Harvest Monday - May 19, 2013

This past week was a great week for salad greens. I harvested endive, romaine lettuce and arugula. I really like fresh salad but I am sad to say that I'm not sure I love home grown romaine lettuce. I've gotten accustomed to store bought which always is much more crunchy and juicy - and the taste is not as intense - meaning not as earthy - as the ones I have at home. Maybe I'm not growing them right or I don't have the right variety. I still like them, but I prefer to mix it with some store bought romaine lettuce.

I also thinned the cilantro, but the "thinned" plants were big enough to eat. Was very fresh tasting and delicious. I think I'll start a second container so that I'll have more. I just love cilantro!

I'm also getting small, but steady harvest of snow peas. I'm hoping I'll get more before the weather gets too warm. My oldest container of snow peas are starting to yellow at the base.

I'm joining harvest Monday at Daphne's dandelions. Happy gardening everyone!

First Harvest Monday of 2013 - May 6th, 2013

The first real harvest from the garden is always so exciting! Everything is growing beautifully in the balcony garden. Last year, I grew wild arugula that was just way too peppery for me, so this year I planted the rocket salad arugula. It still has the great flavor of arugula that I just adore, but with less bite. I prefer to eat it with other salad green.

18 gallon with arugula, fava beans and jerusalem artichoke

My container of green and red romaine lettuce and bok choy is also doing well. I harvest a couple of the outer leaves from the romaine lettuce.

Long container with romaine lettuce (both red and green) and bok choy

I was able to harvest enough greens for two salads - it was delicious. I think this is going to be a good year!

Arugula harvest 1

Arugula and romaine harvest

2013 Salad Number 1!

I'm really happy to join Daphne for her harvest Monday posts. I hope the first of many to come for this year.

Lots o pea seedings!

I finally graduated from the little seedling setup on my windowsill and got myself a rack and lights. I have to say, I had some difficulties finding shorter shop lights and finally found it at Walmart.  It is an aquarium light (I think) but it did say grow light on it so I'm thinking it is OK.

I sowed some seeds (broccoli, brussel sprouts, cumin, fennel, lettuce, red lettuce, mustard, marigold) on 1/23 so it has been a little over a week. Most of the seeds have germinated. The cumin and mustard seeds were from my pantry...and they have not germinated yet. Also, the lettuce has not either.

1.5 week old seedlings...not all have germinated

Top three brussel sprouts, bottom broccoli (one cumin on the far left)

Kale in front and fennel seedlings in the back

I started snow peas and fava beans in wet paper towels and them sowed them in soil. I may have started this too early as they grow pretty quickly. They are kind of ready to be transplanted outside but it is FREEZING outside. For the snow peas, I'll have to bring a couple of containers inside and grow them inside for a while. If I can just get home fast home before dark to change the soil...

Snow peas, peas everywhere!

3 fava bean plants

Harvest Monday - May 21, 2012

I was away this past week in a land far far away. My vegetables were left in good hands, but I couldn't help worrying about my babies. I missed tending to my vegetables and digging around in the soil - even if it's 5 minutes per day. I found myself looking at people's yards to check out what they had growing in their garden. I was very happy to be come back home, and even more excited to see that my beets looked ready to harvest. The beets were started as seeds on Feb 28, so its been about 3 months now. The seed package (these beets are called Early Wonder) says 48 days to maturity, but I can't complain. I had 2 containers of beets. I thought they would do better in the larger 5 gallon bucket, but the beets in the 3 gallon container are larger (same soil, same spacing). I harvested 2, and left the rest to grow some more.  I also was able to harvest a handful of snap peas, but I think the pea plant is about ready to die.

Freshly harvested beets

Beets all cleaned up!

Romaine lettuce and snap peas

I'm joining Daphne and gardeners around the world for harvest Monday. Thanks Daphne for hosting!! I'm closing this post with some pictures from my trip...I was in Iceland! It's a beautiful country...but COLD! And during this time of year, it never gets completely dark which was a very strange experience.

City of Reykjavik

Waterfall Gullfoss

Harvest Monday - 5/7/2012

I have been busy setting up my community garden and my muscles are a little sore from hauling compost and turning the old soil. Gardening is a great way to get some physical activity, and unlike being at the gym, I can be out there for hours at a time.

Last week I harvested some bok choy and kale (more like thinning than harvesting). I also have some wild arugula that are ready for thinning/harvesting. I grew this last year and it was really spicy. I thought maybe it was because I started them when it was already quite hot, so I sowed it earlier this year. There is a nice arugula taste in the beginning but pretty quickly the spice (beyond peppery) hits you.  I'll just let it grow out and cook it rather than eating it raw.

Bok choy, arugula, kale

My second harvest was included some red and green romaine lettuce leaves. The romaine lettuce is doing quite well and pretty soon I will be able to cut down on the amount of lettuce I buy. I also harvested a handful of sugar snap peas. They are very sweet raw, but I prefer to blanch them (they get incredibly sweet).

Snap peas, romaine, kale, bok choy

I'm joining Daphne for Harvest Monday. Please go and check out all the wonderful greens that are being harvested by gardeners around the world!

Lettuce and swiss chard...and happy happy news!

I'm growing "regular" green romaine lettuce and red romaine - both are growing quite well. I have spotted aphids here and there, but I don't have too many plants so I can manually swipe them away. I think I have spaced them too close though...I probably should transplant some to a different container to promote maximum growth.

I have a second container with lettuce and swiss chard. This was before I realized that swiss chard can get very large if you give them the space.

I think the swiss chard is large enough to withstand a move. But what about container space? Well, I just got some really great news! They have a community garden space available for rent!! I put in a request way back in November and just got a call on Monday! So exciting! I'm not sure where it is yet, so we'll see if everything will work out. If everything goes well,  I will have to go buy some starts (fun fun!). I'm so excited!

seedling update, month 1

I feel that my seedlings are growing slow. I found a heating mat that was pretty cheap (I'm also still looking into getting the snake lights) so I've been using that for the last 3 days. But I'm enjoying watching the seedlings grow.

Spinach, lettuce, kale @ 1 month

Swiss chard (no true leaves yet), pak choi @ 1 month

Romaine lettuce red and green @ 1 month

Beets @ 1 month - sown and grown outside

Kale @ 1 month - sown and grown inside

Arugula @ 3 weeks, sown inside and also left outside on the balcony

Cute purple flowers on rosemary 

This weekend, there is a sale at home depot for gardening stuff and starter plants. I'm gonna have to go and check it out! I'll see what I get and start a second set of seeds this weekend too!

Squirrels and insects, oh my!

I suppose gardening will always be full of surprises. I sowed kale, spinach and beets directly into containers outside. These have taken some time to sprout and just when they started to pop its head out of the soil, some creature attacked my containers! At first I thought it was birds (we have a whole bunch of birds that hang out on the balcony and poop all over my car) but now I think it is was squirrel(s).  I'm not sure what they were looking for but they pretty much ransacked all the containers.

Holes in the soil - probably squirrels?

Not all the seedlings were destroyed, but they did tear up a good number of them.  I figure out a way to keep the squirrels out using a grid I had from shelving unit I used to use in school.

Anti-squirrel!

This solved the squirrel problem, but then something started attacking the spinach seedlings. I have a good number of healthy looking seedlings that hadn't quite yet formed its true leaves. All of a sudden they just started to wilt and when I tugged it, it just fell out. Something ate through the stem, killing the poor baby spinach seedling. You can see the wilted seedlings next to the healthy looking ones in this picture. I did a little google search, and it seems it could be slugs, june bugs, cutworm...or anything else.

Look closely, these are 2 wilted seedlings near the front.
Couple days after this picture,some the healthy ones also got attacked.

To save as many as possible, I transferred the seedlings inside using a plastic lettuce container. I could only rescue 4 seedlings, such a bummer!! So far, they have not attacked the kale or beets. Fingers crossed.

Spinach seedling (the long leaved ones) transferred inside.
Other seedlings include volunteer lettuce (I think), and kale seedlings

Picture updates of the other seedlings growing at charm city garden presented below.

Swiss chard, pok choi, lettuce seedlings transferred to plastic container

Beets seedlings - I think I have sowed this too late...

Arugula seedlings (outside)

Snap peas

Recycling potting soil?

Last year, the bulk of my garden expense was spent on potting soil - approximately 5 bags. I really do not want to replace all the soil because of the cost but also for the lack of space to dispose of last year's soil. I have one bag of composted cow manure and half a bag of fresh potting soil that I can use to amend the old soil. So I've been dumping the old soil in a bucket, adding some fresh potting soil/manure/crush egg shells/fertilizer, mixing it around and getting as much roots out as possible. I also think it is important to break up the old soil to loosen up the compacted soil. I bought a sieve from the garden store but it turns out filtering the soil through the sieve is A LOT of work. So I've resorted to breaking up the soil with my little shovel. Even this is really tedious and I do not look forward to dealing with the larger containers.

Stored egg shells crushed using a mortar and pestle to be added to the soil.

This green bucket is very useful for mixing the soil. 

My little seedlings are 10 days old and now have all sprouted. They're looking quite good.

Pak choi and Swiss chard seedlings.

Romaine lettuce seedlings

Fall garden update

A quick update of the surviving plants @ charm city garden. I'm already thinking of next year's garden. The last ichiban eggplant. I'm letting it grow so that I can collect the seeds.

Red romaine is growing, one plant is starting to bolt. The lettuce itself is quite bitter but still pretty good.

Red Romaine Lettuce

I have 2 containers of bok choy. These are very good in stir fry. Next to the bok choy, I also have a container of romaine lettuce that I probably started too late because it is not growing very big.

Bok Choy and romaine lettuce (back)

Bok Choy

I have 2 containers of chinese kale...to be honest I don't know how big they are supposed to get. I should probably just harvest them and some point.

Two container of Chinese kale

The chinese pepper plant is getting bushy and still producing fruit.

Super bushy Chinese Giant pepper

Chinese pepper of varying size

The supersweet tomato still has many green tomatoes but I think it is too cold for it to ripen.

Both the jalapeno and thai pepper is starting to yellow but still has many peppers. The pickled peppers is so delicious! I definitely will make more pickled jalapeno with the remaining peppers. I'm not so sure what to do with all the thai peppers...

This plant fell over after the storm, so now is supported

The jalapeno is starting to turn red

Thai red pepper - so many peppers still!

Thai red pepper