Harvest Monday June 3, 2013

The snow peas are on its last leg but I am still harvesting handful of peas every other day. These peas are just absolutely delicious, especially when cooked lightly - it brings out the sweetness. I know I am a little ahead of myself but I am cruising the Baker Creek seeds catalog and eying the purple snow pea seeds.

The bok choy is starting to flower (I have three plants). I harvested 2 out of the three and plan to eat the last one sometime this week. I probably should have harvested it a little bit earlier - it was a little bit fibrous, but we enjoyed them anyway.

The endive is really going strong...they are really bitter but provide a nice little kick to a salad. I think I prefer the arugula over the endive. I also have a couple of spinach plants but I don't think it likes the increasingly hot weather. Since I only have a few plants, I've been harvesting a leaf here and there. I will have to plant more this fall maybe.

I'm linking to Daphne's Harvest Monday!

Hairy spinach

I can't really tell if my spinach is doing well or not.  Only 3 of the spinach seedling survived and I probably destroyed the roots during transplant for one of them because the growth is stunted. The spinach is growing in a container with a volunteer lettuce (I think from musclin green mix) and kale.

Three kale plants up top, lettuce in the middle and 3 spinach down on the bottom.

Another thing...the spinach is hairy! It looks so weird, almost like tentacles.

Hairy spinach

It rained today in charm city, and there are little rain drops on the kale making them sparkle in the sun.  It is quite beautiful!

seedling update, month 1

I feel that my seedlings are growing slow. I found a heating mat that was pretty cheap (I'm also still looking into getting the snake lights) so I've been using that for the last 3 days. But I'm enjoying watching the seedlings grow.

Spinach, lettuce, kale @ 1 month

Swiss chard (no true leaves yet), pak choi @ 1 month

Romaine lettuce red and green @ 1 month

Beets @ 1 month - sown and grown outside

Kale @ 1 month - sown and grown inside

Arugula @ 3 weeks, sown inside and also left outside on the balcony

Cute purple flowers on rosemary 

This weekend, there is a sale at home depot for gardening stuff and starter plants. I'm gonna have to go and check it out! I'll see what I get and start a second set of seeds this weekend too!

Squirrels and insects, oh my!

I suppose gardening will always be full of surprises. I sowed kale, spinach and beets directly into containers outside. These have taken some time to sprout and just when they started to pop its head out of the soil, some creature attacked my containers! At first I thought it was birds (we have a whole bunch of birds that hang out on the balcony and poop all over my car) but now I think it is was squirrel(s).  I'm not sure what they were looking for but they pretty much ransacked all the containers.

Holes in the soil - probably squirrels?

Not all the seedlings were destroyed, but they did tear up a good number of them.  I figure out a way to keep the squirrels out using a grid I had from shelving unit I used to use in school.

Anti-squirrel!

This solved the squirrel problem, but then something started attacking the spinach seedlings. I have a good number of healthy looking seedlings that hadn't quite yet formed its true leaves. All of a sudden they just started to wilt and when I tugged it, it just fell out. Something ate through the stem, killing the poor baby spinach seedling. You can see the wilted seedlings next to the healthy looking ones in this picture. I did a little google search, and it seems it could be slugs, june bugs, cutworm...or anything else.

Look closely, these are 2 wilted seedlings near the front.
Couple days after this picture,some the healthy ones also got attacked.

To save as many as possible, I transferred the seedlings inside using a plastic lettuce container. I could only rescue 4 seedlings, such a bummer!! So far, they have not attacked the kale or beets. Fingers crossed.

Spinach seedling (the long leaved ones) transferred inside.
Other seedlings include volunteer lettuce (I think), and kale seedlings

Picture updates of the other seedlings growing at charm city garden presented below.

Swiss chard, pok choi, lettuce seedlings transferred to plastic container

Beets seedlings - I think I have sowed this too late...

Arugula seedlings (outside)

Snap peas