Again, I did a lousy job keeping up here. Would have been nice to have the information to refer back to. That's why I'll try again.
We are having the most unusual November. I'm pretty sure we had a frost earlier than this last year. I am taking advantage of it and still transplanting some potted flowers. Lots of rain last week and predicted for the next week. One day we had 4" ! Everything is soggy.
My cauliflower is doing great. We cut three heads today. Variety was Amazing. Also picked sugar peas, Dwarf Gray. Some carrots and two side shoots of broccoli that were good sized. David also picked the peppers again. A full tub that we gave to friends who do a CSA. She weighed them. Twenty two pounds! So happy they won't go to waste. Hard to believe we are still picking peppers in November!
I saw a zinnia blooming by the compost tumbler at the farm too. A volunteer. Rosemary was in blossom too and I tried to pull a few seeds. The seeds I planted in the garden almost got washed away with all the rain we have been having. I transplanted the teeny, tiny seedling to a bit higher ground. This is actually the first time I have gotten rosemary seeds to germinate. We'll see if they survive the winter.
I think I planted the sugar peas around the middle of August. The cauliflower was started before we went to MI for a family reunion, so mid July. I had lots of broccoli planted too but it all rotted from too much moisture after it germinated. I got one plant. I did plant Purple Sprouting broccoli direct in the garden before we left also. Then after we got back I started more so there are quite a few plants. They over winter and will produce shoots in spring.
My first planting of carrots are ready as well. The beets never matured and the turnips got eaten by some little black bug. I think I got about six small turnips before they finally just all died. I think I planted all of these mid July as well. I have a thick patch of parsnips from seeds my mother gave me in July. She told me to plant them thick and it looks like they pretty much all came up. I also have some onions from seeds I saved from my winter onions that went to seed in the spring. I will transplant them next week if the weather permits and hope I can get some nice onions from them, but I do have many bunches coming from Dixondale sometime next week as well. If I can get them all planted and mulched I may have a good shot at having lots of onions next June.
I know I can check my posts to see what I planted/harvested but I thought I'd use this post for a list so I know what I have by Mid May. I like to take pictures of my bouquets for the same reason. I pretty much know which flowers are early, mid and late, it's just not the dates. So, here's what I have been harvesting this month:
Cauliflower - Rushmore - first pick around the first of May. Denali never matured. Rushmore is a beautiful, self blanching cauliflower!
Broccoli - probably hybrid mix from Johnny's since I lost a lot of the others. We cut small heads because I thought they were ruined from the late freeze, but we have been picking side shoots. I am getting some big heads now and it is from the ones that stayed covered and didn't get hit as much from the freeze.
Cabbage - Early Gonzales is a small cabbage, great for two people. Early Jersey is the CONICAL shaped cabbage I think is so weird. And
Copenhagen is the larger heads.
Chinese Cabbage - this matures quickly and this year the mini wasn't so mini. We did well selling at market even with holes. The tatsoi and bok choi acted as the trap crop for the flea beetles. HAVE TO KEEP ROW COVER ON!
Bok Choi - a waste of my time. No one wants it. Matt and Ennie ate it once. Most went to the compost.
Radishes - pretty much finished. I have a second planting in but what I tasted were HOT!
Carrots - still small but larger enough. Miranda and I planted them around March 4 in a raised bed.
Beets - should have had by now but terrible germination this year. I had four small ones I put in a roasting bundle
Parsnips - started harvesting two weeks ago. There is a mix of large and small ones.
Lettuce - leaf lettuce has been coming in since first of April and we just put it under shade cloth and have been watering almost every day. Hoping it will last a couple more weeks.
Lettuce - loosehead/crisphead came in all at once. First harvest last week and second this past Saturday and it's pretty much done. I was very happy with the crisphead (Great Lakes). Also, I like the bibb and should remember to mainly grow those two as well as the one red french type from Rick Corey.
Spinach - I think I planted three kinds but I cannot remember which is which. I will have to double check but they all did much better this year. The spinach is finished for the season now.
Turnips - actually when I pulled some this week there were some really large ones. The red ones didn't do so well but I will save seeds.
Asparagus - we are pretty much finished picking it now. We had several weeks of it and would have more if I let David keep picking.
Peas - Really starting to produce this week. Snow peas/Giant Oregon - I love this pea but germination is spotty so I presprouted and did much better. Sweet Horizon. I like both but I am really liking the sweet horizons. Very prolific! - Sugar snap - Dwarf Gray. Old reliable!
Cucumber - In the greenhouse planted. Amiga I think. Very thin skinned and not bitter. Picked the first ones this week.
Beans - pole beans - French Gold planted in the greenhouse. I picked the first this week. Not a lot but a bit handful.
Bush beans - Provider - picked today but probably there were some we could have sold at market. We got one of the grape container clam shells full.
Bush beans - Goldcrop - first picking today. A couple of handfuls
Strawberries - We have been picking the Robinsons since the end of April. They are small this year. Not enough to have any to sell.
Sweet Charley - first year picking (fall) only picked a few so far. Much later maturing. They are setting out runners right and left though.
Whopper - first year planting (spring) and producing some nice sized berries. They have white shoulders but are very sweet.
We did not take any plants (tomato and pepper) to market today because we had a good variety of produce. It was a beautiful day and very busy. Customers started coming before 9:00 and our cucumbers were sold by 9:10 am. We only had 12, but still.
We had cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, kale, chard, leaf, butterhead and crisphead lettuce, cucumbers, snow peas and sugar snap peas, turnips and carrots as well as 30 bouquets. Pretty much sold everything except a bit of butterhead and one bunch of turnips. Even the resident guru organic farmer was impressed with our display!
We decided to try and go to the farm as early as possible to avoid the heat. We made it there by 7 am. Well worth the effort because we didn't start to feel the heat until just before lunch time.
I started the cool-bot up right away and picked six heads of broccoli and about a quart of side shoots. Then I picked a few butterhead lettuce but the majority of it had already bolted or tasted bitter. I leave it growing until I can get to it for composting or feeding the chickens or goats but I'd love to have the time to pull it all out and clean up the row. I'll save that for another day. I also cut about 12 heads of cabbage, four of them were the small heads and a few were the conical heads. To me that just seems strange and I can never remember which one it is and I keep planting it. I got one last Chinese cabbage.
David weeded the corn right away while I weeded and mulched the peppers and tomatoes. It took us until lunch time to finish those two projects but it looks really good and will help hold the moisture when we don't have rain. We also put a shovel full of compost around each plant before mulching. Same with the corn. There are three patches of corn. They are small patches but I'm hoping they will come in at different times to extend the harvest. It is not for market but rather just for the family to eat. I am hoping some will be ready by the end of July so we can take some with us to Michigan. Tomatoes too.
I planted some parsnip seeds I have had on a wet paper towel in a baggie for a couple of weeks to check germination because they were last year's seeds. Several did sprout and there were many that were fat and ready to sprout so I planted them all. I think if I can keep them wet I will have a chance at getting them to germinate.
I had soaked some new corn last night so I had to plant it today. It wasn't a lot so I put it at the end of the pepper row. Country Gentleman, an heirloom. I hope the taste is good.
The newest strawberries are starting to get big and red but it looks like they will have white shoulders. I am okay with that since they are very sweet. I really want to weed and mulch them. They were mulched but David did it and he didn't put the straw on thick enough and it's an area that gets really weedy. Plus, they are in a row where I had asclepia (butterfly weed) planted previously and it seems even plowing it under didn't get rid of it all so I'll have to go in and try and dig the smaller ones and just pull the bigger ones.
I could have kept weeding even with the heat but David was beat so we headed home around 4:30. When we got home we sat at the table and had a bear and some chips, then some crackers and cheese and chicken salad. That was dinner. Then we took showers and promptly fell asleep on the couch. Hope I can sleep tonight.
Tonight I planted three hills of Butternut squash. Tomorrow I will plant a couple of other varieties and some pumpkins. I have corn soaking to plant another small batch. I will do another batch on Sunday.
Matt worked up the field between the garden and the orchard and planted buckwheat but there is a space there for me to use and I have plenty of choices of what to plant there: lentils, black beans, cow peas, soy beans, more corn, sweet potatoes. I'm sure there's more but I cannot think of what.
We picked 11 more cucumbers off the cukes in the greenhouse tonight. There may be at least another four or so ready by Saturday morning too. I also found one, single wax bean on the beans in the greenhouse. There are lots of blossoms so hopefully they will be bearing lots of beans real soon. The Provider beans in the garden will be ready by next week.
I really need to weed the beans too, but then I really need to weed everything. Where to start?
We got a bit over a quart of snow peas tonight at the farm and I had picked some from the ones at home as well. There will be turnips for market this week. I hope I can squeeze out a few radishes too. If I were to water the parsnips good I may be able to get some out on Friday. The ground is so dry I can't even pull them out.
Tomorrow I will weed the two tomato rows and the rest of the pepper row so I can finish the mulching. That's my number one priority tomorrow.
