When to Plant the Garden? Now!

In our neighborhood, the daffodils are done, the cherries have leafed out, but the late tulips are still going strong. 

Last year's kale is happier than ever and that means Mao Mao's getting lots of little kale nibbles before dinner. Yes, our cat is a big fan of greens. I am too, so our human salads are getting a big supplement from the garden lately. 

Three varieties of lettuce are also sprouting in the plot. I've harvested leaves from the red romaine but the others are taking their time. This photo is from last week. We're getting closer to harvest size this week. 

What else is growing? Two varieties of carrots are up. The strawberry plants have an abundance of blossoms. I transplanted about a dozen leeks from the windowsill "greenhouse" to the plot.  I repotted a dozen pepper plants into bigger containers to encourage more growth and hope to keep a few on the fire escape. The radicchio plants are looking good but are getting a little crowded with the kale. I might have to chop the kale monster down a bit. 

It was a very cold and long winter but we're finally deep into spring. And now that Mothers Day is upon us, it is officially safe to get planting. I see a trip to the garden center in my future. The tomato seedings are calling my name. 

Garden Harvest Backlog from Brunswick Street

So it seems as though my posts from September and October failed to publish. So you've missed seeing all the goodies that I've pulled from the ground, snipped from the stem, and plucked from the vine. 

Crazy carrots were part of the harvest. I was never thrilled with the flavor of the Amarillo yellow carrots and will stick with orange Nantes in the future. 

If anything was consistent this season, it was the kale and those volunteer bottleneck cherry tomatoes. Both were unstoppable and made sure we had homegrown salads on the table almost every night. 

A few times we gussied up the salads with nasturtiums. Fancy!

I picked a few tomatoes that were just beginning to ripen and then removed all the green ones and cleared the plants out of the plot. Yesterday I pickled the green tomatoes with some hot peppers. 

The last of the carrots also came out. The plot is clear except for the kale (still looks perfect), some lettuce, and my perennial white salvia that keeps the bees happy all summer long. 

Spring Harvests

All things leafy have been the stars of the harvest basket this month. I've been picking almost daily salads of mixed lettuces and baby Ragged Jack kale. Mixed in, there's been the occasional radish and baby carrot too. 

I had a very old packet of leftover radish seeds that I sprinkled here and there. Only a few sprouted and many bolted during a couple of warm afternoons. The ones that made it to bulb form were crisp and spicy. 

The two strawberry plants I have tucked in a corner gave us a handful of the sweetest fruit I've ever tasted this year. The plants don't seem to love the location, in fact they want to spread into the walkways instead of the rest of the bed. I keep them around because they're so polite :)

The Swiss Chard plant I bought on a whim from Priapi has been very happy. We sauted a bunch last week and the flavor was exceptional compared to the watery stuff you can get at the grocery store. I'll get a couple more cuttings from it I think. 

I'm not sure where the orange carrots came from, but they're definitely sweeter than the underdeveloped yellow variety. 

I'll put together a post showing how my "jungle" has grown over the past month. 

Spring Love

I love when the weather cooperates in spring and gives us a stretch of warm sunny weather. All the plants shoot up. The bees are going crazy. I'm picking fresh mixed greens for salads almost daily. And there is so much promise for the coming season. 

My Ramapo tomato plant has grown about 4" since planting last week and it even has a couple flowers. It's an old New Jersey variety so it should feel right at home in the garden. 

The bees are loving the indigo blue flowers of the borage plant. I haven't tried eating any leaves yet as they're an unappealing fuzzy texture, but they're supposed to taste like cucumber.  I love the flowers though, so I'm hoping it keeps growing through the season. 

I might be in for a bumper carrot crop. These are Amarillo carrots - bright yellow, juicy and sweet. Carrots are so easy to grow, I grow a different variety every year and always get a good yield. I sometimes leave them in the soil through the summer and have a few left in the late fall when everything else in the garden is finished. If you're wondering, "should I grow carrots?"  The answer is yes!

Solstice Eve Garden

The temperature outside was in the 50s today so I decided to do one last 2013 garden visit. Most of the garden was still under a blanket of snow but I managed to dig out some late season carrots. 

There were a few greens poking through the snow too so I brought home a mustard green leaf for Mao Mao. She likes to munch on something leafy but she's never tried this flavorful green. I'm not sure she'll like it but I couldn't pass up homegrown food for the kitty. 

Speaking of kitties, all the usual suspects were accounted for in the garden. The furry guy finally looks comfortable. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you loyal MaoMaoKitty readers!

Growing Fall Decorations in the Garden



Last fall I bought a trio of mini decorative Indian Corn ears at a market in Lancaster, PA.  I saved the ears and planted a row of kernals in the spring.  They grew tall, tassels sprouted, and quite a few ears developed.  Yesterday, the stalks all looked well dried, so I decided to harvest.

One of the reasons I planted the corn was to see what colors I would get in the end.  The corn at the farm stand was very colorful, some ears were short and burgundy while others were long and slender and included different blends of red, maroon, orange, yellow, buff, and even blue tones.  I was curious to see if kernals from a single ear would result in similar looking ears or if they would reflect the chromatic diversity I saw at the stand.

As you can see, I hit the fall decor jackpot.  A little of everything is represented including some that look like raspberries (probably a result of too few rows being planted and poor pollenation) and others that are perfect little mini Indian Corns.  I couldn't be happier with the results.  I'm just not sure what to do with so many!  At the moment, they're arranged in a tall cylindrical vase on our media unit, right next to Pumpkin #1.



Another mini harvest included some carrots, parsley, and tomatoes.  The cherry tomatoes are from a volunteer plant in my plot.  It's a sweet variety (maybe Sweet 100 that I planted last season) but only a few ripen each day.  Garden Snack!

It finally happened!

I grew too many tomatoes in the Brunswick Street Community Garden in Jersey City!  Since joining the garden six years ago, I've always dreamed of the garden glut - something I had only heard about up until this point.  This year though, my trusty Beefmaster tomato plant has had a truly impressive yield.  Just yesterday I picked 9 tomatoes and there are still 9 more on the plant waiting to ripen.  This is in addition to every other red, non-paste tomato you've seen pictures of on this blog this year.  If ever there was a case for hybrid tomato plants, this is it. 

Look at these beauties!  The basil became pesto and that bright blue table underneath?  That's Josh Urso Design's Tabby coffee table looking all industrial spiffy.

Earlier in the week there were still other tomatoes ready on the vine, and a couple crazy looking carrots, too.

Not a great photo, but you can see the still vining cucumber on the left and the perpetual basil plants on the right.

We have a small butterfly garden bed with plants like butterfly bush, rue, milkweed, and parsley to attract monarch butterflies and their pretty cousins.

Lots of Veg

These are from the last few weeks. It's dropping into the 50s in the evenings here, so the plants are beginning to lose their green. There are at least a dozen more unripe tomatoes on the plants and a couple dozen carrots in the ground. They'll be fine but the baby eggplants and maturing cucumbers aren't going to be too happy. We'll see how they look later in the week. 

Harvest Photo Backlog!

Yellow tomatoes and more figs

yellow tomato, first eggplant (!), hot peppers, basil, plum tomato

cucumbers, tomatoes, hot pepper, carrots, lots o mint

Figs, etc

Last week I picked figs from the communal trees and made some jam. A kind fellow gardener traded a cucumber for a carrot. And the plum tomato plant is heavy with fruit, mostly green at this point. 

Eating local, real local.

I had a big harvest yesterday after not visiting the garden for a week.  Everything looked fine.  The Beefmaster plant is huge and still producing tomatoes.  It would probably do well with an 8' stake at this point but it's going to have to be content with draping all over the corn.  The beans continue to flower and my succession planting seems to be a success.  The younger plants should begin flowering in the next week.  To make room I thinned out some of the older plants that looked a little dry.  We ate the beets, beans, and carrots last night along with our first installment from our fish CSA (silver hake).  It was a very local dinner!

I'm growing a dramatic sunflower called Earth Walker.  I would like a whole bouquet of these but since I've only got one, I guess it'll stay in the garden.

Anybody want a kitten?  This little ruffian is running around the garden and sitting on my plants.  I love crazy face markings on cats though, and this guy/gal has one killer nose!

These trees are in bloom in Jersey City right now.  The big billowy flowers look great but turn into a disgusting sidewalk pulp once they come down.

Instant Insalada

The harvests are definitely getting more colorful!

Harvest!

Everything is big and bushy in the garden.  I've managed to stay on top of the cabbage looper invasion and harvested lots of broccoli greens today for Mao Mao and I.  The cherry tomato plants are full of blossoms and a few fruits and my Cherokee Purple is flowering.  The shuyo cucumber has several 5" long fruits on it but they are about as thick as a pencil at this point.  The beans are just beginning to produce and look like they could be a prolific variety.  I threw a few more carrot seeds into the ground in the bare spots despite the unfavorable moon planting conditions.

The harvest today was surprisingly bountiful: garlic, kale, broccoli greens, carrots, purple onions, beans, and peas.  I enjoyed most of it for lunch.  Ahh, the sweet rewards of my gardening efforts!

A Most Colorful Harvest

Yup. I grew all that.

Orange and Red

Pumpkins

Tomatoes and Carrots