Vegetable Early June

The vegetable garden, June 4. Peas growing in the same bed with broccoli and recently planted romaine lettuce. I had so many lettuce starts that I plunked them into nearly every bed. The next bed is green beans and a spot for upcoming chard seedlings. Third row has eggplant, peppers, and a basil patch. The following two rows are Red Pearl grape tomatoes (same as last year and magnificent), five Speckled Roman paste tomato plants, and four heirloom types that includes Striped German and Brandywine and two others I cannot recall. Our starts were from Shady Acres Herb Farm or started in our own greenhouse.

The curving garlic bed is new this year (well, tilled last November). The garlic is doing well although a little tightly planted. Doing really well is the Chesnok Red -a Purple Stripe variety. This one is said to do very well but I couldn't have said that in the past.

Here are our potatoes -five varieties including russets, golds and reds. They grow several inches each day. I am about to add compost to "hill up" inside the framed bed. More garlic to the right, and French Shallots as well. To the left is our herb bed that includes basil, dill, cilantro, parsley, thyme, oregano, arugula and cutting lettuce. I'm anticipating a productive garden and feel better about its organization over last year. When the garlic is harvested around late June, early July, I will add our late summer-early fall crops of broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, and kale. In the background are cucumbers in pots, a remnant bed of dead nettle and common milkweed, and the curving hedge of hydrangea that we transplanted from the south side of the house last year.

When People Ask Where The Good Food Is

...I usually tell them its right outside.

Four heirloom tomato plants have produced more than most any I had ever planted at the beach farm.

I've been looking forward to the German Stripe, the latest to size up and ripen.

Japanese eggplant, 'Kyoto,' have been exceptionally prolific.

I put my green bean seeds in a little late, but still, they are producing now. 

Although my broccoli starts were a failure. Too late, as always.

But I was saved by this guy (sorry to say that I lost his name with a piece of paper) and Anderson Acres. You see the sign, to the left, that says start your fall garden. Yes! Getting starts together at the right time in summer is challenging given busy summer schedules and difficult weather. Hardly any garden business has starts available at this time of year, probably because there isn't much market for it. I'm so glad to have found them at the Minneapolis Farmers' Market in stall 311.

I bought a handful of these lettuce starts, broccoli, cilantro, parsley, and basil.

The fall lettuce.

Betsy's dill, the pickler that she is.

Our local hardware gave away (really, for free) many vegetable starts in July, most well past their prime. I focused on those sturdy sorts that do well in cooler weather -chard and kale. Small and weak when planted, they are now doing fantastic. We eat them every day.

A four pack of heirloom peppers from Shady Acres (whose stall Anderson Acres occupied at the farmers' market) has become quite a bounty of peppers. I've never had such luck. One plant has eight large peppers!

And they're beginning to turn red.

Of course, there are still tomatoes ripening.

These "cherry," or is it "grape," have been fantastic. The name I believe is 'Juliet' -a little sweet, little tart, and meaty -that is the key for me. I do not like watery small tomatoes that pop when you bite into them or crack after heavy rains. These I pick and eat right there in the garden.

With more to come.

The woods has not produced its usual bounty this year, except for the morels early on. Maybe we've missed them, having been so busy with work on the house and field. Of course, we'll keep looking.

Final Touch

I hadn't been to the beach farm in two months. It was hard to go, out of busyness as much as emotion, but it was time, or rather time was running low, so this past Sunday, blustery, cool, and unfavorable to contemplation as it was, I went.

The buckwheat never got turned under which, in retrospect, appears a good practice given no other fall planting. The tangle of light carbon comes to be an effective mulch, keeping down weeds and shielding the soil from eroding winds. It should be turned under next spring.

In our other, short-lived plot, the unharvested fennel bulbs died back from frost and have since re-animated. I let them be.

Just down the row, under the blackened skeletons of tomato vine, speckled romaine has sprouted. The spring romaine must have successfully self-seeded, something I have yet to see in any lettuce I've sown.

Adjacent to graying, dry fennel stalks and the soggy flesh of decayed eggplant, our parsley is embracing a return to normal temperatures. I pinched some.

From the shed I collected some belongings, a bin, two types of spreaders. I left my wheel dib prototype hanging along with rarely-used garden tools and Wolf's jug of wine.

On this last visit to the beach farm, I was visited by what I think is a young eagle. I missed and will miss the autumn congregation of migratory birds and their electric cacophony. 

Finally, the beach farm was a great place to bbq with friends. I think this post by Marie, of 66sqft, brings it home. We had some great neighbor gardeners -Jimmy, Wolf, Joanna and others. They'll water your garden when you are away, rib you for your weeds, then offer you a cold beer, and they always took heed of my experiments and that is how I earned the nickname: the professor.

Two plots available. I recommend F12.

Last Tuesday

This came after, when the friends arrived, yet I put this first because, in some fashion, we are traveling out of sequence. This day was a week ago, the day garlic harvest started in earnest.

I pulled most of the French grey shallots, so healthy and green I questioned my timing. This year, my timing is rattled by a cool spring, new plot, and my greatest offense -traveling right in the middle of harvest season. The garlic you see is a Turban strain known as Xian, and I have very little of it. While the harvested garlic plant has very little odor, the naked shallots are pungent as can be.

The Asiatic strain 'Japanese' was completely harvested last Tuesday. I was comfortable harvesting these even a little early as the Asiatic strains tend to demand it or they lose their skins. However, this last week turned out to be exceptionally dry, and another week in the ground would have probably done no harm and sized them up some. A word about sizing-up garlic by delaying harvest: a day or two isn't going to do much, you really need to wait at least four days, or more if possible to really notice a difference. Keep your eyes on the weather and wait another week if it remains dry and the leaves are still quite green.

Of course, since the temperatures have remained below 85 degrees F (probably less at the beach farm), the lettuce continues to produce. The only issue has been the lack of moisture, and my unwillingness to heavily douse the rows because of their proximity to the garlic.

These heads, Romaine and Iceberg, were pulled last Tuesday, before this past dry week, and currently live, roots and all, in my fridge.

The rig, for gas pipelines, encroaches, and was closest last Tuesday.

Evening At The Beach Farm

The iceberg is shaping up.

And the romaine ready to go.

I have only a few Artichoke garlic this season, but some are sizing up nicely.

I only planted a handful of French Grey shallots, and they looked pretty meek in early May. Now they've come into their own and are looking strong and healthy, but I'll have only enough for my cooking.

From this angle the new plot looks garlic-full, if a little sparse. See the shallots at the edge, right side.

Some of this season's Creole strains, "Creole" on the left and "Pescadero" to the right. Always a challenge to grow, and even more so to grow large, these plants happen to be shaping up as well as any I've grown. Dare I say the best, yet, based on their stem size. Now, to avoid the Creole curse -witches' brooming.

From this point of view, you can see how much garlic didn't survive the spring season. All that space is now planted with bulbing fennel, lettuce, swiss chard, and parsley. After the Turban and Artichoke strains are harvested, tomatoes and peppers will be planted in their place.

Over in the other plot we have the tangle of high season. Hidden in this mass is the nearly ready Asiatic strain "Japanese," but also Rocambole "Russian Red" and "Killarney Red," Asiatic "Asian Tempest," Porcelain "Music," "Georgian Fire" and "German Hardy," Purple Stripe "Chesnok Red" and Marbled Purple Stripe "Siberian."

Now the harvest game, contemplating the right moment for harvest and then seizing it. Expectations are for a season later than usual, which is good because I will be away in sizzling Florida for 10 days come late June. I do expect to have the Asiatic, Turban and hopefully the Artichoke all harvested before I depart.

And of course, there are scapes. I will be plucking them over the next few weeks, first the Turban and Porcelain, then the Rocambole and Purple Stripe. I may just keep some on the plants for the visual, but also to see how that affects size and longevity of storage.

So we grilled our first trimmings, but couldn't drum up too much interest from our guests.

As the sun settled down, I took a good, long look at the two gardens, then harvested romaine, ruby red, and one iceberg lettuce head. Although I am not growing a substantial amount of garlic this season, I have enough to offer and it's looking quite good. I am excited to bring it to market via Hudson Clove, and will probably offer labeled bundles as I have in seasons past. The cure will take place in the studio where there is more than enough room for this quantity of bulbs and the humidity and temperatures are the best of any option.

Approach Of Summer

I made a mid day trip to the beach farm to harvest lettuce for the coming week and, as it turned out, to head off the growing crabgrass that loves eighty degree days and dry conditions.  I planted some of my remaining romaine and chard, although it is awfully late for these little starts. I expect they will bolt before they size up.

Milkweed grows at the edge of our plot, and I let it for the good it does and the harm it does not.

The garlic is now sliding into its summer appearance (not unlike flower garden in July), a tangle of less turgid, slowly yellowing to browning leaves. Please note the UFO in the upper left, above the neighbor's fertilizer bag.

And, as expected now that June is upon us, the scapes are pushing up, some more advanced than this Rocambole. This Friday I will harvest (and grill) our first scapes of the season.

The earliest of the early, the Asiatic "Japanese" or "Sakura," is cloving. Before this process, spring garlic looks similar to "green onions." These and the "Asian Tempest" will be ready in a couple of weeks.

Some romaine lettuce I've yet to harvest. I will probably take this on Friday. Romaine holds up to the heat well, and I think it makes it taste better.

This is a new type of romaine lettuce, flecked with red on bright green, that I grew from seed. 

It is awfully hard not to harvest these big leaves from the Iceberg lettuce. Inside, the head should form, but I've never grown this type of lettuce before and am not feeling its potential to do so. I may have to harvest this before it wants to bolt.

In the other plot there were three heads of what I mistakenly thought of as bolted lettuce. I pulled them up and threw them on the weed pile. I found another and tasted a leaf, and then it hit me -I've planted escarole! I left the three to wilt on the weed pile, figuring it a wash and left the fourth planted. After all my work was done I tasted a leaf of the still planted escarole, a leaf not all as bitter as expected. I grabbed the wilted from the pile and began to rinse the roots of soil, then pulled the remaining one and did the same, and bagged them all. Within the hour the escarole returned from the wilted dead, completely rejuvenated, the very Lazarus lettuce you see here.

And, in a neighboring plot, the one turned over by its new gardener after I planted peas, potatoes, and greens, there is a growing vegetable mishmash from which I harvested some pea shoots for today's salad.

An Elephant In The Room

The elephants are sending up scape, but no one is talking about it -yet. I will be surprised if this one, and the others like it, planted along the fence line isn't clipped by a passerby. The beauty of the elephant is its extended display from unique bulb and beak, to papery spathe's slow peeling, then a stellar explosion of white, lavender, or purple (I believe purple, but surprise me). In the meantime, I head out to the beach farm to check on the status of scapes, but mostly to harvest and plant more lettuce.

Garlic And Lettuce

As you can see, the garlic is getting quite tall now, the blood meal finally kicking in.

But I lamented not adding compost last fall, and so picked up twelve bags of composted cow manure to spread over two plots on Friday, before the heavy weekend rains, and probably too late to do any real good.

My main target was the garlic weakly growing on the edges, in the under cultivated soil, although I do find the yellowing leaf tips of the Asiatic strains a curiosity and wonder what, if any, effect it may have.

In the row blanks, where garlic simply didn't make it (this spot, southwest corner of the plot, was bad last year too), I plant lettuce.

Looking forward to it, we're eating a lot of salads these days.

Change Of Season

The sun is now setting earlier, yet it feels that summer has only begun. That the peak of summer sunlight does not coincide with the peak of summer is a celestial twist, an affirmation of the skewed order of things. And here a divide in the vegetable kingdom, more pronounced this year than others, and maybe due to the warm spring and wet month of May.

The lettuce have peaked, with outer leaves folding down toward the soil. We've only 5 heads remaining, but wow, what a productive 20 square feet.

Cilantro now fully bolted and flowered, the young to return in a month's time. I wish I cooked enough for all the cilantro that can be grown in 2 square feet.

Snap peas, slow to start, but invigorated by the month of May, are finally letting go of the cucumber trellis. Fennel, finocchio romanesco, is close to flowering and bulbs are being pulled. Carrots here?

The French beans, first planted in the Turban garlic beds. Second planting was last Saturday.

Asclepias syriaca in bloom; scented evenings at the beach farm.

 Always worth a closer look.

When In Romaine

This is my first time growing lettuce, at least since that long ago slug-infested lettuce patch that never made it in Oregon, 1995. We grew two varieties -a bib type and a romaine; seeds from Territorial. At first I was not impressed with the flavor of the romaine. Now I know why -I was harvesting too soon. Worried about bolting and hot June temps, we began harvesting head after head. But these big beauties, one tear of the leaf told me that they need a little heat, they need to mature in the field.