We harvested just the outer leaves, leaving the inner leaves intact, with more room to grow.
With luck, we’ll get to enjoy greens from these collards all the way into October.
Swiss Chard harvest!
This is our second week of leaf harvest (day 57) on the swiss chard. Compared to the mammoth leaves in the supermarket, ours are younger, sweeter and more tender (basically, better in every way). They require very little cooking and the brightly-colored stems are particularly lovely in a stir fry.
A few of the transplanted and otherwise smaller plants are not quite ready for a leaf harvest. However, the discrepancies in size are lessening as the season progresses.
Blanching Cauliflower
A couple weeks ago, we decided to experiment on the cauliflower. No, no, we did not pour boiling water on them! Quoting from the Kansas State University Univesity horticulture report on cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower: "Blanching consists of pulling some of the larger leaves over the small head when they are 2 to 3 inches in diameter, and securing them with twine or rubber bands. Failure to blanch will result in discolored heads often wtih a bitter, disagreeable flavor." Gardeners were mixed about implementing blanching on the cauliflower. Some felt that tying leaves around the head would suppress head growth, leading to smaller heads. Others were skeptical about any difference in taste. So, as an experiment, we tied up two heads, and left the rest untied.
Two weeks later, we have some results. One of the cauliflower heads tied up is quite white; another whose tie fell off and needed to be retied is mostly white. By comparison, the head not tied at all is distinctly yellow. It is also the smallest of the three, but then (unfairly perhaps) the two tied up were larger then as well. One gardener still scoffed that there would be no taste difference. We shall see!
Peas 1st big harvest – June 19
The first snow peas were harvested on June 19 (59 days from planting). Peas will be coming fast and furious for the next two or three weeks. We also picked a few sugar snaps, but they won’t really come into their own for another week. The shell peas are probably 2 weeks from maturity. We could have planted peas earlier and harvested a week or two sooner, but we were too busy in March creating this garden from nothing.
Not everyone loves a radish…
Much better
After my post earlier today about having no visitors yesterday, Oakes must have taken pity on me and shared some of his Pied-Piper-ish abilities with me because today when I returned to do a couple of chores, I had far more visitors.
One was sort of a drive-by, a woman who mentioned she didn’t realize we were there, but who didn’t show much more interest as she continued on to her pressing destination.
A couple of mothers, with three kids in tow, stopped to chat, showing lots more interest despite lacking, I would say, a burning desire to get involved themselves next year. Two sons of one mom were only interested in whether my dog, seated serenely outside the gate, was indeed my dog. The older one asked, and I answered. Then the younger one asked, more quietly, but seeking the same knowledge I’d just given out.
Later, a gaggle of youngsters came by, eventually trailed by one adult who may or may not have been related to any of them, asking to come in and interested to know what we were doing. I explained what I could, and offered each a snow pea pod. One wanted to know how to peel it, and another shied away completely. Of those who tried one, I got a bell curve of responses: The youngest boy didn’t like his and it ended up first on the ground, then in the compost when I pointed it out. ("Where are the worms?" he asked, quite sagaciously.) A freckled girl liked hers so much she came back after she’d scurried off to declare her affection. The rest were in the middle.
My two purposes in going over were to water the no-grass strip created by the installation of a water line from the street (today was my turn), and I accomplished that, albeit not without watering myself far more than I would have liked to in the process. I guess it takes some practice.
My other purpose was to trim all the weedy/grassy edges of the walkway — it was just bugging me; my push mower wouldn’t do the edges and the extension cord for my electric edger is just shy of the three blocks it would need to reach — and I got only maybe 30 percent of it completed.
Part of the reason was that I was using garden shears, the best arrow in my quiver of garden tools but still not very good. The far more formidable reasons was my son Joe, who didn’t get enough sleep last night and was in no mood to hang out.
I kept trying to alter his existence in ways that might suit him, but inside the little sunscreen/playhouse I brought for him or in the grass, he just wanted to cry. In the stroller or in the stroller being pushed in circles for motion’s sake, he just wanted to cry.
He was fine as long as I was holding him, but I couldn’t hold and edge at the same time.
