Happy Garden After a Storm

Everything in the garden is doing great after a few days of heavy rain followed by sunshine. We are going to need to increase our greens and salad intake to keep up with the growth!

Pretty chard

Collard greens

Red mustard

Various salad greens

I see you, carrot

What's Growing

I'm really pleased with how everything is coming along in the garden. Rather than take pictures, I shot a little video showing everything, except the shallot bulbs that haven't broken the surface yet. Everything is from seed except the Sun Gold which was a tiny little starter plant months ago and is producing more now than it did during summer. I think next year I will plant the tomatoes later in the season. I've been diligent about thinning and weeding and created nice fertile soil before sowing. The plants seem to appreciate it.

The Beginning of New Crops

Well, I had another disappointing summer crop and am looking forward to a more successful fall venture. Most everything I recently sowed has started coming up and many rows will need to be thinned soon as you can see by the pics below.

This is a "rainbow" mix of 4 different carrots. 

Bright Lights Chard

Collard Greens

April Garden

I'm pleased with how everything's coming along in the garden and went out and took some pictures to share.

I'm very happy with my broccoli this year. Last year I barely got any florets and then it all bolted. This year is very different. Three of my plants have had small florets that I've been cutting off and using raw in salads because they are small and about to bolt. I thought the other three plants were not going to produce then two of them starting growing really big, like the one below. It's about softball size and there is another slightly smaller one. Hoping they will get nice and big but watching closely to harvest when needed.

Big broccoli, yay!

I have been harvesting lots of lettuce for lunch sandwiches and we have been having some nice big dinner salads. The red sails have been producing for a while and the green leafs behind them have just gotten big enough to start harvesting. The darker green in back are the castelfranco radicchio plants. 

Lettuces and greens

Here is a close up of one of the castelfranco radicchio plants. I had never had it before and is is really good. The younger leaves have a velvety texture and are great in salads and sandwiches. The older leaves are getting a little tougher and bitter, as radicchio does, so I will probably be cooking some up soon.

Castelfranco radicchio

We have been eating a lot of beet greens, chard and kale but the collard greens are coming along nicely. 

Collard greens

Speaking of beets, these are the last of the three sowings and varieties, except for a couple rogue ones that came up by the kale. I've been good about thinning so hoping to get nice big beets from them.

Detroit Red beets

 Snap peas have started blooming. Can't wait, they were so tasty last year!

Snap pea blossoms

Besides all the above, there is chard and kale ready to eat, tomatoes and eggplants growing, and pepper and bean seeds germinating. 

Just a basic update

Haven't posted in while. Garden was a bit depressing during the winter months but I'm pretty happy with how everything's coming along right now.

Currently growing:
Beets (3 varieties-Ruby Queen, Detroit Red, and Bull's Blood)
Green onions
Collard greens
Parsnips
Pak Choi
Broccoli
Mizuna
Lettuces (Red Sail and a mix of other seedlings too small to differentiate yet)
Sugar Peas
Bright Lights chard
Lacinato kale

Broccoli plants are much healthier than last year's. 

Ruby Queen beets & green onions

Mizuna, the bulk of my recent salads.

Waiting

I have a mish mosh of stuff growing in the garden currently. Tomatoes, melons, eggplants, brussel sprouts, beets, scallions, and parsnips. I've torn up three tomato plants that weren't looking like they were going to do anything and that I didn't get much from to begin with. I only got two tomatoes each from the Cherokee Purple and Large Barred Boar plants and none, zero, zilch from the Berkeley Tie Dye. Very disappointing. The sun gold is still going strong and the Juliet is also still producing a little.

Sun golds 

The three newer tomato plants look healthy and the Beefmaster actually has 4 tomatoes growing now that it's cooler.

Beefmasters

Not sure if I'll get anything from the other two since it's so late in the year and is starting to cool. But I'll still give them a little longer to see what happens. There are 3 charentais melons  growing and I hope the cooler weather doesn't kill them.  The honeydew is flowering but no actual melons yet. The eggplant has some flowers but I'm starting to think none will become an actual eggplant. However, the cooler weather is making the brussel sprouts very happy and I've  had really good germination with the beets, scallions, and parsnips so that is all promising.

Lots of brussel sprout plants

The dirt between the beets is still fairly soft as evidenced by my bigfoot style print

Parsnips are looking good

Not sure what I will plant once I have more space, probably another type of beet and some sort of greens, at least. 

The Beet Sprouts Have Sprung

This is a section of the Ruby Queen beets I sowed last Saturday.

Ruby Queen beet sprouts

All four rows are germinating nicely though I will definitely have to thin. I promise myself that I will be better about thinning this fall. I definitely learned my lesson last year. Luckily the sprouts are delicious in salads and will not go to waste.