Thursday, April 7, 2011

Collards rescued

     As I have passed piles of discarded plants stacked in throw away piles at the park, I questioned the merit of just tossing collards and kale that successfully overwintered.  Why not just leave the plants in the garden and pick the new growth that is edible?  But some folks want to till up everything in the spring, and those plants get in the way.  So out they come, to be thrown on the community compost heap.

Destined for destruction, 4-7-11

      Well, I finally could not pass them up anymore.  I scavenged through a couple of different piles, pulling out plants that had good green growth and some decent amount of rootball left.  As the cole crops should do fine in partial shade, I took the plants home to my back yard garden.  Trimmed them up and dug them in.  I hope to water them often in the next few days.

Transplanted Cole survivors, 4-7-11

      Here is a shot of the transplants in their new home.  The huge mound of leaves in the back ground is another project waiting to happen.  Some of the newly made leaf mulch from a couple of days ago will go on this new bed of collards.  Hopefully I will get a couple of pickings of fresh greens before they go to seed.  The worst that can happen is that they end up on my compost pile.

8 comments:

  1. I noticed how you spelled/used "overwintered" correctly. I learned something! :)

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  2. Hi Billie Jo, How are you doing out in real winter country? You must be proud and roarin to go when you overwinter your own soul. Some cold frames really would help you out. You can warm them up by digging in manure under the frame. Just think of those nice salads! Wishing you warm. George

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  3. Billie Jo, Your website is not activated for a "Follows" list. You can activate that from your end. Although your site says that you follow mine, your picture does not show up in my list of followers. I suspect that is part of the same problem. I would like to be able to officially "Follow" your blog. You also have not activated your email address to be able to be contacted directly. Please email me to my address on my "about me" tab if you have some questions. Though I can pretty much guarantee I won't know the answers. George

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  4. Thanks for the blogging advice. I'll go check into that.
    I have a funny old gmail account that hasn't allowed me to do things like follow others publicly, even though that's what I select when I choose "follow." I'll have to get my techy brother to figure this out for me.

    The cold frames are providing inspiration. I have an old egress window in storage and have convinced my husband to put one together for me, so that's exciting! Does this need to be in full sun?

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  5. Ok, I made a couple of changes... not sure if that was it or not.

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  6. You now have a follower! See if you can knock off the second icon that shows up. You may need to check in to my blog now to go through the Follow icon as you still don't show up. Could you send me your email so I can put it on my spreadsheet of contacts? Thanks.

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  7. Boo, hiss. You dropped the list of blogs you follow. I should have left things alone when my blog showed on your site :-)

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  8. The more sun the better. Full sun would be the best. Solar gain will be heating the soil in the cold frame.

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