Late July 2012

July has been a hot and overall a very dry month here.  My tomatoes, peppers, and melon family plants are growing like gang busters.  Here is an overview of the growth to date.

I've got mixed beds, as usual.

Cucumbers on left, Zucchinis on right.  I'm working pretty hard to tie the cucumber vines to the trellis.  So far, both seem pretty happy with this arrangement.

Here are peppers, basils, and Eggplants.  I've used this mix a few times before, but this is the best that it has looked.  I think that the heat has been helpful.

This bed was all lettuce 6 weeks ago but those have all bolted to seed and the Kales are going to town.  This is the first time that I have grown red Kale and I'm pretty happy about it as it is very tasty and super heat tolerant.  I'm leaving a few lettuces in place with the hope of spontaneous reseeding but plan to replant with fall greens in a month as well.

Celery.  This is a first for me.  Its in a bed that gets a little more shade and seems pretty happy.  I have 6 healthy looking plants intermixed with carrots and they seem to be growing well in close quarters.

Kohlrabi - tasty, heat tolerant, funky looking.  This is really the only of my brasicas that look remotely healthy.  I think that hot dry weather has taken its toll on the others.

Hopefully we'll have baskets of tomatoes soon...

Garlic Harvest

Our garlic harvest happened early this year.  I've been growing the same varieties for several years so I attribute this to the mild winter and early onset of summer weather.  Fortunately, All hands are on deck.

It turns out this is a pretty great garden activity for an almost 3 year old since it involves some brute force and not too much delicacy in handling.

 We'll let the soft neck garlic dry out a little today and braid them tonight.  I let my garlic cure hanging in my basement with a fan on.  This works here because the relative humidity in Utah is very low.

 We picked about 75 nicely sized heads of garlic with about 20 shallots and the last dozen leeks.  Give or take, this is about how much garlic we eat, replant, and gift during the year.

Also this weekend, more lettuce. Below is red oak leaf, Kweik butter, and Pirat butter on right with the last of the Arugula on the left.

 We're still eating lots of salads.

And we are quickly eating out way through a bed of French Breakfast radishes.  As usual, the French had it right.

Great greens!

We are currently eating a lot of salads and greens.  I purchased some new seed varieties this year that have been a great success, so I thought I'd share the goods.

Rouge de Grenoblouse, Nevada, Kweik, Pirat, Merlot Batavian, Arianna Batavian

We have harvested all of our Rapini, which in my opinion is one of the best things to add to a shaped pasta with goat cheese and garlic.

The rest of the garden is moving right along and as much as I love green, I'm looking forward to some other bright colors in the coming months.

Tip of the day May 6th

Not to state the obvious, but don't forget to label your crops as you plant them.  I have lots of help with signage and spelling.

JG

One Potato, two potato...

Its potato planting time here in the Mountain West.  Here's how we do it.
About 3 weeks ago, I cut my seed potatoes up into 2-3 pieces each.  I've been taught to aim for 2 eyes per piece.

After a few weeks, the potatoes will seal up as to prevent rotting in the ground and they look like this

Next, you need to prepare your garden bed.  We like to grow a cover crop in ours during fall and winter which we cut in the spring, then turn the soil over.  Then we dig holes about 1 foot deep for each seed potato.

Next you place your seed potatoes 1 to each hole, I like to pick the best looking specimens and discard any that look like they might be a little rotten.  It turns out that 2.5 year olds are excellent potato planting assistants.

We cover our seed potatoes with a light layer of soil then keep adding, eventually mounding up as our plants grow.
After a few months, out potato plants will look like this

Happy spring garden season friends.
-J, T, &C

Feb harvest

Who would have thought that we'd be harvesting salad greens here in February?  To be honest, I've been trying to work out the conditions to achieve this for several years.

This arugula has been growing under a cover of row cover only that is propped up with some wire fencing.  Its gorgeous and nice and peppery.

These lettuces which include Nevada, Frisee, and Merlot are very protected under row cover with a plastic hoop structure 2 feet above.  If balmy in here.

These plants are Lacinato Kale, which I thought were petering out, but which are now growing a new generation of baby leaves below the upper leaves.  The baby leaves taste mild and a little broccoli like.  I'll probably let these continue to do their thing until I get a new crop of Kale started.

Since its going to snow almost all week here, not much else to do outside in the garden.  So, we'll do a little more of this...

However we will be supplementing our itching for the spring garden by eating some of this ...

Vegetable Stock

Early February represents a waiting game this year.  I had already started some seedlings last year by this time, which turned out to have been a bit of jumping the gun.  So this year, I'm exercising patience and will wait a few more weeks before starting some early seedlings in flats.  In the meantime, I'm spending a pretty good amount of time cooking warm winter fare, which today means vegetable stock.  This might be one of the easiest multi-use recipes I've ever come across.  During the summer almost all of the ingredients for this come from the garden.  At this point in the year, we harvest our goods from the grocery aisles.

The vegetables which include 5 carrots, 5 ribs celery, 2 leeks (halved and rinsed for grit), 4 onions, 2 Roma tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic, a handful of parsley with stems are coarsely chopped and then placed into a stock pot.  2 bay leaves and some fresh oregano and thyme are added along with 4 quarts of water poured on top. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer, the cover and cook for about 45 minutes.  Allow stock to cool, then strain.  That's it.  Pretty simple, right?

This week, the stock will be a base for vegetarian black bean chili, but the potential uses are broad and this stock gets used up very quickly around our house.  So while its winter outside, it smelled a bit like a vegetable garden inside.  Cooking tends to make us smile around here, see?

Lets start seedlings in a week or 2 shall we?