Friday, February 12, 2010

Mid-February Vegetable Garden Tour

Let's take a tour of the vegetable garden. The days are noticeably longer and there has been plenty of rain so the vegetables are growing like it's, well, Spring!



The Garlic bed.



Golden Chard, there's some variation in stem color.
Look closely and you can see hail damage.



I still haven't harvested all the giant scallions.



Olive Leaf Rapini.



The beet section.
Golden Corn Salad is growing in the back.



Favas, two separate plantings sowed about 50 days apart.
The early planting is in full bloom, but no pods yet.



Diamante celery root, ready to harvest.
I sowed the seeds for this one last April.


Dolvi Celery Root, sown last July.
Lots of top growth, no big root yet.
Perhaps it will just go to seed and not form a large root.


Hollow Pipe of Malines Cutting Celery,
also called leaf celery or soup celery.



Potatoes!



Funky looking small head of Romanesco broccoli.
It will probably taste fine pureed into soup.



This Romanesco is prettier, but still small.
It's getting a bit too loose and "ricey",
I need to harvest it now.


The Portuguese Dairyman's Kale is starting to bloom.
I've got barely enough plants for seed saving.



Kefe Beinwil snow peas, making a comeback.



Opal Creek Golden snap peas,
not making a comeback.
Good thing Dan bought his own seeds!

12 comments:

  1. It all looks great. I can't believe how tall your garlic is. We've had such cold nights lately that only the cabbages and broad beans (favas) look good at the moment.

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  2. No fair, Michelle ! How can I (we) compete ? February in your parts is like June around here. The garden looks absolutely fabulous !

    Your Diamante celery root looks great. Nice and full, as well it should be after almost a year in the ground ?

    Lovely, lovely, lovely ! Painfully lovely ! :P

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  3. Michelle,
    Everything looks so good. The Swiss Chard I'm envious as it is my favorite. We have not planted anything yet, the ground is frozen stiill.

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  4. chaiselongue, I'm rather surprised by the size of the garlic also. Our nights have been comparatively mild since the start of the year, perhaps it's because of the El Nino phenomenon.

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    miss m, I'm sorry to be teasing you so much with my mild weather :<

    Yes, nearly a year for that celery root! I thought it would never happen. It took forever for it to germinate, then it took forever for the little plants to grow (most of which died), and now it's finally big enough to harvest. I almost hate to eat it. And now I'm going to be starting some more very soon, I love celery root, eating it that is....

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    Randy, Oh my, frozen ground still. I'm not sure how I would cope with that. So spoiled, I am, I am!

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  5. What a lovely tour! The spuds are looking great, can't wait for fresh spuds. The romanesco I grew last season did not grow very big either and turned kind of mealy. The taste was nice enough though. and the poor opals... :-)

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  6. While I am envious of your growing season, I sure enjoy seeing such abundant new growth... it's just a teaser of things to come in my own garden. :D

    The swiss chard and garlic really look good.

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  7. I just love how beautiful all the varieties you grow are, even that funky broccoli. All so unique and I know you grow them for good taste, too. A year for a celery root! I wouldn't have the patience. Impressive!

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  8. Your garlic has really taken off! I was thinking of trying some Romanesco broccoli this year, do you like the flavor and way it grows compared to regular broccoli? I'm also very curious as to what those lovely little white flowers in the background of your first picture are?

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  9. Dan, I'm fretting about those potatoes, a gopher found it's way into that bed. The poor opals didn't take kindly to a trim after they got tossed around by a few storms, but that means I get to try something new :> I know why my Romanesco didn't get big, I planted it too late. It took me three attempts to get seedlings to transplantable size, lots of wasted time.

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    kitsapFG, A preview of coming attractions! I hope the chard doesn't bolt, overwintered biennials have a tendency to do that in the spring. That's why I'm concerned about that celery root also.

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    Karen, I had the patience for that celery root because there were only 2 plants that took up very little garden space, I'm not sure that a big patch of it would have survived my impatience.

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    Mr H., The garlic is amazing, but now I'm on the lookout for rust which ruined my garlic crop last year. Romanesco is more like cauliflower than broccoli. It has the same texture as cauliflower, but I think it has a less cabbagy flavor. Like cauliflower, it only produces one main head and no side shoots. It's a large plant, at least my overwintered plants are if I plant them early enough. I'm going to try a smaller variety this spring to see how it does.

    The flowers in the background are sweet alyssum that I've let run rampant along the edge of the garden. The beneficial insects love it.

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  10. A lovely tour of your garden Michelle, everything's doing so well. The cauli looks great, most of mine end up with opening up heads! It's difficult to imagine much growing here at the moment, even the compost in a bag in the shed was frozen today.

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  11. Jan, Are your winters always that cold? Frozen bags of compost would be enough to make a year round gardener like me cry. I don't suppose you could do the row tunnels like Thomas of A Growing Tradition, your fierce winds would be a problem.

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  12. It all looks lovely, Michelle. Doesn't it feel good to have sun again?

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