Today was the type of pre-Spring day that beckons you to the outdoors and tempts you to start planting. We tried to hold out on much planting, knowing that weather is unpredictable but the favorable 10-day weather forecast on weather.com caused us to give in.
Mustard Box
We uncovered all of the covered boxes so they could bask in the sunshine today and gave everything a good, long drink. We cleared out the mustard plants that obviously weren’t going to make it. Three of the Southern Giant Curled Mustard had put out new growth with the better weather we’ve had lately so they received a reprieve from being ripped out. In the box, we planted Chinese Mustard Greens from http://nycgardening.blogspot.com/, two types of kale from http://cordarogarden.blogspot.com/, and more Southern Giant Curled Mustard.
Spinach Box
Three spinach plants survived the over-wintering so we planted a few more Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach to hopefully have a few more plants. We also planted French Heirloom Breakfast radishes from http://nycgardening.blogspot.com/ in this box.
Carrot Box
One of our boxes had become overrun with a creeping weed so we pulled out the weeds, trying not to damage the carrots that had been overrun. Since relatively few carrots were able to out-compete the weed, we planted Shin Kuroda Carrot seeds from http://sweetpeahill.blogspot.com/ here and some butter crunch lettuce seeds.
Mache Box
Lettuce Box
Our over-wintered leaf lettuces and mache are doing pretty well. We cleared away the leaves from around the plants to help everything breathe a bit more. Hopefully the leaves weren’t an integral part of the lettuce’s survival!
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage
Broccoli
Cauliflower
More Cauliflower
Various over-wintered brassica seem to have made it. We’ll see if they actually produce anything. Of these plants, the broccoli seem the least likely to produce something, but time will tell. Over-wintered brassicas include brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and one cabbage that survived the voles. We also started more cabbages indoors this week.
The over-wintered kales are doing well enough that we could have harvested some this week, but we put together the week’s menu on Friday (for Saturday shopping) and didn’t realize they were chuggin’ away under the row cover as well as they are. We know we have harvestable carrots as well, but they’re not part of this week’s menu either. We’ve been eating a lot of our canned foods from last year’s harvests (tomato sauce, green beans, haricots vert), another butternut squash this week, and the frozen pesto has made an appearance in several lunches lately.
Waiting for Spring with excited anticipation!
Tags: Garden, Gardening, Kitchen Garden, North Carolina, Seedlings, Southern, Spring, Victory Garden
February 14, 2011 at 10:20 am |
The garden is waking up! Your overwintered items look good – especially the lettuces. Removing the mulch is a good idea now (since the weather is modering) because the mulch would have kept the soil cool/cold but by removing it the solar action will warm up the soil which is the primary driver of new growth.
February 14, 2011 at 11:31 am |
I hope my garden survives the winter. We are getting a warm up at the end of the week. Maybe some of the snow will melt and I’ll get to peek.
February 14, 2011 at 4:35 pm |
Everyone is getting their hands dirty this week. I love it! I can’t wait to get out this weekend and do MORE!
February 15, 2011 at 4:12 pm |
Oh, isn’t it nice to go out and start doing a little gardening?? I hope that the kale does well for you.