Greens and the Six-Fingered Man

I was out of town this weekend for work.  When you see plants every day, their continual growth really doesn't register.  Go away for a few days, and it's like, "Whoa."  The picture above is from yesterday afternoon.  I picked a bunch of greens - turnip, mustard, radish, and arugula...then sauteed onions in butter with leftover ham, added that pile of greens, vinegar, salt, pepper, and a little sugar...after an hour of simmering, the greens were tender and delicious.

Here's a shot of the other end of the garden.  Lots of stuff coming in nicely.  The big plant in the foreground is Chinese Cabbage that was started in the greenhouse.  Its leaves are huge.  I'm going to pick those leaves, and make some sort of delicious wraps.  

Here is a shot from last Friday morning.  The tomatoes are at the far end.  More on them later this week.  There are 12 seedbeds total, and I still have one that is not planted.  One of my goals this week is to complete it, and get everything out of the greenhouse.  While I was away, Angelia planted all of the impatiens around the yard, which was a huge help.  There are still onions, basil, melons, eggplant, asparagus, and peppers to transplant.

When I got home Sunday, the sparkler radishes were fully mature and screaming to be harvested.  I pulled about half of them, the biggest ones, and will pull the rest later this week.  Almost all of them were nice and round, unsplit, and crisp.  This guy was one of the more unique specimens.  I instantly thought of The Princess Bride and  'the six-fingered man.'  

These bad boys are also reaching maturity.  Know what they are?  Bonus points if you can identify 'em.  Not sure what you can spend those bonus points on, but I'll think of something.

Spin Class

This past Saturday, my wife Angelia and I patronized the Hanover County Master Gardener's Plant Sale in Ashland, Virginia.  She bought a hosta for a shady part of the yard, and I considered purchasing a vegetable plant or two.  In the end, I chose to purchase nothing.  I couldn't get past the thought that I could buy one plant or spend the same amount of money on 2 packets of seed and wind up with 20 or 30 plants instead.  Plus, I have plenty of plants in the greenhouse begging to be put into the garden.

We visited the nearby Goodwill Store after the Plant Sale, and there I did make a purchase.  I found this very sturdy and very cool salad spinner.  Now, you might be thinking, 'what does this have to do with gardening?'  Well, I grow a lot of leafy greens.  Lettuce.  Mustard.  Arugula.  Spinach.  I grow them in soil, and when they are picked, they are...well, they're dirty.  They need cleaning, or you'll wind up with a mouthful of grit, which does not lend itself to an enjoyable dining experience.  When I am picking greens, I usually keep a couple 5-gallon plastic buckets of water nearby.  When I my hands get full, I put the greens in a bucket.  When I'm done picking, I dunk them, let the grit settle, and put the greens in a basket.  They go inside the house, where they usually get another wash.  

However, you don't want to store wet greens.  They'll rot faster.  So, a salad spinner is needed.  Actually, it's required due to the volume of leafy green stuff we grow.  

Now, 2 years ago we purchased a salad spinner.  We found it at Target.  Some TV chef or designer I'd never heard of before had his name on it.  It was nice.  We got it home, I started spinning salad, and I broke it the same day.  We returned it, but by then they were sold out of that particular spinner.  Eventually we settled for the spinner above.  It's fine, and it's worked for 2 years, but the hard clear plastic bowl that forms the base of the unit has developed cracks and leaks water.  Not an issue with drying the salad, since our goal is to remove the water, but it is an issue for the countertop, and anything we would like to keep dry on the countertop.

The 'new' blue spinner is far superior.  It's bigger, and can hold more spun-off water in the bottom of the bowl.  The gear mechanism feels much sturdier than the string-pull action on the old spinner.  It's also made out of a flexible-type plastic that will not crack.  It's in perfect condition, and works great.  For me, having quality tools to use adds to the experience.  Considering it cost $4.25 versus the cracked spinner that cost $18 new, I think it was a great purchase.  Here's a video of the blue spinner in action:

Greenhouse Gnome

Over Spring Break, we went out of town for 3 days, leaving the greenhouse in the care of my father. He allowed another gnome to set up shop, this time in my greenhouse.

I am being invaded. I hope they know about what happened to the rabbit last year. (Evil laughter)

Tasty Treats

I love radishes.  The roots are spicy, and the leaves are thick and satisfying.  Radishes in the Givler Garden are ripe and ready.  Above they are arranged with beet seedlings that I thinned today.  Beets greens and stems are absolutely delicious, especially young like these.

Spinach will be ready soon...maybe in a week I'll be able to harvest some individual leaves.  The leaves feel meaty and firm.

Leaf lettuce is doing great, and the plants I have thinned have been great in my lunch salads this week.

This is a top view of our turnips.  I've thinned these once already, and the mustardy flavored leaves are good.  Roots haven't formed yet, but they will.

I took a worm's-eye view of these carrots.  We had good rain finally yesterday, and everything in the garden has responded nicely to getting a full drink of water.  Everything has germinated except for parsley in the herb garden and celeriac in the main garden.

Tomatoes, Peas, and Growth

On Sunday, I planted 44 tomato plants in the garden.  They were all plants that I started from seed in our greenhouse.  10 different varieties went in the ground.  There are still more to put in.  After work, supper, and washing dishes, I put in 9 more plants earlier this evening.  Looks like I'm going to have to cut more bamboo for tomato stakes.

Peas are coming up around the legs of the tepee.  In the center of the tepee, you can see radishes growing.  The peas are coming up strong.

Here you can see the growth of the first seedbeds I planted.  On the right, front to back, are radishes, carrots, leaf lettuce, and spinach.  Next one to the left has green onions, mustard greens, beets, and turnips.  Sugar snap beans are in the foreground on the far left.  I need to thin most of these crops, and soon.

Tepee for my...

In prior years, I have created trellises with bamboo stakes and string for peas and cucumbers.  They have generally failed miserably.  So, I'm going Tonto-style this year.  Umm, I guess that's not very politically correct.  Whatever.  I'm building tepees for my peas.  Above is the first one I build.  This one is made out of dried mammoth sunflower stalks from last year's garden.  After I chopped the heads off last year, I let them sit in the garden, serving as tomato stakes.  They dried, and during debris removal time in the fall, I chopped them off at the base and stored a bundle of them in the shed rafters.

This is tepee #2, mostly pecan branches that fell off trees last fall and over the winter.  They aren't as straight as the sunflower stalks, so this one looks kinda crappy.  Should still work just fine.  This one isn't for peas.  It has Kentucky Wonder pole beans planted around it.

OK, this is what you do when you are out of material that's long and straight enough to make a tepee, but still have over half of packet of peas left to plant.  Yes, I jammed fallen pecan branches into the soil.  Right now it looks like a dead bush, but in a month it will be a pea tree.

Here's a picture of the nice tepee and the bush.  There are two kinds of peas planted here, Blondie peas which are a pale yellow pea, and more traditional green English peas.

All three of the structures for vining plants are in the picture above.  I like the way they look, and they should  work much better than the string trellis from prior years.