Separating the Seedlings

Memorial day has come and gone and that can only mean one thing: it's time to plant the garden. Unfortunately, our garden isn't quite ready for planting. After a week of straight rain, plus a long weekend visiting family, there hasn't been enough time quite yet to get the sod up and the dirt tilled. It is getting there though. The space in the back yard is marked off and almost half of that space is now sodless.

(Ignore the loose piece of fence there. The backyard is a work in progress.)

So far, I can say that the whole gardening from seed idea seems to be a success. I have separated most of the seedlings. I say "most" because I ran out of little pots to put them in before I even finished with the tomatoes and I started with the tomatoes. The finally tally for tomato seedlings is as follows: 4 Bloody Butcher tomatoes, 7 Abe Lincoln tomatoes, 8 Purple Cherokee tomatoes, and 7 Big Red tomatoes. That makes for 26 tomato plants if all of them survive until the garden is ready to be planted. This, of course, does not include the additional 8 purple tomatillo seedlings.

Upon seeing what we were in for, I sent my husband out to a home improvement store to try to find more little pots, which he did not find. In lieu of those, he brought home a package of blue Solo cups. He then drilled holes into the bottom of each cup and filled them with dirt for me. With these, I managed to get the eggplant seedlings, 16 total, (a mix of Shooting Stars and Black Beauty and I can't tell how many of each because I can't tell the seedlings apart) separated, as well as the 10 Romanesco broccoli seedlings and most of the 9 kohlrabi seedlings (though I may have the two mixed up, as they look very similar as seedlings). By the 19 mixed bell pepper seedlings, I was using little starter pots from last year and doubling each plant. Finally, I just ran out and left them in their original starter containers.

(The one on the right is a lone tomato seedling.)

Those plants in the smaller containers are clearly not fairing as well as the plants in the cups or the updated pots. Since returning from Michigan after Memorial day, though, all the plants grew significantly in size.

The swiss chard and blue kale seedlings, being cold weather tolerant, I planted in the front bed with the herbs from last year, spinach, raddichio, and cold weather lettuce. There are about 5 swiss chard seedlings and roughly 7 kale seedlings at present. They aren't getting quite as tall as the seedlings still under nightly porch protection but they seem to still be alive thus far. And that's something. The raddichio, however, looks like it might not sprout for the most part, due to mole interference.

Neither the lavender nor the rosemary sprouted at all. We have since purchased four nice-sized pots for the various herbs, so, unlike last year, I can bring them in when the weather turns cold. The  sage and half of the thyme seedlings went in one pot, while the rest of the thyme went in a pot with the rest of the rosemary seeds I'm really hoping at least one takes off this time. If not, I guess I'll have to go buy a starter plant from the local greenhouse. In the other two pots, I put seeds for the parsley and basil in one and seeds for oregano and lemon balm in another. Some green is starting to come up from the seeds in the herb pots but I can't tell what yet. I do know that there is no luck with the rosemary seeds yet. I gather it is not an easy herb to grow in a pot, let alone grow from seed. Time shall tell.

The lavender, as well as the other seeds, including beets, carrots, parsnips, daikon radish, zucchini, butternut squash, chamomile, red lettuce, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, okra, two varieties of burpless cucumbers, and Early White Bush Scallop squash, will have to wait for the weekend. Hopefully the back garden is ready by then and I'll finally have time to plant the lavender and chamomile in the front somewhere.

And if all those tomato plants live, I might be looking for new homes for some of them. Twenty six tomato plants seems like a few too many for one small family garden. Also this columbine is totally out of control:

A Garden of My Very Own: In the Vegetable Garden

I'm getting impatient for produce here at my garden (and a little sick of swiss chard, to be honest). Some things are doing very well. The chocolate mint plant, for example, has exploded in growth.

The front herb/pretty edibles garden is mostly florishing, with a good amount of that swiss chard and good production for the lettuce and kale. The savory and oregano are doing as well as the chocolate mint, but the rosemary and thyme aren't bushing out as much as I'd like. In the background, the parsley has gone native and just taken the place over, which I'm good with. It looks gorgeous. Still, the spinach and cilantro plants have just out-and-out died and the basil and argula are tall but shrinking, with the chamomile staying in its small upright form, though I've heard that it's supposed to be ground cover.

In the side garden, there is one sole pepper on one of the two pepper plants that's been there for a month and is still not-yet-ripe. There has been one zucchini and a bunch of half-finished cucumbers. The beets look ripe, and we'll pull them as soon as we decide on a recipe.

Out back, there have been two ripe cherry tomatoes, both very small, and one green tomato that has since been plundered by the wildlife. So it grows.

 

But it just isn't growing fast enough.

Swiss Chard Sautee

To finish up old business, despite the fact that Google Reader still seems to be working at the moment, it was supposed to die yesterday. I have already provided a button on the left to follow me using bloglovin. Note that now there is also a button to follow me using feedly, if that is your preference. Feedly seems to be winning the RSS race to become the next Google Reader, so the option is there if you want it. This is an equal opportunity RSS blog.

Now on to the fun.

And that fun revolves around Swiss Chard. Below is the lovely plant growing in my front garden. It's big and lush and beautiful, and frankly it looks delicious. It's been growing so fast in all the rain we've been having that I have been able to try out a little side dish sautee twice now.

Sauteed Swiss Chard with Parmesan

Click the link above for the original recipe. It was a fairly quick one. Just chop the stems and leaves.

Then, stir fry to stems for a while (under 10 minutes) with the sauce ingredients and then add the leaves and wilt. Add some parmesan cheese and voila.

Between the first attempt and the second, my husband learned that his grandfather enjoyed swiss chard. Boiled. Can't say that I'd recommend that or that we will ever convince my mother-in-law to try swiss chard again, not after a childhood bogged down with the taste of it after extensive boiling.

In our version of swiss chard, it has a strong, tangy flavor and a bit of a crunch, as long as you don't overcook it too much, as well as a great color. I'm not a huge fan of wine-based sauces, though, so the next time we subbed a half and half mix of cranberry pomegranate juice and balsamic vinegar for the wine. We paired the chard with baked salmon. Delightful.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm making it again tonight.

A Garden of my very Own: Food starts to grow

After a lengthy drought, the rain has started to fall in plenty here in Northeast Ohio. Boy, do my plants love the rain (so does my water bill). In fact, the little dwarf yellow transparent apple tree we just put in the ground a month or so ago is already producing fruit in its joy.

Originally, I was thinking that, in all likelihood, we wouldn't see apples for a few years, but I'm glad to be proven wrong. The swiss chard it really starting to grow too.

(This picture is a week and a half old now.

It's even bigger now, as is the kale and both lettuces. They're all just HUGE.)

And despite my fears of a complete rhubarb and asparagus patch failure, two of the three rhubarb roots I planted are starting to leaf, and two out of three ain't bad or so I've heard.

Also, most of the asparagus roots are starting to sprout too.

On the other side of the house, that one remaining tree that didn't sprout flowers in the spring with the rest of them? It's also a dogwood, a Kousa Dogwood to be precise. It will have blooms for the month of June and they will turn into edible fruit in the fall. How about that?

Apparently, it makes a lovely jam. Mostly, though it's just a very pretty tree.

As I type, I have already cooked my first recipe using ingredients from my very own garden. That blog will be forthcoming.