Atta boy, Tatsoi

      I love the look of the low growing Chinese green known as Tatsoi.  It is very cold resistant and is great for cold frame growing as it does not get much taller than 6 inches to a foot.  If you let it throw flower spikes, it may even self seed for you.

       This is a volunteer.  So what you say.  This was not a transplanted volunteer, but rather popped up in the dirt that I used from my compost pile.  The pepper planted in this pot died, but this volunteer tatsoi has thrived.  And for that effort, it has won a place in the salad to be made for the Thanksgiving feast.
       I bought this neat growing pot this spring.  Bought three different sizes, three gallon, five gallon and ten gallon.  The handles make them pretty easy to move around.  They are made from fabric and recycled plastic bottles.  The manufacturer claims they have a life span of five to six years.  I bought mine from this link:

http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/category/growing-pouches-and-bags

       I bought the brown bags which are said to last the longest time.  Have been very happy with them. They would also make a great tote in the garden for harvesting veggies or even for collecting weeds and trimmings. These are known as the "Root Pouch".

 

Delicious December

      It is quite unusual to be be able to pick many different veggies fresh from the garden in December.  But then again, not every winter has an El Nino believed to be the biggest in history.  Maybe harvests will continue awhile longer for the cold tolerant crops.  All pictures below are from today, 12/27/15.

Flat Leafed Kale

      Here are two more kale plants that volunteered from under a stack of flowered and seeded plants that were piled here in late spring.  It is actually surprising that there were not dozens of volunteers.  This strain seems to be very cold hardy.  I am hoping for them to survive this expectedly mild winter.

Lacinto Kale

      The darker kale in the middle of this picture is one of the kalette plants that I cloned earlier in the spring. The lighter kale surrounding the kalette is Red Russian kale.  From the similarities in the leaf form, I believe that Red Russian was the kale used in the cross with brussel sprouts to make kalettes.

      These plants are Florida Broadleaf Mustard that volunteered.  I even have some growing in the lawn where they seeded.  If only we would remember to harvest and eat it once in awhile.

The voles missed these two Swiss Chard plants

      These are Russian Red garlic plants that have sprouted from bulbs that never got harvested in July.  They will be needed to be transplanted in the spring to assure a crop for next summer.  Some will be eaten as green garlic over the winter.

Leeks, not garlic

Fresh mint still available

Smaller cold frame

      The cold frames have not been necessary so far because of the warmer weather.  However the deer have not figured out how to pull off the glass, so our lettuce is protected.  There are three tatsoi in the above frame.  Let's take a closer look.

They are beautiful

Early January Salad Greens

Early Salad Greens, January 8, 2013

      Time to have some fresh salad greens!  It would actually be the second harvest this year if I had not given the first away.  I went over to the garden a week ago and found a gardener, Louis, from a few years back, parked in the lot on a cold dreary day.  Louis has had to take up long haul trucking, and therefore gave up his plot at the park.  He was back for the holidays, and it was good to see him.  We walked out to my plot, wiped the little bit of snow off of the cold frames, and picked a bunch of nice fresh salad greens.  I gave that first harvest of the season to Louis, as he had said there was no such thing as fresh on the road.
      A couple of days ago I was shopping at my regular fresh fruit and produce store, J and J Produce, on Philadelphia Pike.  They usually have some outlandishly cheap special, and that day it was two big heads of Cos lettuce in a bag for a dollar.  Duh, had to do that even if I had some of my own greens.  So the picking today was to supplement the Cos lettuce.  We are going to grill some salmon to put over a great big mound of fresh salad greens, carrot slices, and hard boiled eggs.
      The mizuna mustard was snitched from the frame shown above.  The red oak leaf lettuce that I got from Bob King was ready for a light picking:

Red Oak Leaf Lettuce

      What salad would be complete without a little arugula to add a kick?  A nice harvest was made from this cold frame, though I left the Four Seasons red cos lettuce as I had that color covered by the red oak leaf lettuce.

And some tatsoi leaves as a garnish

Merry Christmas

      Merry Christmas morning!  And Happy Holidays too!  The little snow event last night was certainly a bonus to ushering in the holiday cheer.
      Pop Pop's job for the Christmas eats was to provide the greens for not only one salad, but two.  A salad at lunch to tide us over, then one for the bigger feast at Christmas dinner.  I went to the park yesterday for the harvest, hoping that the voles had not decided to have their Christmas dinner before I had mine.  Luckily for me, all was fine.  Nothing was stirring, not even a mouse.  Well certainly not the four mice and one vole that I got in my five traps.  Five for five!  An early Christmas present.  A bad hair day for the rodents.

Cold frames to harvest,  Christmas Eve day,  2012

Nice oak leaf lettuce and some Tango lettuce

Red lettuce from recent transplant, just now ready

      Ah, arugula.  What better way to fire up the taste for a Christmas salad.  And the beautiful Four Seasons cos lettuce over on the left.  The upside down flower pots in several of the pictures cover mouse/vole traps.  I read that the voles want some protection before they will stop to eat.  With the five for five record this morning, I would say the method works.

      This thick stemmed Chinese mustard popped up as a volunteer in one of the garden beds.  It has a nice zingy flavor without being really hot.  Again, another way to liven up a salad.

Tatsoi and thick stemmed mustard in a cold frame

Two beautiful tatsoi heads

      Hope everyone has a great holiday season!  And remember to eat yours greens along with the turkey, ham, smoked salmon, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, pumpkin pie, and cheesecake and ........

Countdown to Christmas

Back yard cold frame, December 11th, 2012

      Two weeks to go till Christmas!  I am in charge of providing the greens for a Christmas salad.  These would do quite nicely if I can keep them looking so happy for a couple of weeks.  The voles have been voracious lately.  They started on one end of the Trex cold frame and worked their way to the other end, eating everything in between except for a couple of tatsoi starts.  Maybe I have found something they won't eat.  But a whole garden of tatsoi?

Completely decimated by voles

Porch and Yard Update, 3/1/2012

    Mar  1st:    Day length:   11 hrs, 20 min   -   That's 38 minutes longer than 2/15
                      Sunrise:         6:34 AM
                      Sunset:          5:54 PM
                      High Temp:    59 degrees F      Low Temp:    34 degrees F

      March first!!  That is a date when we can certainly hope to be looking for the weather to improve.  Maybe some snow left, but it won't last long.  Onions and peas can soon be planted directly in the garden.  A new gardening season about to begin again.  So let's see what happened since the last update:

Wooden frame, 3/1/2012

       This frame has recovered nicely.  The suspected cos lettuce that I rescued last year is in various spots of the lower half of this photo.  The mizuna mustard is in the top left corner, and certainly is ripe for the picking.

Trex frame, 3/1/2012

      The Trex frame has some nice thick stemmed mustard ready to pick, as well as tatsoi.  The flat in the upper corner which contains some Walla Walla onions is doing well.

Starts doing well in fish tank cold frame, 3/1/2012

Red onions

      These red onions were rescued from the park compost pile last fall.  As they have turned soft or started to sprout, I have put them out in the garden.  In a couple of weeks, I will pull up the onions with multiple shoots, divide them, and replant them.  Onions have an incredible power to live and regenerate.

Flats on porch, 3/1/2012

      The plant rescue for the kale has come along nicely, as the plants have developed good root systems.  They need to be planted out in garden beds to free up more porch space.

More flats, 3/1/2012

Extra, extra, just picked for dinner.  Thick stemmed chinese mustard and Winter Marvel Bibb Lettuce

                      Bibb Lettuce so pretty it deserves a solo picture

Tatsoi Salad

      I have often looked at various greens and thought they would make a nice salad when spruced up with some cherry or grape tomatoes.  Tatsoi and tomatoes or even just chickweed and tomatoes.  Well the original bed of tatsoi in one of the frames at the park was forming seed heads, so I figured it was now or never.

Tatsoi,  2/19/2012

      The tatsoi is just about to burst out into full bloom.  You can see a couple of yellow flowers just getting started.  I cut off the emerging seed stalks that I could find.  This bed is going to seed early because it was too crowded and the plants must feel stressed.  The plants that I transplanted to a cold frame with more room in the back yard garden have retained most of their rosette growth habit:

Tatsoi with more room to spread

Just about to flower,  2/19/2012

      So I will go add some cherry tomatoes to my little stash of tatsoi stalks.  And some Greek Salad Dressing on top.

Simply scrumptious!

      It was wonderful.  And fresh.  Right from my winter garden an hour before.

Back Garden Update, 2/1/2012

      Here we are into February!  The winter has been about non existent so far.  That is no complaint by me.  Although it seems I would not have needed the cold frames, only the real hardy kales and collards appear edible if not under cover.  Other things may be alive, but not appealing.  But the cold frames have been productive throughout the winter.  And now the day length is past ten hours, which will increase production.

Feb 1st:    Day length:   10 hrs, 11 min 
                Sunrise:         7:10 AM
                Sunset:          5:21 PM
                High Temp:    67 degrees F      Low Temp:    46 degrees F

Don't be fooled by those temperatures, the high should be in the low forties (41 average at this time).

Wooden Frame, 2/1/2012

      The mizuna mustard that was transplanted a couple of weeks ago is doing quite well.  Some of the transplants from last fall have died.  I had left the transplants on top of the soil for a couple of weeks, probably killing the outer roots.  Then when put in the cool ground, they probably never developed a good root system.  Had I not been lazy and planted them immediately, I probably would have done a lot better.  Or if I had divided the lettuce and potted it up to develop good roots, I suspect I would have had better transplant success.  In any case, the above frame has been yielding good pickings for salads.

Trex frame, 2/1/2012

Trex frame, left side

      The mustard greens in the upper left corner were lifted from a path at the park and have transplanted quite well.  The thick stem chinese mustard to the top right has been doing much better in cold frames than the patch left unprotected at the park.  There are a couple of head lettuce that should be harvested. 

Trex frame, right side

      The pak choi at the top has died, and some of the minutina in the bottom right corner don't look good.  Don't know why in either case.  The tatsoi however, is doing great, and needs to be thinned out.

      These red burgundy onions rescued from the compost pile at the park had begun to sprout on the porch.  Black aphids were multiplying on the green sprouts.  So they have been planted to an outdoor bed.  The cold exposure will put a major hurt on the aphids.  Each onion should sprout multiple plants which can then be separated and replanted.  I don't know whether I will get bulb onions from that effort, but I will certainly get lots of scallions.