Harvest Monday

December 9, 2013

I grew my first cabbage this fall 🙂 I planted MANY but only one got past seedling stage. None of my kale got past seedling stage either. I guess there is some type of bug who thinks these are yummy?

I planted the seed at the end of July. At the beginning of fall, the chickens got out and ate all of my greens. They pecked a bit at the cabbage as well but were not impressed. I am not sure how long I am supposed to let it grow but temperatures really started to fall lately so I went ahead and cut it. I’m sure I’ll laugh at myself in years to come but I am really impressed with my first cabbage 🙂

Another thing I’m impressed with…our carrots! Keep in mind the ground where they were planted was never tilled…we just let the chickens eat all of the grass & poop on it, covered it up with newspaper and mulch, and then planted about a month later.

(Carrot on the bottom is the typical size of what we’ve been picking. The ones on top are what all of the carrots we have been picking lately look like.)

Most did not grow very long but man are they FAT! Again, I planted these at the end of July. I am just picking them as I need them. This spring and fall, all of the carrots we picked were extremely tiny but I just kept planting them. Because these were able to stay in the ground four months, they really had a lot of time to plump up. Also, because of all of the frosts we have been having, they have gotten sweeter. I have three more patches of carrots still in the garden. I wonder if they will last us until the spring. Probably not but we’ll see!

We are asking around for milk jugs for our greenhouses. The plan is to order seeds the day after Christmas with our Christmas money & start planting in our greenhouses shortly after that. In order to grow everything I want to grow this year, I will need over 64 milk jugs…and we don’t drink milk. I’m asking around – we’ll see if we get them all! I can’t wait until we have greens to eat again!

How are your gardens growing? Check out Daphne’s Dandelions to see what everyone else has going on in their winter gardens 🙂

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Harvest Monday, Bugs, and an Experiment

May 20, 2013

No harvests from the BTE garden yet but we are still harvesting from our winter garden so at least we are eating something from the garden.

We are harvesting a head of lettuce each night for supper. The spinach and broccoli are officially spent. The broccoli was thrown to the chickens. Last night we ripped up the last of our spinach (nothing we were doing was stopping them from bolting) and had a big spinach salad with chopped apples on top (YUM!). I am thankful for all of this but I am looking forward to some BTE harvesting! 😀

I mentioned bugs on my beans in a previous post – they are bean leaf beetles and they are getting a lot worse. I was going to put some neem oil on them, as this stops the sexual cycle, so after 3 applications or so, they are taken care of. However, I decided to go out there in the late afternoon (when they are busiest) and knock them into soapy water to see if I could take care of them without buying anything.

I have never had issues with my beans but I have always grown them in a raised beds. The ones in the BTE garden are the ones with the issues. I read that these beetles are found in hard-to-drain clay soil. Ding! ding! ding! This is our soil, for sure! 😛 Of course, I hope the plants will survive but it has just gotten worse & worse so I think I need to be a bit more aggressive. Preying mantises love to eat this beetle but I’ve only seen one ever in the garden so I’m not keeping my hopes up. For good measure, whenever we find a ladybug, we transplant it onto a bean plant 🙂

I have been knocking bugs into soapy water for about a week now and for the first time, today I went out and found NO bugs. I would be ecstatic but they love the HOT weather and today was a bit cooler and rainy so I wonder if that is why they were not out. We’ll see if the plants are on the mend.

I planted watermelon, cantaloupe, zucchini, and squash. I also (finally) transplanted kale and lettuce from my greenhouses to my shaded side garden. This is my experimental garden. It is in the shade quite a bit throughout the day and I assume one of three things will happen:

1. There will not be enough sun, even for things like lettuce and kale
2. It won’t matter that the plants aren’t in the sun – during the summer in North Carolina, it’s too hot, even in the shade, to grow cool crops like lettuce and kale
3. My plan will work! and we’ll be able to harvest fresh lettuce and kale throughout the summer or at least we’ll be able to extend the season a month or two more on either side 🙂

(lettuce & kale transplanted into the side garden)

Last update is about my transplanted tomatoes and peppers. The tomatoes seem to be struggling. The peppers, however, look great so far!

(droopy tomato plant)

(tomato)(pepper transplants)

How is your garden coming? Are you harvesting anything other than winter crops yet?

I am linking up with Harvest Monday. Even though we eat something from the garden each week, I actually remembered to take a picture this time! Yay me 😉