Bok Choy

Warm fall temperatures are causing our Bok Choy (Chinese cabbage) to bloom and go to seed.

Bok Choy

Garden 2011: Recap #3

It just wouldn't be spring if we weren't running behind with everything.  The photos above were all taken on May 5.  The main feature of all of them is that it's obvious the grass needs mowed.  Between preparing for art fairs, traveling to art fairs and all the rain we've received, I'm very much behind with my mowing.  I was finally able to attack our garden area with the mower on Tuesday (5/10/11).  Now we can at least venture into the garden without having to wade in almost knee-high grass and weeds.


Clockwise:  

• 1.) Tomato plants are still under cloches.
• 2.) The cloches need to be removed from several tomato plants.
• 3.) Cauliflower.
• 4.) Chinese cabbage.
• 5.) Lettuce, spinach, chard, radishes directed seeded into the garden.
• 6.) Broccoli.
• 7.) Potatoes.

Our irises are well into their blooming sequence. We don't grow a lot of flowers, but have gotten into growing irises because friends gave us rhizomes when they thinned their beds. The flowers are beautiful, and irises are one of the few flowers deer won't eat.

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Garden 2011: Recap #3

Garden 2011: Recap #2

Center:  Jo removed the cloches from our broccoli, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage.  She then covered the bed with a wire tunnel to keep rabbits from eating their fill.

Clockwise:

1. Cauliflower (4/17/11)
2. Cherry Bell radishes (4/16/11)
3.  Comfrey does well in the spring, but suffers in our hot, dry summer.  (4/16/11)
4. Partially mulched broccoli. (4/17/11)
5. Lettuce (4/16/11)
6. Chinese cabbage. (4/17/11)

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Garden 2011: Recap #2

Garden 2011: Mid-April Recap

Strawberries are in full bloom.  (4/13/11)


Datura (jimson weed) is coming up from roots.  It's surrounded by garlic chives shoots which have since been pulled -- for all the good that did.  Garlic chives is very invasive.  It spreads by multiplying bulbs underground and abundant seeds.  It's requires a constant effort to keep it from taking over the bed.  (4/16/11)


It's about time to remove the cloches covering the broccoli, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage, especially since the plants are trying to grow out the tops of the plastic jugs.  (4/16/11)


We've been enjoying fresh asparagus for a couple of weeks or so.  We totally replanted the asparagus bed last year.  This year's harvest is modest.  (4/16/11)


I'm beginning to mulch the broccoli bed while the plants are still protected by cloches.  (Note:  The plastic jugs have since been removed.)  (4/13/11)

It's about time to remove the wire covering our garlic before the plants grow up through the wire.  We plant garlic in the fall.  The plants come up and then go dormant over winter.  Once spring arrives, they take off growing again.  Neither deer nor rabbits eat the garlic, but we cover it with wire over winter to make certain an armadillo doesn't come through and till the bed for us.  (4/13/11)


Our potato plants are poking up through the mulch.  I cover them with a layer of fresh mulch when they do.  (4/16/11)

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Garden 2011: Mid-April Recap

Garden 2011: Broccoli and More

After transplanting the full row of broccoli, Jo watered them with a fish emulsion mixture. The dogs think fish emulsion smells like something that really needs to be rolled in. (Part #1 of transplanting broccoli into the garden is here.)

Finally Jo covered the newly transplanted veggies -- broccoli, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage -- with high-tech mini-greenhouses, otherwise known as cloches, which I photographed the following day. We're not likely to get temperatures cold enough to damage the transplants, but the cloches also help keep them from drying out and protect the tender young plants from being buffeted around in our gusty south wind. (Yes, I really do need to crank up our lawnmower and mow the aisles between garden beds.)

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the garden... While it's not necessary to make an emergency run into town for whipped cream just yet, our strawberries are blooming.

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Garden 2011: Broccoli and More

Garden 2011: Transplanting Broccoli Into The Garden #1

Broccoli, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage sets ready to go into the garden. Jo usually starts our transplants from seeds, but this year she had a problem with the seed company and did not receive seeds soon enough to do that. Instead, she bought the sets at our local feed store.

We'd already prepared the bed, so all Jo had to do was lay out a center line and start digging. She'd purchased the transplants over a week ago, but a new cold front that arrived on Monday caused her to wait until Tuesday to set them out in the garden. Depending upon what kind of weather we were having, the transplants had either been soaking up a few rays under a grow light or setting out on the porch "hardening off".

And another broccoli goes into the ground. There's a hill directly to the west of our place, so sunset in the garden occurs a couple of hours before actual sunset. I thought I might have to start using the camera's flash before Jo finished planting.

Part #2 of "Transplanting Broccoli" will follow soon.

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Garden 2011: Transplanting Broccoli Into The Garden #1