Harvest Monday - Lettuce and Chinese cabbage

I always wait too long to harvest all the lettuce. I worry it will go bad in the fridge...so instead I let it bolt--oops! But I managed to pick all the rest of it today before it gets too bitter. I'm really loving the small miniature butter heads, the ones with the crinkly leaves. Although I can't remember what it is....Victoria? Little Jem (I think this is the mini romaine) or Tom Thumb?I have some growing in labeled containers so I hope to figure it out this time around.

The raspberries are finally ready! This is the best part of summer...going out every morning to pick a handful of berries.

These are a few Dakota shelling peas. I should have planted way more. Also, not pictured are all the snap peas we've eaten. Those never make it into pictures or the house.

And these are only 1/4 of our strawberries. Every day for the past week or two we've been eating at least 6-7. Amelia has learned to pick the ripe red ones and quickly shove them in her mouth. It's about the cutest thing ever.

And I have two big heads of Chinese cabbage that's ready. Plus 3 bunches of bok choy. This is my first year growing it and it did really well in the garden. Now I just have to figure out how to eat it, other than in stir fry's. Although, the stir fry I made last night was totally delicious. So I'm glad I chose to grow it this year.

 

Today, I also noticed the broccoli heads starting to form. Wahoo! This is my first time growing broccoli. This is typically my lettuce/greens bed because it gets more shade.

Everything else is looking good. There are even a few green fruits on my tomatoes. Although the plants aren't very big.

As usual, the pretty cilantro is taking over. The garlic will be ready soon and I just filled that bare patch where the cabbage was with some late zucchini.

I'm excited about all the onions this year. I never get very big bulbs, but at least this year I'll have a ton (for our little family anyways) even if they are small.

I also have a row cover that I move around. Right now it's over some peppers, since its a little cooler today

And I'm excited to try a few new varieties of beans this year.

 

So far I'm really enjoying our garden this spring/summer.

Check out Daphne's Dandelions for more delicious harvests!

 

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July 6th 2012: Garden Update

(note: reader beware...i fully intended to just post pictures and somehow its morphed into a giant novel about vegetables. I sincerely apologize in advance.)

I've been a little slack on my garden updates. Must be because I have something else to grow and take care of :) And she is much cuter!

I mostly want to post details and pictures for my own record keeping, so ignore the excessive descriptions of vegetables and the photo bomb if you'd like.

Up until recently the weather has been really crappy. Barely into the 60s-70s and rainy! Now that July has hit we are almost into the 80s and it's forecasted to get into the 90s within the next week or two. Yippee!!

The garden definitely needs some heat.

I don't have harvest pictures, but at this point I've been eating mostly A TON of snap peas. So glad that I planted nearly 7 ft of them (thanks to my sister who helped me while I was pregnant!)

I've also been nibbling on a few raspberries and strawberries, neither of which have made it into the house or to Dan (sorry!).

The kale as you can see below is doing amazing. If only I knew a way to keep up with eating it. It has been frequenting our smoothies regularly though. I think I'm going to harvest a bunch soon and blanch and freeze it for the winter and soup season.

We've also of course been enjoying fresh cilantro (although I like to let it flower because the white buds are so pretty and delicate!) and lots of lettuce. I have a super bad habit of wanting only the freshest of lettuce and not picking it in time before it bolts. Oops! Thus, Dan and I ate a slightly bitter salad for dinner tonight. Oh well!

Also, I never really got a good batch of spinach going this spring, so I'm banking on putting in a nice sized fall crop (I like how I use the word "crop" like I've got acres and acres of land...oh in my sweet sweet dreams!)

Also, this year I've planted cucumbers in mass because I can never seem to get the plants to grow big enough before the bugs get them. So hears to lots of pickles!!

Ummm...the corn is teeny tiny. Not enough sunlight. Pathetic. Also, it went in a bit late after the chinese cabbage - which was a bust, btw. Too many slugs. I hate those things. I wouldn't be sad if I never saw another slug in my life...so sooo slimy. And they eat everything! Anyways, I'll try the cabbage again this fall. Probably need to start it now...hmmmm.

Beets - hahahahahahaha! (that is the beet god laughing at my ridiculous repeated attempts to grow the darn things! I can't for the life of me grow them!)

Potatoes - we planted the organic blue version. Um, not sure how they are doing. They give me anxiety. I felt the same last year and didn't know how exactly to maximize the yield (again, what am I some kind of cash crop farmer?!?!). Hilling them stressed me out. So let's hope they are somehow growing big and beautifully blue. Thankfully, a few french fingerling volunteers from last year sprouted. They were so delicious that I completely forgot to save some to plant this year!

Carrots - I would be exaggerating if I said I had 2 of them growing. What the heck happened this year? I sowed them 3 times and nothing! Grrrr! But I'll stupidly keep trying...

Tomatoes - actually they are just starting to take off. I have faith in trusty territorial seed. Ive got quite a few green fruits growing on 6 different plants. I think this time last year I only had a couple of my very early cherry tomatoes ripe, so we are not too far behind.

And beans! Oh the green (and purple!) beans we will soon have! The first rotation of bush beans are practically ready and I can't wait! I'm also super eager to try the Royal Burgundy beans. They are the purple ones and look fun to eat.

I'm also growing pole beans this year and it's amazing watching them climb the trellis. I'm going to have a ton of runners climbing soon!

Well, I guess I just made up for all my missing garden posts. Haha!

Now wake up and go do something productive with yourself. No more blog hopping!! :)

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It's a Jungle out there!

I know you all have been wondering where my garden posts have been! :) I've hesitated posting all my gardening pictures because well...they are plants. How exciting can they get? It makes me a little worried...I mean if I've got 15 pictures of veggies to post, how many pictures am I going to eventually end up posting of my children? But for now....vegetables are all I've got (oh and Lily!) :)

It was pretty difficult to leave my gardening obsession behind for 3 weeks while we were in So.Oregon but we bought an automatic water timer, so I knew my plants would be fine, But I didn't expect so much growth! It's awesome!

A few days before we left - June 27th -

What the tomatoes look liked after - July 21st -

Here is another tomato plant before and the raised bed after (yeah, the beans look a little yellow from so much water, but they are greening up now!)

Hot Banana Peppers!

Love these funky Marzano roma tomatoes!

With 3 cherry/grape tomato plants, I am going to have a TON of tiny little tomatoes! 

Potted plants: cherry tomato, spicy thai peppers, basil

The 3 weeks away summer harvest

I also ended up with HUGE squash plants! Seriously, every time I look at the plant more zuchinni has grown. It's awesome and I'm not complaining....yet!

Lily loves spending time with me in the garden.

So this is what I'm looking forward to:

Green beans!!!!

The onions didn't get very big...but I can't wait to see how they taste!

Most of the lettuce that was left bolted (got bitter) and I should really pull it up. But look at how awesome it is! We'll see if it flowers anytime soon and some of the smaller plants actually still taste ok (although, i'm really sick of lettuce!)

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Harvests!

 

We came back from our camping/track/painting long weekend in Eugene (to be posted about later) and there was much to harvest in the garden! We have WAY more lettuce, spinach, arugula, etc than we could ever eat! I bagged it all up and gave a gallon sized bag to one of the neighbors. We have 2 left (plus 2 more bags I picked today!) Luckily, my neighbor was happy to receive it, so I think I can pawn more off on her later this summer! Most of the lettuce is picked by now...I didn't really mean to plant so much, but after the cat attacked my garden, I planted A LOT extra, just in case. Well, it ALL grew! It's been delicious, but salad greens don't store for very long...

Anyways, as I'm getting into this whole gardening thing I've decided to try and grow a few things over the fall/winter. I have some good plans for onions, carrots, beets, and GARLIC! Can't wait.

But first...my tomatoes, peppers and spring carrots need to GROW! :)

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Love the purple color of the cabbage! My cauliflower is nearly ready!

Veggies are in full growth mode!

Too excited for this Oregon cherry tomato to grow and ripen!

My sugar ann snap peas are filling out the trellis. I probably have 15+ that I  can soon pick. I don't have bowls and bowls of snap peas, as I'd like, but I'm satisfied with crunching on a few peas every other day or so. Never has one made it into the house, as I've eaten them all immediately, on the spot! I will definitely plant A LOT more next year (HOLY COW...I'm already excited for next year....)

Totally enjoying all my baby greens. As the weather gets warmer, I'm trying to eat as much as possible to prevent bolting. Who wants a salad?

For example, here is some arugula (the tall, spindly plant on the right that immediately started to bolt on our first 65+ day!  Luckily, I had already harvested most of it.

Growing strawberries. I will have way more strawberries with these 2 plants than the 4 plants I had last year.

A beautiful 75+ degree weekend allowed me to plant my very last 2 beds.  These two beds have mainly tomatoes, peppers (sweet and hot) and squash. 

Enjoying the harvest. Lettuce + Radishes.

Thai Hot Chili Pepper - should be in full bloom any day!

Happy Summer to Everyone!

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Nothing beats fresh veggies.

Track is OVER! It's sad, but also a good thing. I love coaching track, it's one of the best blessings I have! We took a good sized group to state this past weekend and all of our athletes got medals! I'm proud of them! We are a tiny, young team this year, so it was pretty cool to see so many kids do well. We had a couple PR's, higher places and finished in the top 8 as a team, so we did great! Now, I can finally have some free time to finish up the school year. I was starting to get a little desperate.

Only 3.5 more weeks till schools out. I cannot explain how impatient I am for summer break to get here. It's been an emotionally draining year. I can't believe it's almost over, but it's also felt sooooo long!

Early last week, Dan and I picked our first radish! It was pretty tasty. Nothing beats fresh veggies.

Today, I picked 3 more radishes to snack on. One of the radishes was a really deep red color, I thought it might taste different...but it didn't! :) 

The best way to eat radishes - with a pinch of sea salt!

This week and today I've picked A LOT of salad greens: baby arugula, red leaf lettuce, romaine, buttercrunch, baby spinach and some beet greens. Every time I pick it, I swear I go back and there are more and more leaves! It's amazing how good a salad is with a little bit of arugula!

On Friday, the peppers and tomatoes I ordered from Territorial Seed Company arrived. I'm super excited to plant all these, but the weather is still too cold. I bought some jalapenos and banana peppers from Fred Meyers too to see how they do compared to the Territorial Seed plants. I also have some squash and cucumbers to transplant, so it seriously needs to warm up already!

Unfortunately, Lily got a little too excited while running around and snapped off the main stem of my brandywine tomato plant. I'll still keep it around and hope that it'll produce some offshoots down below? 

CAN'T WAIT FOR SUMMER BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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A little sunshine + Fertilizer

Look things are really growing!

Lettuce Mix

Box 2

Peas are flowering! 

CAULIFLOWER

May 7th

May 1st

April 17th

I just can't wait for the sunshine. We've had so much rain here, it's really depressing. Not only for my garden, but everyday out at track practice too. UGH!

I'm also sick of complaining about it! :)

This weekend, I dug up an area around our side fence so I could plant about 6 raspberry plants a co-worker gave me (how nice, right?). I bought more soil and filled in Box 3. I planted more squares of arugula, lettuce mix, spinach and radishes. This might be my last sowing of spring veggies. I'm also starting some more carrots + beets in wet paper towels again. 

In a couple of weeks I get to fill boxes 4 + 5 and plant:

• cucumbers
• yellow squash (2 kinds!)
• zucchini (2 kinds)
• Tomatoes (lots of varieties!)
• Bell peppers (3 types)
• Hot peppers (yet to be determined)
• Tomatillos (if I can find them?)
• Cantaloupe

My whole backyard is likely going to be overrun with veggies. I can't believe we've managed to get about 96+ sq ft(counting the potatoes, raspberries and containers) of garden space in my teeny tiny backyard.  It's very likely that I'm planting too much in too little space, but whatever, it doesn't hurt to try! If it doesn't work out...there's next year! 

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