmers market or in the grocery on a regular basis. Odds are what to plant will right in your basket.
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