Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce

       Sustainable Seed Company writes of this lettuce:

Lactuca Sativa
Black Seeded Simpson (45 days)

An old reliable lettuce that is heat resistant, slow to bolt and very dependable. Leaves are large, but lightly crispy and ruffled.  Excellent for spring, early summer and fall planting.  I remember my grandmother growing this variety.  She was a practical German woman, so it was one of her favorite for its consistent yields...when the rabbits didn't find it!

1885 James J.H. Seed Co. says..
"An improvement on the Simpson, being finer in many respects."


      Luckily for me, it is Lou Gallo's favorite lettuce, so he often over plants when starting his fall crop.  And I often benefit, as Lou is quite willing to share.

Lou's Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce,  September 20,  2012

      This is a picture of Lou's seed bed of Black Seeded Simpson.  He seeded it heavily in August, and transplants it to other areas of his garden.  I dug out some plants this morning, leaving some space between the newly created rows.  The left side of this picture illustrates the current stocking of his bed.

My box of transplants

      I had started some Black Seeded Simpson earlier, but only a few came up in the middle of this bed.  The arugula to the right did much better, and the Four Seasons Lettuce with the coppery color to the left did passably.  I took some of the new transplants, and filled in the Black Seeded Simpson swath.

Four Seasons, Black Seeded, and Arugula,  September 20,  2012

      Although the transplants looked great in the photo above, they had some major wilt by the time I left the park.  They should show pretty good recovery in two or three days.  With that wilt in mind, I took the rest of the transplants home to plant them in cell packs and put them in the shade.  They should develop a decent root system in a week.  Then they will go in the ground as needed.

Sitting in the shade

Start to the Fall Garden

      Even though it has not been in the beastly 90's recently, it is still hot and uncomfortable most days in the muggy 80's.  Not even early mornings are pleasant with the high humidity and temperatures over 70.  The gardens and the yard are showing signs of being tired with it all.  Most of the tomatoes and peppers are still doing well, yet is time to pull some failed plants, yank out the weeds, and start anew.

Kale remnants, August 27, 2012

      This bed had the remains of some kale plants that were still struggling through the heat.  I was tempted to cut off the old leaves to see if I could get good new growth, but finally decided the space was too valuable.  So out they came, and in went lettuce and arugula.

        Arugula went in on the right, black seeded simpson lettuce in the middle, and four seasons lettuce on the left.  In another bed, I put in two favorites, Tango lettuce and winter marvel bibb lettuce.  Last year I sowed seeds on August 22nd and still got good results, so I am hoping I am not too late now.  I bought some beautiful lettuce plants this morning to cheat a bit, as it has been a long time since we had any fresh lettuce.  The cole crops were tempting, but I still have harlequin beetles around both gardens.  No point in feeding those little monsters.
       August 28th, AM:  Weeded and cleaned out bed #6 at the park.  From west to east, I planted Beedy's Camden Kale from my own seed collected for 2011.  Next to that was Territorial's Ching-Chiang bok choy, then Fedco's Tenderleaf Hardy Green OG.  Filling out that section was Fedco's Ice Bred Arugula OG and Heirloom Seeds' early Siberian Kale.  In the little square bed at the far east end of bed # 6 went Fedco's Chinese Thick-Stemmed Mustard OG and Territorial's Tah Tsai.  I finished many of the seed packets, at last.  So this winter I will have the pleasure of actually ordering some seeds from the catalogs that arrive.  

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.

Last of the Radishes

      One of the main reasons I keep this blog is for my own garden record keeping.  Being able to include pictures is a huge additional bonus.  I had recently read that radishes will go pithy when exposed to hard frosts, so this morning I picked all of the remaining mature radishes.  Scanning back through September blogs, I see that I planted the seed on September 12th.  There, actual proof of the value of the blog.  The planting worked out perfectly, as I have harvested the best radishes I have ever grown.  They certainly do well growing into the cool weather as they mature, rather than growing into hot weather with a spring crop.  Three plantings a week apart starting on September 1st would probably be perfect.  

The end of the radish crop, 12/17/11

Trying to be a twofer

      I will really appreciate this end of the crop, knowing that a spring crop is months away.  But to have radishes well into December has been great.

Park Garden, 12/15/11

      This is the bunch of pictures for the park garden update.  I have not checked them for growth against the December 1st photos, but the park is in full sun, so I should compare.

       The collards are on the left, and should survive pretty much any weather we get over the winter.  The savoy cabbage to the right is also supposedly quite cold hardy.  If the hose at the top would grow just a few more feet over the winter, it would be a perfect length.  Actually garlic plants are to the left of the collards.  They should do fine over the winter with a little leaf mulch.

       The shot above is of the cold frame with the cardoon recovering after being hacked to the ground by voles.  The discolored leaves in the middle are where the plant touched the glass and froze.  The little popcorn thingies are the garlic bulblets.  Some are just starting to root, and all are changing to a lighter color.  A one inch layer of mushroom soil certainly would not hurt.

      From left to right are pak choi, radishes, beets, Beedy's Camden kale, and thick stemmed chinese mustard.  I suspect that the radishes and beets are being chomped on by the voles.

      These two frilly plants are artichokes.  They did not produce in their first year, and I am torn between digging them up for winter protection or trying to protect them somehow in the garden.  If protected, the voles would think they were a Christmas present.  There are two nice frisees and an oriental green that could be moved to a cold frame.

       This is the stand of Egyptian walking onions.  These are ready for thinning and eating, but watch out, these babies are potent.

      
       On the other side of the onions are one volunteer arugula plant surrounded by newly sprouted garlic.  The garlic cloves were of decent size, so I am hoping for an edible harvest from this bed.

       These little green pop ups are French shallots from last year that were just a tad too small to fool with for cooking.  They should yield edible bulbs next year, as well as provide some bulbs to plant in the fall.

       This shot is of the base of the compost pile, where lots of volunteers get started.  The light green leaves just left of center are escarole plants, and to the right of them is a nice cole crop volunteer.

       This bed of tatsoi has done extremely well.  I only wish that I had thinned it even more to let the rosettes get a little larger.  I have moved quite a bit to cold frames, but it should survive the winter on its own.

       More volunteers.  Some darker leaved lettuces on the left interspersed among the small baby celery starts.  More oriental greens, and mizuna mustard and garlic off to the right.

       Celery to the left, garlic in the middle, and mixed greens and lettuce to the right.

       The "New Supply" of lettuces still to be planted.   Since things don't seem to be growing much anymore, I may actually dig up the rest of the lettuce plants from the neighbor's garden.

       Leeks and kale growing in the bed at the top of the picture.  Lots of various greens and lettuces in the cold frame.

      Mixed oriental greens at the bottom of this shot.  Much vole damage at the top.

Mostly celery

 

       Various green volunteer lettuce plants to the left.  A lush carpet of chick weed in the middle with some dark lettuce tucked in, and the leeks to the right.

 

Radishes on left, mixed lettuce on right

 

Fall planted onions starting to sprout

Beautiful cold frame lettuce

Ah, that arugula

 

All volunteer cole plants

 

A cold frame with room to transplant!

 

Pak Choi still in bloom brings in lots of bees

Back Yard Cold Frames, December 15th Update

      I wanted to start taking pictures of the various vegetable beds every 15 days to monitor their progress.  Here it is December 15th already, and time for the first update.

Back yard Trex frame, 12/15/11

Back yard Trex frame, 12/1/11

      Wow, not much difference!  It actually is tough to tell the two shots apart if it were not for the pak choi in flower in the top right corner of the 12/15/11 shot.  The thick stem chinese mustard at the top of the frame is also a little bigger now.  So the theory that day length of less than ten hours produces little growth may well be true.  Plants look great, but really are not growing all that much.  What gets picked now, probably will not bounce back quickly till after day length starts picking back up after February 15th or so.

Back yard box frame, 12/15/11

Back Yard box frame, 12/1/11

      The box frame actually looks better in the 12/1 shot than it does now.  The black seeded Simpson lettuce is getting a little old and tired, and some plants have had their tops harvested by me.  Without any quick regrowth, it looks a little weary.  I will probably pull out some of the older plants and replace them with the "New Supply" discussed in the earlier post.
      So for now we are in kind of a holding pattern, but with lots of nice greens to be harvested.

A New Supply

      About a week to ten days ago, I was over at the park digging out the dill from a cold frame.  I noticed a gardener a couple of plots over who was doing some harvesting.  I walked over to offer him some of my greens, but he was there to finish off his half row of various lettuce.  After a conversation of a few minutes, I went from offering him greens, to the opposite where I had the invite to dig up his lettuce, as he was finished for the season.

Neighbor's garden 12/15/11, still some plants in the ground

      So I took him up on his offer, and dug out some of the plants from his row.  The plants from the two empty spaces in the middle were moved over to the cleared space from the dill as that evening was supposed to be a hard frost.  Which it did, but the lettuce survived as evidenced by the picture above.

Awaiting transplanting, 12/15/11

      Here are the plants tucked away in the cold frame, with the exception of the frisee in the bottom left corner.  The plants are not even in the ground, but look fine because the cooler weather is not stressful.  Some of the lettuce plants in the back yard cold frames are getting old, and will be swapped out for some of these more vibrant plants.  Plus I will have extras.  Anyone interested?
      There are still the plants in the ground from the first picture.  And to think that a couple of months ago I was worried about having enough plants for the fall garden.

December Harvest

      We went to a small party last night where everyone was supposed to bring a dish other than the main entree.  We had decided to take our great standard of veggies and dip, featuring veggies still fresh from the garden.  Picked yesterday,

Various radishes, 12/10/11

Last of the broccoli crop, 12/10/11

      Alas, we heard that a desert dish was needed, so Cindy made her beautiful little Christmas tree or wreath cookies.  There were three plates of cream cheese and crackers, but no veggies.  Boy, would I have enjoyed those radishes!  But now, there are more for me.

December First is Here!

      Wow, where does the time go.  Can't believe we are into December already.  It hit me today that I ought to photo document my gardens on the 1st and 15th of every month so that I can check on the progress, and in the future can compare the gardens in different years.  So here goes, the gardens as of December first.

Back yard wooden cold frame, 12/1/11

 

 

Back yard Trex cold frame, 12/1/11

      Next, over to the park.  The next four photos are general shots of the garden and cold frames.  There are nine beds in the park garden, ranging about two through four feet wide.  Bed number 9 is northern most, bed number 1 is southern most.  The beds don't face due south, but close enough that I didn't bother to change their orientation.  In the picture below, the shorter cold frame at the top is in bed 7, and the longer cold frame in bed 6.

Different angle of the opened cold frames

Photo including beds 5 thru 9, 12/1/11

Left side cold frame, bed #7, 12/1/11

Right side, cold frame bed #7, 12/1/11

Arugula, bed #6 cold frame, 12/1/11

Lettuces, left of arugula, bed #6

Middle bed #6, 12/1/11

Left end, bed # 6, 12/1/11

Bed #5, Tat Soi on right, arugula on left, 12/1/11

Garlic, lettuce, and volunteer cole crops in middle of bed #5

Celery explosion, left end of bed #5, 12/1/11

Right end of bed #8 and bed #9, above

Leeks and two kales and broccoli, left end bed #8

Smaller broccoli florets still to be cut, 12/1/11

Bed #2, garlic just sprouting. arugula, and Egyptian walking onions

      Phew, for the first of December, a lot still going on.  I am surprised that a lot of things are still growing, not just hibernating.  I was under the impression that growth stopped about the middle of November.  Shows the need for some photo documentation.