It’s a flower-filled tomatillo plant that will never bear a single tomatillo. We didn’t know that it needed a second tomatillo plant in order to produce fruit. The person who gave it to us only gave us one plant, along with a bunch of tomato plants in exchange for wood chips. Now it’s taking up precious garden space.
I am going to rip it out and plant lettuce, because i know that Josh wanted to plant lettuce this year. Hopefully it’ll stay cool enough for the lettuce to not bolt.
This morning I harvested 12 ounces of dinosaur kale (lacinato). I chiffonaded it and bagged it up in 3 ounce portions.
I like the dinosaur kale because it’s a beautiful color, it’s sturdy, and when it’s sauteed with butter it turns a deep green.
Kale is wonderful. Swiss chard is terrible, but we have to keep growing it because the birds like it more than the kale. It saves our kale from the birds.
Alden and I made seed tape today with our carrot seeds and beet seeds. They’re both root crops that do best if perfectly spaced. This year I was sloppy with my beet planting and got a really dumpy harvest of smashed together beets. Lesson learned.
I amended the soil where I’m planting the carrots and beets. I bought a 50 pound bag of sand and worked it lightly into about a 3×10 area. Hopefully it’ll help the root veggies to grow.
I harvested 1 lb 3 ounces of kale this morning. Actually, I washed and deveined the kale, then weighed it (minutes bowl weight), so we probably got a little more than that.
I’m going to portion it out into 3 ounce bricks, wrap them in plastic wrap, then freeze them. They defrost really quickly and make for an amazing accompaniment to any dinner. Kale + butter + miso paste.
Last Thursday I started a single pint of lacto fermented green beans. Just water, salt, green beans, garlic + dill. It’s just sitting on our wire shelf, literally collecting dust. I could make a lot more lacto fermented green beans, but I don’t want to do up a whole bunch until I know that they’ll be good. Tonight I tasted them. They weren’t boozy at all and they weren’t flavorful either. They’re supposed to be done next Thursday. It’s a two week ferment.
In the mean time, we’re still harvesting more green beans, which are great for raw snacking. I also started another jar of lacto fermented green beans without garlic, just to see if the beans can make it on their own without a rock star in the jar.
I have quite a few lacto ferments going on right now. Fun project!
Welcome to our 2020 garden! Let’s take a tour, shall we? I’ll share some of my favorite garden spots.
Nature’s watercolor. Look at the gorgeous colors that are created when green turns to orange.Our three kale varieties. Like a mom, I love all three equally, but for different reasons.I love this trellis of pole beans! By the end of summer it’ll be a beautiful arch of lunch greenery–I mean, lush greenery.This diminutive plant wins the prize for fruit to leaf ratio.One beet…Many beets…These sunflowers were little volunteers that I thought were squash plants. Now they hold up our volunteer tomato plants. Btw, say hello to one of our honeybees!Three bees!Spent pea plants create a tangle of parchment-like tendrils and leaves.Corn. 100% American, but the tassels give off an exotic Middle Eastern vibe.From a distance you would never guess that beneath the large, drapey zucchini leaves are some of the largest, most beautiful flowers in the garden. #modestishottestThis tomatillo is delicate and spindly.These teeny, fuzzy beans will someday be on Josh’s dinner plate (or get eaten on his walk home from the office)It’s not dill… It’s parsley that bolted. Teeny little parsley flowers!Another beautiful contemporary watercolor from Mme. Nature. Title “Baby Broccoli in Wood Chip Mulch”
We picked our first ounce of beans today. 😉 The beans that were barely alive are now looking quite healthy and should produce a good crop. The first cucumber and pepper should be ready this week. My peas are almost done for the season. They weren’t nearly as productive as last year but still provided some good table fare. The chard and kale continue to produce like gangbusters.