Tag Archives: Greens

Rain, Rain Go Away

Mother  Nature must not have heard but I only get two days off every week.  Those two days are really the only days I can do anything in the garden.  Since Sunday morning is filled with church, Saturday is typically my gardening day.  WHAT was the weather thinking by raining all morning.  That was supposed to start tomorrow.  Alas, the weather forecasts can’t really be trusted rain-wise so I shouldn’t be surprised.   I made the mistake of soaking the been seeds overnight so I was pretty much committed to planting if I didn’t want to throw them away.   I could have waited for tomorrow but it is supposed to rain more then.  My todo list included a couple of 10′ boards for either end of my plot, building a pea trellis and planting pole beans.  I finished all except the boards.

Pea Trellis of jute string between two horizontal poles.Typically I use a net for the pea and bean supports.   I swear each year that I am going to reuse the net and every year I end up throwing it away after trying to get all of the plant material out of it.  I decided this year to do it a little different.  I picked up some green jute at the local hardware store and strung it between two rods at the top and bottom of two t-bars.  The string will end up stretching and probably get much looser than it is but I don’t think the plants will mind.  The pea trellis is finished and the poles are in place for the been trellis.

I tried a new variety of pole bean this year.  Last year I planted Helda and they did great but their flavor was a little intense for me.  A large Roma type bean I liked them but opted for a more traditional type bean this year.  I ran across Kentucky Blue Pole bean and thought I would give them a shot.  A cross between Ky Wonder and Blue Lake they are supposed to have the best of both worlds.  I sowed them fairly thickly as I had soaked to packets.  One would have been sufficient so I have a handful of left over swollen seeds.  I’ll end up potting those up in little containers and offering them up to a fellow gardener.  I had to pull some self seeded arugula before I could  add bag of compost and some blood meal to the bean patch.  I had planted the arugula last year and let it go to seed.  I now have enough arugula to feed half of the county.  We don’t eat much of it (a little too bitter for me) so a fellow gardener is going to liberate it from my patch.   I ended up washing the seedlings I pulled and they are in the fridge waiting to join some lettuce and spinach in the next salad.

I was able to offload some greens to a fellow gardener.  I begged her to take more but alas one can only eat so much Mesclun Mix.

All in all a productive morning and I got out of there without getting too wet.  The boards will have to wait for another day.

Spring has Sprung

Last year was so hot, watering was pretty much a daily event in the raised beds and Rockfarm. This year many of us are adding some peat moss in hopes of a bit more water retention on those hot days. Hopefully it won’t retain too much water if we have a wetter growing season.

Impatient for some lettuce, I picked up a couple of packs of lettuce from the local garden supply. I opted for a variety of red, green and speckeled. In addition to the lettuce I picked up a 4″ pot of Sorrell. It has a nice lemony flavor and the young leaves are a great addition to salad. Its a perennial so it will be around for some time…I hope.

A half row of peas went in on the end where the garlic was last year. Some folks are adding boards at the end of their plots to hold the soil in. I think I will too.

The spinach I planted last month doesn’t seem to be doing much so I put in another 1’x5′ section of Palco. This variety didn’t bolt as soon as bloomsdale did last year. The leaves are larger and paler than Bloomsdale. They stay tender and tasty even when they get large.

Potatoes were never something I could grow in Kentucky without using boatloads of poison. The colorado potato beetle decimated the crop both years I attempted to grow them. I even tried the Bt that was supposed to work on CPB to no avail. Now this was a number of years back so perhaps things have improved since then. Here at Rockfarm in WA the potatoes I’ve seen growing seem to be doing fabulous so I thought I’d give them another shot. I opted for some Russian Banana fingerling potatoes. I decided to dig a couple of ditches, plant them deep and replace the soil from the trench as they grow. Since potatoes are formed along the stems planting them deep is the way to go.

I ended up pulling the Roquette. It was too bitter for my liking. As with the greens from last year I dug it into the soil and will plant over it later.

The cutting lettuce and mesclun blend I planted last month are coming up nicely. We had a couple of hard rains not long after I seeded the two 1’x5′ beds and I was worried the seed would all be washed to one side of the bed. It appears there was a little condensing of the bed but not too much.

The overwintering kale has shot up and will be ready for a picking soon. This year I want to get it out sooner. Last year I let it go to flower in hopes of getting more leaves and all I ended up with was more flowers. :-/

As expected the Arugula has made itself at home. The few plants I put in the ground last year has reseeded into a thick mat of seedlings. I’ll have quite a harvest in the coming weeks.