Although I have no harvest for today, I wanted to share a little garden news with you. This is a short video giving you a look at my Swiss chard after I pruned off the brown leaves and cultivated around them.
No harvest with the current weather conditions! The ground is frozen one inch down. See how it cracks next to my heel print at the bottom of the picture?
The Brussels sprouts, collards and broccoli are dormant. They're waiting for an increase in temperature before they begin to grow again.
The Brussels sprouts and broccoli in the other "field" aren't doing any better. Some of the leaves are getting burned by the constant low temps in the 20's and 30's. We haven't had a winter this consistently cold for decades!
This is one of my 1/2 barrels with salsify growing in it under a sheet of tempered glass.
This is the other one. Salsify is reputed to taste like oysters when you sautee it in butter. My wife became allergic to seafood, so I'm trying to grow this for her. She loved oysters!
Here is some fennel that had been covered by snow. I brought it into my summer kitchen upstairs in order to revive it. I have several plants up there healing from the cold.
Here is another container of fennel that is doing pretty good up there. They've only been inside for two days. I think they'll start growing vigorously in about a week.
This is some dill that was really bad off. I think it will make it, but it will take several weeks in the warmth.
I also brought up my green onions and chives. No need to lose them if I have warm space for them to grow.
This is my container of sorrell. It sits right in the sunshine in the afternoon after 1:00 p.m. It looks good! Now if it will just get some size to those leaves, I'll be all set.
This is a short video of my 20 month old grandaughter helping me plant Ruby Red Swiss Chard.
She did a wonderful job! This spring I'm going to have all my grandchildren helping me plant the garden. They love it so much, and they'll remember it for the rest of their lives. They'll always be vegetable gardeners!
This is the Ruby Red Swiss chard that my grandaughter and I planted several days ago. Pretty, huh?
This is my mini-greenhouse that Celie and her mom and dad gave me for Christmas! It came with the containers, soil, seeds, and it locks open or closed. It even has a built-in rod to hold up the roof for ventilation. Very neat!
Thanks for visiting my blog.
Have a great vegetable gardening day!
Veggie PAK
Children who plant when young with parents or grandparents do indeed become gardeners..
ReplyDeleteI am living proof.... :)
Your mini-greenhouse is great!! What a nice gift!
ReplyDeleteMy grandson has been helping me in the garden since he could walk. It's amazing how much he enjoys it. He just loves to eat fresh vegetables. At the age of two, he knew more about gardening then most adults. He pulls weeds, puts stuff in the compost bins, puts the crushed egg shells in the holes when we are planting the tomatoes, makes his rounds and checks every plant every day and eats a lot of tomatoes!! He keeps telling me that we are going to plant more when it is nice out. I think that I am going to teach him how to germinate seeds inside in a couple of weeks. He will be three in few weeks.
Enchanted Moments, I too, am living proof! I'm very thankful for my exposure to vegetable gardening. I know you are for your's as well.
ReplyDeleteRobin, I started my grandson working in the garden for fun when he was three. He remembers so much! Like you said, they already know more about gardening than some adults! It is SO fun!
Thanks to both of you for visiting and sharing your comments.
Have a great vegetable gardening day!
Veggie PAK
I've hard a lot of bloggers say it is the coldest winter. We haven't had that yet. We are in zone 6 and the lowest it has gotten to is 10F. We have a long way to go before it really gets cold. I'm wondering if the really cold snaps will miss us all together this year. I guess we have a lot of winter to go though.
ReplyDeleteDaphne, good to hear from you! I hope you're warm and toasty and comfortable and getting better by the minute!
ReplyDeleteYou're in Zone 6 and I'm in 8a, and I'm having the bad weather! It's sleeting as I write this! Old Man Winter must not have read the rule book! We had been enjoying mild winter temps on an average, in the low to mid 40's for the majority of our winters for the last few years. Most of the time it was in the 50's if memory serves me correctly. That's why I was able to help my garden produce so well. We would get just about a week in the mid 30's, then it would warm up to a point where the greens, like collards and broccoli would begin growing at a fair pace. For the last few years, I would pick the collards every 3 to 4 weeks. Not now! The plants are trying to go back to being a seed in the ground to get out of the cold! Ha! Ha!
I'm concerned about February, which is by far the coldest and windiest month for us. We're liable to go down to single digit actual temperatures! Even my compost is frozen on top. But, I turn it anyway. I'm sure it does some good for it.
Thanks for visiting and sharing your comment!
Veggie PAK
My kids work in the garden with me too! The older ones are 4 and my boy loves it the most. The girl mostly just likes to pick and eat! My baby boy, not so much baby anymore just turned one. It is only a matter of time until he gets out into the garden with me as well! Last night at Lowes he found a kid rake and was walking around with it ready to find some raking to do! He was not very happy when we put it back!
ReplyDeleteShawn Ann, Isn't it great to see them interested in it? You are setting such a good example for them! Teach them well! We got the rake and hoe last year from Lowe's. Wooden handle with orange painted metal working end. That's so much better than a video game!
ReplyDeleteWhen it's warmer, I like to till the garden thoroughly, then let the kids walk in it barefooted. They love the dirt on their little toes!
Thanks for visiting!
Veggie PAK
Some of my happiest times spent with my daughter have been in the vegetable garden. She would gobble up the sugar snap peas and leave hardly any for us to actually take in the house for a meal. What a pleasant problem to have though! LOL!
ReplyDeleteYour garden is looking great for mid winter and I love the mini greenhouse. How cool is that?!
kitsapFG, What a fun time that must have been! You're right! That is a pleasant problem. What great memories!
ReplyDeleteIf the weather would warm up just 10 or 15 degrees back to normal for recent history, the plants would start growing again. Maybe I'll get lucky.
Thank you for visiting my blog and sharing your wonderful memories!
Veggie PAK
I love seeing what others are up to in the garden! Thanks for sharing!!
ReplyDeleteHolly, Thanks for visiting! I like how we all can learn from each other in such a friendly way.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Holly. I love seeing what everyone's growing. I was going to put dill in my raised bed but now I'm thinking of potting it after seeing yours. This will give me room for more veggies! I might just pot up all my herbs now!
ReplyDeleteI remember gardening with my kids when they were little and we all had a great time. What awesome experiences you are creating with your granddaughter! Only my youngest son ever kept the interest in gardening and he's 16 now. Yesterday high fived me when he saw the latest gardening plan. =) He can't wait for us to get outside and start. I can't think of a better way to spread the love of gardening!
I enjoyed seeing both Swiss chard videos.:) It is always nice to see how cold hardy plants perform in other peoples gardens, hope your temperatures warm up a bit and those brassicas pop back. Salsify is great but don't eat too much at once as it can cause some digestive upset...that said, we love it. If you like this plant you might try growing scorzonera one of these days, aka black salsify. Also, the young leaves and shoots are edible and really taste good in a stir fry. We have actually started hilling dirt around the stems as we are so fond of the blanched shoots. I look forward to hearing more about your salsify and what you think of it. Sorry to be such a chatter box but you are the only one that I know that also grows this.:)
ReplyDeleteKim, I agree with both of you. I think it's inspirational to see what others have, and to realize that you could have it too. We just have to plant it and watch it grow... hopefully! The thought of potting my herbs came to me last year when I planted dill in with some vegetables, and when the vegetables were finished, the dill was still there. That presented a planting schedule issue, so I came up with the solution! The herbs seem perfectly happy in the containers, as you can see. I also like the mobility for weather conditions. It stretches their harvest period.
ReplyDeleteI am so happy for you and your son's joint interest in gardening! It's fun now, but years down the road will be absolutely wonderful memories to "harvest". Your son is so far ahead of the crowd with his ever increasing knowledge about gardening. Most kids his age have no idea of what it takes to grow food. You have planted the seed of vegetable gardening in his head. My congrats on a job well done!
Thanks for visiting and sharing your comments with me!
Veggie PAK
Mr. H, The last couple of days here it has warmed up several degrees, and it rained all night last night. I am hoping that will boost the brassicas growth again.
The salsify appears to be a very slow grower. I read that it was a cool weather vegetable, and I know things are slower in cool weather. However, I planted this on 29 October, and it was up by 10 November, and that was it. It's only about 4 inches high after all that time. I'm hoping that when the weather warms up in spring that it will grow vigorously since the roots should be well established. The first salsify I planted in the garden didn't germinate. That's why I went to 1/2 barrel containers.
Nothing to be sorry about. This is why I blog! To discuss and enjoy vegetable gardening and to learn from others based on their experience. I haven't even heard about the "black salsify" before this. I hope I get to the harvest stage with my current plants.
One thing I've learned the hard way, is that what it says about growth habits on the seed package is NOT what happens most of the time.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your comments and info.
Have a great vegetable gardening day!
Veggie PAK
oh my gosh - I love the little fingers!! I just want to bite them. I love how she sprinkles the seeds. adorable.
ReplyDeleteWendy, Aren't her little fingers just so cute? I love how she sprinkles the seed and than brushes the soil with her fingers spread out. She's a darlin'!
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting!
Veggie PAK