Park Garden Update, 3/1/2012

Arugula overwintered without protection,  3/1/2012

      With it being the first of March, I have a feeling that the worst of winter has to be behind us.  We should have seen the coldest temperatures of the season already.  So hopefully anything that has overwintered so far will make it.  The arugula in the photo above has done well, and it is putting up seed heads.  I want to harvest those seeds, as this plant is obviously quite hardy, and also has a powerfully good taste as well.

Cold frame arugula,  3/1/2012

Garlic and collards,  3/1/2012

Cardoon and baby garlic sprouts in cold frame,  3/1/2012

Overwintered celery and garlic

      These garlic plants are from small cloves that I planted two years ago.  I lost track of them last year, and did not pull the plants when I could see them in June.  They either died back or were just ignored, but now they are doing quite well.  The plants are in clumps of six to eight stalks, where the smaller bulbs from the year before had divided.  So now I have to dig up the clumps and separate them, then replant individual plants on 5 to 6 inch centers.  If I leave them crowded, I will get a bunch of small cloves.

Compost pile volunteers,  3/1/2012

Unprotected Tango lettuce,  3/1/2012

Various cold frame greens,  3/1/2012

Spinach starts under glass,  3/1/2012

Yummy Collard Greens

      Collard greens are one of the few unprotected veggies still standing up to the rigors of winter.  They will look pretty soft and dehydrated after a particularly cold evening, but then they bounce back when the weather improves.  My little stand of three collard plants was looking very good, so three days ago I harvested some of the outer leaves.

Collards to harvest,  1/18/2012

      We usually prepare collards in the same way as kale, that is sauteed with garlic and onions.  Good, but we prefer the kale.  Having heard about slow cooked or crock pot collards, I have always wanted to try some.  So yesterday I searched the web for a recipe, and found one that sounded good:

http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Big-B_s-Collard-Greens-AllRecipes

      I found smoked pork hocks at the supermarket so bought the two pack.  Diced an onion from the supply on the porch, and four beautiful garlic cloves from my summer supply.  Simmered this for two hours, then removed the pork hocks to pick the meat.

Picked pork hock

Collard leaves,  1/20/2012

      The collard leaves were stripped and cut into inch wide ribbons.  Turns out that it would be better to cut the collards into one or two inch squares, as it would then be easier to eat the smaller pieces.  I put in two of my dried cayenne peppers, including the seeds.  Then simmered everything for another five hours.
      And it turned out to be delicious.  With just the right amount of bite from the cayenne peppers.  We ate some today as a soup, but you could also drain it to eat as a side dish.  The liquid that is left is "pot likker".  Don't throw that delicious stuff away.  Instead use it as stock for some other soup.  I am going to look for wontons.  Added to the pot likker, it would be delicious instant wonton soup.
      Pretty darn good for my first solo soup experiment.

Park Garden, 1/1/2012

      Now over to the park for the first of the year update.  Cold hardy greens such as kale and collards are doing well in many gardens.  On to my garden:

My collards, ready for a picking

Open space from harvest of savoy cabbage yesterday

Cardoon, 1/1/2012

      This cold frame, with the regrowing stumps of cardoon, has received a thin layer of mushroom soil to cover the garlic bulblets from an earlier post.  I saw three little shoots of garlic, including the one in the left corner of the following photo:

Garlic shoot, midway between post and cardoon plant

      This bed has seen better days.  The deer and voles have cleaned out all of the beets that were in the middle.  The voles and George have decimated the radishes.  I will sorely miss that crop.  The Beedy's Camden kale over near the right side is doing well, having been harvested heavily yesterday.  Finally, the thick stem chinese mustard on the far right is doing really well, and needs a heavy picking.

Artichokes, 1/1/12

      These two artichoke plants are doing great, having survived a couple of 23 degree mornings so far.  I might cover them somehow tomorrow if i get really motivated.  Or maybe dig them up to over winter on the relatively cozy porch.

      Many of the egyptian walking onions above are yellowing a bit.  I suppose that has to do with the cooler temperatures, though they should do fine if left alone.  They will recover quickly in the spring.

      This arugula plant is still growing nicely in this cold weather, allowing for some limited harvesting.  The garlic plants on both sides are also growing slowly.  Right now you want root growth in garlic rather than stem growth.  I hope to mulch this bed soon with a couple of inches of leaf mold.

Veggies in unprotected bed, 1/1/2012

Ah, arugula - 1/1/2012

Cold frame packed tight, 1/1/2012

Leeks on left, Rainbow Lacinto kale, and blue curly scotch kale

Season Extending Greens

      One of my favorite seed catalog companies is Fedco Seeds, based in Waterville, Maine.  They have a lot of seed appropriate for their cold winters, so I believe some of those plants should bask in delight in the relative warmth of my zone 7A gardens.  While I have been doing a lot of experimenting with cold frames, much of their stuff should overwinter unprotected.  I could not figure out how to copy and paste from their internet delivered pdf catalog,

http://www.fedcoseeds.com,

so I took this picture from page 53 of my hard copy catalog.

From Fedco Seeds 2011 Catalog

      I have tried all of the spinaches, without much success.  They grow, but then get these tiny little pin head sized bugs that probably suck the sap.  Yet I continue to try spinach, and realize I have none planted inside the cold frames.  I should try, as maybe the little bugs won't like winter.

      The lettuce varieties I have from this list are the Tango and the Rouge d'Hiver.  Love them both, and the Tango did overwinter unprotected last year!  Anyone want to go together to buy and share some of the other lettuce varieties on the list?  Fedco has free shipping for orders over $30.00.  Can't beat that.

      I have Rainbow Lacinato kale, curly leaf kale, and Beedy's Camden kale currently in the park garden.

Beedy's Kale at top, Thick Stem Chinese Mustard at bottom, 12/8/11

Rainbow Lacinto kale on left, curly kale on right, 12/8/11

Tatsoi, 12/8/11

      The tatsoi has been a huge success.  This block of tatsoi germinated very well, and I have been thinning it to move to my cold frames, Barb's cold frames, gardeners at the park, and anyone else willing to take some.  It overwintered for me unprotected last year, and I have read numerous reports of people harvesting tatsoi from underneath a snow or ice cover.

Collards, unknown variety, 12/8/11

Savoy cabbage, unknown variety, 12/8/11

      I tried two varieties of parsley this year, but ended up feeding the bugs.  Claytonia has self seeded in one of the cold frames, and has come on to a nice rebirth in the cooler weather.  Only enough though to graze once and awhile when at the park.

Right side of back yard cold frame, 12/8/11

      The minutina is in the bottom right corner of this shot.  It is reputed to be quite cold tolerant, so probably does not to be in the cold frame.  The lettuce directly above the minutina is Winter Marvel Bibb lettuce, the only head lettuce that I am growing.  That one nice looking head may be a self Christmas present.  The tatsoi is on the bottom left, and really has done well from the transplanting and thinning.  Pak choi is in the top right corner, and although a good candidate for a fall garden, it apparently can't take the winter cold.

Left side of back yard cold frame, 12/8/11

      Some of the thick stemmed chinese mustard appears at the top next to the pak choi.  Also on the cold hardy list is arugula, the two plants at the bottom left corner.  Some of these folks from the back yard cold frame may be invited for dinner tonight.

Collards Revisited

Collards transplanted, 4/7/11

      On April 7, I made a previous post about transplanting some collards to my home garden that were dug up and discarded over at Bellevue Park.  The photo above is from that post, shortly after the dig in.

Collard back yard patch, 4/19/11

Second shot, 4/19/11

   I was quite pleased with the growth that these free gems put on in less than two weeks.  So pleased that I invited some of the collards to dinner last night.  They looked so inviting with the rain on their leaves that I just couldn't resist.  Plus they look so fresh and tender from all this miserable cold weather we have been having.

Collards in the rain, 4/19/11, a now common sight

      So a cut here, and a snip there, and I had a pile of collards for dinner.  Cindy sauteed them in olive oil with garlic and onions.  You can just feel the iron coursing in your veins.  Yummy.
      Side note: I just discovered yesterday sheerly by accident that I can click on pictures in blogs to magnify them.  Done twice, they fill the screen.  Try it on the above photo with the raindrops.  Technology.  I now try to remember to carry the little digital camera on my garden jaunts.

Quick haul, 4/19/11

      So the moral to the story is "Don't be so anxious to clean up".  Plant new plants between the old ones until you have gotten the free early spring harvests.  But don't too many of you take this advice and deny me my free supply of fast and easy pickins.  Out to the park to look for castaways - George

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.