Mostly vegetables

'Green Twister' echinacea (cone flower)

The vegetable garden is starting to produce harvestable things.

Peas and green beans are coming on.  The 'Premium' peas I planted along a fence have been producing edible peas for almost three weeks. 'Lillian's Caseload' have been producing this week, and 'Lincoln' hasn't had a chance, because the rabbits keep eating the plants.  I probably won't plant 'Lillian's Caseload' again, because 'Premium' produces much larger pods with more and juicier peas.  As I recall 'Lincoln' from last year, they were smaller, but had lots of peas per pod and were as tasty as 'Premium'.

'Premium' peas

The 'Calima' beans, while still small and somewhat bug-eaten, are starting to flower.  

'Merlot', 'Marvel of 4 Seasons', and some romaine lettuce have been producing for three or four weeks already, as well as three kale varieties: 'Red Russian', 'Nero de Toscana' and scarlet.  The scarlet plants are prettiest and still quite small, while the 'Red Russian' is getting quite large.

Left to right: 'Nero de Toscana', scarlet, and 'Red Russian' kale

'Red Russian'

scarlet kale

'Nero de Toscana'

'Marvel of 4 Seasons' lettuce

or in the original French, 'Merveille de Quatre Saisons'

'Merlot' lettuce

I'll have to try planting the chinese (Napa) cabbage again in the fall.  It didn't produce any heads from the spring planting; just went straight to bolting.

'Hilton' Chinese cabbage

I let volunteer lettuce come up wherever it wanted to this year.  This one that found its way into the tulip bed got enourmous.

First carrots: 'Red Kyoto', 'Uzbek Golden' and 'Little Fingers'.  The 'Kyoto Red' produced a lot of carrots that were all top and a thin, woody tap root.  

I caged 8 tomato plants today, so even if they sprout legs, they won't be able to escape the garden.

The pink celery is slow growing, like all the other celery I've grown over the years.  I did put some 'D'Elene' celery in a pot, and it's grown faster and larger.  I was going to try to grow it by increasingly piling up soil so it would bleach like store-bought celery, but I got lazy.

Pink stemmed celery

I got curious again and pulled up another garlic.  Still not ready yet.

Even though I was going to let my crowded onions grow on for a while and use them as green onions, I've had to thin them even for that.

Overcrowded onions

The miner's lettuce and corn salad (maché) didn't grow large enough to be of any culinary use.

Left: maché, Right: miner's lettuce

And that "melon" I was so shocked about overwintering: it's a hollyhock!  That explains it!  What I don't know is how it got there.  My hollyhocks are across the vegetable garden and then beyond the rose bed.

I'm not sure what I'm growing in the picture below.  There were pretty pink angelonias there last year that I let go to seed, so I'm hoping that's what these are.  They could just be some weeds.

Lots and lots of honeybees in the butterfly milkweed!

Until next time...

A slow start

 Between long covid and a cool, wet spring, the vegetable garden is growing late.

The seeds I was able to direct-sow in early spring are doing okay, but could certainly use more sun.  Those I started for the later crops are faring so-so, depending upon their tolerance for low light and temperature.  The 'German Johnson' tomatoes and the basils really suffered from being moved outdoors to the cold frame too soon.  It looked like we were getting into a nice spring when I put them out, and I didn't get them back indoors soon enough when that didn't pan out.

'German Johnson' 

What they looked like before I potted them up and moved them to the cold frame:

I've got them back under lights in the cellar, so I expect them to green up.  Also, it's supposed to be in the low 80s next week with sunshine, so they'll be able to go back outside then.  When I plant them in the garden, I'll just have to plant them deep, or lay them down and leave just the top leaves above ground.  Tomatoes are good about putting on roots anywhere they are in contact with the soil, and in fact, some people recommend planting them that way just for that purpose.  Their lack of chlorophyll right now is a problem, but I'll add composted cow manure to the soil when I plant them, and I expect they'll be fine.

The basils will also make up for their lack of heat and sun when I put them out, but I'm sorry to have given all these plants a less than optimal start.  Every year, it's something.  Last year, things flooded with too much rain, and if it rains much more today or tonight, that could be a problem again.  Fingers crossed.

The remaining flower starts are doing okay outdoors, even out of the cold frame.

The garden plots were heavily infested with weeds this year, which I normally would have had out by now.  Long covid has robbed me of my ability to work very hard or for very long periods, so getting the weeds out has been a miserable and lengthy process.  

Here's the plot where I plan to put cucumbers:

There are nice chives and tarragon there on the left, but the rest of that is chickweed, gone to seed no less.  While this was the weediest plot, all the others have been overrun.  I've tried to clear them as I go.

Because of my lack of energy and the ease with which I tire, my early greens bed is still fairly weedy, and will stay that way.  I used straw for a light mulch this year instead of the grass clippings I usually use because I didn't have any grass clippings at sowing time.

'Calima' French style green beans

Early rains floated old bark from paths into the lettuce plot.

'Marveille de Quatro Saisons' lettuce

'Merlot' lettuce

Because I had gotten several packs of free kale seeds from my various Baker Creek orders, I planted three varieties this year.

'Nero di Toscana' kale

Scarlet kale

'Russian Red' kale

'Hilton' Napa cabbage

The rabbits got to the miner's lettuce as soon as it emerged, so it's working hard to come around.  When I was doing my graduate work in Davis, California, I had to work in vineyards, and sometimes I'd bring along my then-8-year-old son.  He couldn't be coaxed to eat green salads at the table, but he'd graze on the miner's lettuce in the fields.  I tried to take him as often as possible.

Miner's lettuce

I tried maché for the first time last year, planting it in late summer.  It never did get even as big as it is right now from this year's planting, so I still don't know what I'll be harvesting or how it will taste.

Maché (corn salad)

Carrots on the compost hill were very slow to germinate, but they're coming along now.  For the first time, I took care to sow them sparsely so I don't have so much thinning to do.  Thinning carrots is not an easy job.  By the time they get big enough to thin, they seem to all run together, making it difficult to pluck out separate plants.

The overwintered garlic is competing with weeds.  I haven't gotten to this plot yet.

In the lower right corner of that picture are wasabi radishes I sowed last fall at the same time I planted the garlic cloves.  The leaves look a lot like the Napa cabbage seedlings.  Both were bug-eaten as soon as they unfurled, so I've been spraying them with neem oil, which seems to do the job.  As I recall, mature arugula is also prone to bug dining.  

I suspect the culprits are flea beetles, but that article says neem doesn't work for protection against them.  (That would most likely be because they have chewing instead of sucking mouth parts that would be clogged up with oil.) I'll have to keep a watch and see if I'm actually doing anything besides wasting neem oil.

Anxiously awaiting sunshine, with the daffodils gone and the tulips waning, I leave you until next time with a picture of the species tulip, 'Cynthia'.

PS   I may have wished too hard.  Next week the temps are forecast to reach into the low 90s!

Could it be that winter is over?

 Here's hoping we've seen the last of the freezing nights.

The tulilps and daffodils didn't seem to care.

'Guinevere' and 'Red Matador' Darwin hybrid tulips

The amazing cantaloupe that survived all winter long made a tasty treat for some critter recently - either rabbit or deer.  I guess it stuck out like a sore thumb.  Or is that a green thumb?

It finally felt safe to sow some seeds of 'Calima' green beans and 'Jung Orange' okra.

'Calima' green bean seeds in a furrow

The kale and other early greens I planted on March 2 are starting to actually be visible in the scattered straw I used for mulch.

'Russian red' kale

And the garlic I planted last fall made it through the winter just fine, if a little pale.

The onions I planted earlier this spring are up about an inch, but they are so crowded I decided that thinning them would be harder than replanting.  I'll leave them growing to pull for green onions and plant some more for the bulbs, being careful to space them well.  I used old seed (which I keep in the freezer) and didn't expect to get so much germination.  I'll know better next time.

The peas have made it to a couple inches high and have avoided being eaten.  I've helped by spraying Liquid Fence on them every three or four days.

'Premium' peas

I planted 'Premium', a large-seeded variety, again this year along a fence where moles gobbled the seeds I planted the past two years.  This year, I flooded the tunnel they had been using before planting the seeds, and apparently that did the trick.  

I've also planted 'Lincoln' peas, which were a sweet and prolific variety last year,  along with 'Lilian's Caseload', a variety I haven't tried before.  

The carpetweed, chickweed and henbit have gone crazy this year, and I don't have the energy to get it all out.  I'm going at it a little at a time, and I expect the flowers and vegetables will just have to compete.

Looking forward to some sunny days...

Sixty degrees at Christmas?!?

This is the first time I've watered my Missouri garden at Christmas time.  I don't want what's still growing - which is a lot of things - to die by wilting (it was very dry all fall, and still is), because I'm afraid even the perennials won't come back if that happens.

I'm still harvesting cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, arugula, tatsoi, celery and broccoli.

The weather forecast for January looks more like normal, so I hope things can go ahead and shut down.

The maché (corn salad - Valeriana) I planted mid-July is still teeny.  Large enough to see now!  Surely it's not getting something it needs.  They wouldn't be offering seed as a food crop if it doesn't get any bigger than this.  Would they?

Happy holidays!