Nice Fall Harvest

      Monday afternoon's harvest included a great big Icicle radish:

      Earlier in the summer, I had hung radish stalks heavy with seed upside down over this bed.  They must have been from white Icicle radishes, because I now have several growing.  This was the largest one, so I figured it needed to be pulled.

Huge Icicle radish, October 22nd,  2012

      A radish is a great addition to a salad, so I picked some of his friends to add to the harvest:

      A very nice haul.  The big radish, some Egyptian walking onions, a wonderful late Dr. Wyche yellow tomato, a black krim tomato, black seeded Simpson lettuce, four seasons lettuce, tatsoi, arugula, purple onions, a bell pepper, golden treasure peppers, and banana peppers.  I am hankerin for salad again just thinking about it.

Wordless Wednesday

Tatsoi snowflakes for Christmas Day

Christmas Salads

      *** Happy Holidays ***

      Here it is Christmas Eve!  Getting ready for the good eating tomorrow.  Emily is in charge of making a salad for Christmas and the day after.  She asked good old Pop Pop to be in charge of the basic salad greens.  Gasp, I actually picked them yesterday as, one, they will still be plenty fresh tomorrow, and two, yesterday had a forecast high of 50 degrees rather than today's forecast of only 40 degrees.  Yesterday easily won out.  Even though we will not have snow for Christmas, we will still have snowflakes, as I cut some yesterday.

Tatsoi, also called Tah Tsoi

      Tatsoi makes such pretty little rosettes.  It grows close to the ground when crowded, and makes these great green snowflakes.  If grown on 6 inch centers, it will get a little taller and less dense.  I like it crowded.  These were grown unprotected, and may be just as ready to be picked a month from now.  The next picture shows them before trimming.  As you can see, very little needs to be thrown away.

Tatsoi, cut 12/23/11

Various lettuce types, picked 12/23/11

      Em, here are the lettuce pickings for the salads.  I can pick some more if we need them for the second get together on the 26th.  Below are the thick stem Chinese mustard and arugula if you want to spice things up a bit.  If not, we can put the arugula on the veggie plate.  Barb will make it magically disappear.
      Happy Holidays!

Thick stem chinese mustard, tatsoi, and arugula

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

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.

Colder is Coming

      This season has spoiled gardeners in Delaware, where we are still able to harvest copious amounts of kale, collards, cabbage and even some of the less cold hardy salad greens.  But a look at the 15 day forecast by Accuweather suggests that we will have a turn to the colder weather in two weeks.  Nights as low as 20 or 23 degrees will spell doom for unprotected lettuce.  While a lot can change in a 15 day forecast, I still find it helpful to look at the overall trend.  Here is a great website, just put in your location or zip code:

http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/wilmington-de/19803/month/8100_pc?view=table

The site also keeps historical data, so you can go back and see just how miserable the summer heat was, or brag about how little rain you had in the drought in so many areas.
      So I have been duly warned by the weather gurus.  Any new cold frame activity must be done in a little over ten days.  Ditto any plants to be moved.  Winter will soon settle in.
      The next three pictures are of plants that are not protected currently, and would not like 20 degrees.  So some are looking for new homes for the winter.  And I am getting kind of tired of making cold frames, so feel free to put in a request.

Mizuna, arugula, mustard, and tatsoi - 11/28/11

Various lettuces and mustards, 11/28/11

Various lettuces and chickweed, 11/28/11

      I had not thought about using the chickweed as a living mulch in the cold frames, till now.  Hmm, might work.  The bees would love it on days the frames are open, as the chickweed is just now starting its fall bloom cycle.  This next picture is of plots maintained by Bob King.  Lots of fall veggies.

Collards, turnips, onions, mustard and lettuce

      I will be interested to see what survives in Bob's unprotected plots.  Kale and collards should, turnips maybe, lettuce will be mush.  So be prepared soon to button up your overcoat, at least if you live in this area.

Waste Not

      One thing that I find fun and challenging about gardening is the ability to often recycle things, such as pots, poles, boards, leaves,and oh yes, plants.

Leaf pile, as of 11/15/11

      The leaves are almost finished falling from my trees, and the neighbors trees.  Several neighbors bring over their leaves, and yesterday I mowed my next door neighbor's back yard leaves into my flowerbed.  I will shred the above pile with the mower, so next spring I will have lots of beautiful leaf mold.  The leafy greens in front are swiss chard.  This clump is ready for a last harvest, then I hope to move the plants to a cold frame to hopefully overwinter them.  Although swiss chard is quite cold hardy, I have not had much luck, maybe one in ten plants, with it overwintering unprotected.

Red onions, 11/15/11

White and yellow onions, 11/15/11

      The onions above are the last of my onions from the summer crop.  Some were too small to bother with trying to use.  Some were sprouting, and some were gasp, mushy.  So back in the ground they go.  I expect all to sprout usable scallion type onions, and hope some will develop bulbs.  All should overwinter without protection.  The green sprouts in the red onion picture are peas that sprouted from pods that fell from plants in the summer.  They will not produce peas before the winter kill, but the sprout tops and tendrils are delicious and pretty on a salad.

Ruby lettuce, 11/15/11

      One of my park gardening neighbors is about to put his plot to bed for the winter, and was not interested in these Ruby Lettuce volunteers in his garden.  Well I was!  What a bounty.  I potted them all up for a few days, hopefully to allow them to develop nice roots.  Remember those straw bales for my daughter's new cold frame, well here is some beautiful lettuce for a start.  And below are some starts of Tatsoi and thick stem chinese mustard getting ready for transplant to some cold frame.

Tatsoi on the left, chinese mustard on the right

      And lastly, pictured below, are some baby lettuce volunteers on the park compost pile.  Don't rush over there to get them, as they have already decided to move on.  They appear to be a green romaine lettuce, a very welcome addition to my lettuce collection.  So all of these plants have been saved from ending up on the compost pile, and some had actually started out there!

Compost pile lettuce