Spring Garden 2011 First Planting

The weather has been beautiful so I decided to go ahead start my spring garden a few weeks earlier then planned. 

Two weeks ago I planted six green bean seed and this week five of them went from

to

I’m not sure what happened to the sixth seed.  Maybe it will pop up this week.

In the meantime the heat has been great for the collards.  They look as big as they did when I “picked” them about three weeks ago.

The romaine however has bolted. 

I finally felt like I had a reason to remove it.  Last spring my lettuce plants came from a local organic nursery and the flavor was great.  This fall I tried the Bonnie plants that all the big box stores carry and it was bitter.  So out it all went.

And in went five new Bonnie plants.  A cucumber, two red peppers, one jalapeño pepper and more collards.  The collards were so good that at $1.78 for four small plants it was worth testing out how much warm weather they can take. 

The rest of the plants come in peat pots. 

Before planting, I reviewed some websites that promote square foot gardening.  I learned last year that not all of the principals are applicable to hot humid Florida summers but it’s a good place to start.  I planted one pepper per square leaving room for a few more something’s.  Maybe eggplant or maybe a few herbs.

I learned a lot about cucumbers last year.  They love to vine so the more space they have to spread out the more cucumbers they will produce.  They also need a little extra space because wet cucumber and squash leaves are very susceptible to mildew.  With all that in mind I decided that even though I have enough space for 3-4 plants I’m only going to plant two.  

Today’s plant is a full sized cucumber.  Plant #2 will come from a local organic nursery and last year they were pickle cucumbers.  The smaller ones are ready faster - which helps balance out my patience learning curve. 

Missing leeks

In February when I planted the carrots I also planted leeks.  The carrots appear to be doing well.

The leeks however didn’t do as well.  I’m not sure if the seeds were too old or if the squirrels got to them.  I’m also not sure if I didn’t accidently pull them thinking they were weeds because I have to admit I don’t exactly remember where I planted them.  I know I planted them behind the broccoli but other then that….

Another garden lesson has been learned.  Many gardening websites talk about making a garden plan so I’m going to give that a try.  With double the space in my garden this spring it will be helpful to both remember what is where but also to figure our what will fit where. 

Using the book “Carrots Love Tomatoes,” that I wrote about when I planted the leeks and carrots, as my guide I sketched out the two boxes and drew in what I plan to plant where.  It definitely helped me develop a realistic plan for my second year planting a spring vegetable garden.

Almost Spring

The weather this weekend was beautiful and temperatures are again predicted to be in the 70’s this week so I decided it was time to start the transition from my first fall/winter garden to my second spring garden. 

I trimmed the collard greens last weekend and they responded by filling back in quickly.  Hopefully my childish fear about cutting greens has been put to rest.

The broccoli looked pretty sad though.

Since the collards still look good I decided to transition only the broccoli box.

This is my first year of moving from a fall garden to a spring garden and I’m not really sure what you are “supposed to” do.  I thought would make sense to rake the soil, old roots and leaves in the box sort of creating its own compost.  I pulled the drip hose out and got out my garden rake, a short toothed rake, not to be confused with the long toothed leaf rake. 

After I raked through a lot of old roots I put the drip hose back in and added two more bags of fresh soil.  For a little less then $6 a bag I thought I was a good investment.

I smoothed out the soil fully covering the drip hose.  I’m still a little adverse to mulch and although I know I’m going to need it I’m hopeful that burying the drip hose in the dirt will buy me some time.

To finish the transition from fall to spring I planted my second attempt at green beans.  Six seeds. 

Last fall with little effort the bush green bean seeds quickly sprouted.  About three weeks later the unexpected early freeze arrived and they froze.  I didn’t properly store the seeds so I’m going to give these a few weeks to sprout and worst case I'll buy some new seeds .  If all goes well though, according to the back of the seed packet, in about 52 days there will be beans to be picked. It also recommends planting seeds every two weeks for a full season's crop.  I'm still evaluating that option.

Collard Greens

Sunday morning the collard greens in my garden that I planted last fall looked like this:

The weather is starting to get warm so I thought it was a good time to “pick” and cook them.  Again, the childish fear appeared that leaves might not grow back so I only cut the largest leaves.

I found a great recipe in a friend’s cookbook for traditional collard greens and decided that was the most appropriate way to cook my first crop of greens.   After washing them I removed the stems and rolled and cut them like basil.

I sautéed onions in the bacon fat the recipe called for (yes bacon fat) then added the greens to a pot with a ham hock (yes a ham hock, really!) 

It was then that I realized I really didn’t have enough greens in the pot so I went back out to the garden, took a deep breath, and cut most of the rest of the leaves off leaving just a few leaves on each plant.  

I’m hopeful that even though it is predicted to be in the 70’s next week that the collards will grow back.  

The recipe turned out great.  If you want to try making traditional collared greens I recommend trying Greens from Bill Neal's Southern Cooking.  I adapted this recipe slightly as I cooked.

Greens

7 cups water

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 oz pork sidemeat diced or a small ham hock

1/2 cup chopped onion

4 tablespoons bacon fat

1 teaspoon sugar

2 1/2 lbs greens

Bring water and ingredients except greens to boil. Add greens back to pot, cover tightly and bring back to boil. Uncover, stir down leaves, reduce heat to simmer. Cook about an hour.

P.S. For those of you still in shock about all the pork cooked with the greens – about two years ago I become a Flexitarian.

Flowers in the Vegetable Garden

A week of rain, a weekend of Gasparilla fun and a week of working late equaled two weeks with no time spent in my garden (other then water during the dry week.)  Add to that a February week with highs in high 70’s and I ended up with lots very pretty yellow flowers in my broccoli.

 In addition to the yellow flowers I found another exiting surprise in the garden today.  About a third of the carrot seeds that I planted a few weeks ago have sprouted.  They look like little green hairs. 

According to the seed packet you are supposed to thin them out at this stage but I think I’m going to give them another week incase the squirrels have already thinned out the other 2/3’s and decide to thin these out for me too.

Last weekend I did manage to snap a few photos of the garden’s progress.

 A week later it looked like this.

 I wasn’t sure what the consequences were of the yellow flowers on the life broccoli plants.  Did it mean they had bolted and were done for they year?  I also wasn’t sure if they were okay to eat.  I had a pretty good guess that at the least I’d have to cut the florets off. 

I did a little research on the Internet and according to numerous sites the little yellow flowers and the remaining florets aren’t poisonous and the plants might still have a little life in them.   A few sites noted that the flavor might be slightly off.   If the warm weather continues though, it will be the end of my broccoli so I decided to try what was left of the florets with dinner.

I picked off the flowers and put the broccoli in the steamer.

And it tasted like… broccoli.  The stems were tough but the florets tasted like “normal” broccoli.  

I also pruned the collard greens today and cooked them all day.  My once full garden looks a little empty but that’s a story for another day.