Alliums to Zinnias: A journey of two New Jersey gardeners
A journey of two New Jersey gardeners
It’s the end of October and we still haven’t had a frost yet. But it can’t be far off, and we need to harvest that lemongrass plant that is an arm length’s wide and almost as tall as me.
Today’s job.
Continue reading “Harvesting our giant lemongrass plant”
Independence Day seems to have become Garlic Harvest Day, at least to the Brit.
It only seemed a few weeks ago that we were cutting garlic scapes, but the garlic stalks were definitely dying back. So out came the pitchfork and into the special garlic bed it went.
We hadn’t packed it with 70 or so cloves like last year, and some of what we planted never made it. That was somewhat disappointing because we had planted cloves from two fat bulbs that we’d bought from a ramshackle garlic stand just north of Cooperstown last summer. (We’d also planted some from last year’s harvest, including some cloves that were so dried out that I didn’t expect anything). Did the mild winter play a role? Everything certainly sprouted early. The dry spring? Who knows.
In the end, we harvested 11 bulbs, including at least four that are fatter than anything we’ve ever had.That makes us happy! Some, if not all, will be saved to plant after Halloween so we can develop our own strain of fat New Jersey garlic.
And the Brit is talking of moving the be, now sandwiched between raspberry canes, to next to his caged-in bed for greens — a spot that should be sunnier come spring and summer and that hopefully will make the garlic even happier. (And in case you were wondering, garlic apparently qualifies as both a herb and a vegetable.)
The Brit has decided we need a new bed for salad greens and herbs with an easy-off top that will make the plants more easily accessible than in Fort Knox.
So off we went to Lowe’s today to buy wood for a (small!) four-by-four bed, plus the plastic pipes that will support the chicken-wire cover (including a top). The frame is done, as you can see, and the rest will be done sometime in the next week or so, around work and travel. He’s got some elaborate plan for soil mixture, courtesy of Square-Foot Gardening, though he says he is looking for a more sustainable alternative to peat moss. Feel free to weigh in. I think it’s all yet another attempt to find a way to win against the squirrels with strawberry plants.
On Saturday, we harvested some leeks that had fattened up over the winter. Yum! They were skinny seedlings, about the thickness of a blade of grass, packed in a four-pack that he found in Michigan last May. Not bad…
Finally, the garden is looking very green, and I feel like we have filled in the flower beds even more than last year. A few bearded iris have bloomed, and I think the big pop is just a few days away. I’ve spotted a few tiny, bright yellow petticoat-like daffodils, but otherwise they are gone. The creeping phlox also is starting to fade. The big color right now is from the columbines:
The garden is kicking into another gear (even if we only finally got a bit of rain yesterday and today).
In the last 24 hours, we have picked:
– three pattypan squashes;
– three cucumbers (gave one to the three-year-old next door, whose own first cucumber will be ready within a few days, and traded the first white one for some of another neighbor’s first tomatoes);
– four Yukon Gold potatoes (and am sure there are more under the ground);
– two oversized white radishes that had been forgotten about;
– large Swiss Chard;
– seven gorgeous cloves of garlic that were in the raised beds, plus three puny ones that were next to raspberries (poor soil?);
– a few zucchini flowers to try to stuff (and to reduce the future glut)
– parsley and basil;
– pretty much the last peas.
Tomorrow we may pick purple beans for dinner. And another squash.
A neighbor came by to pick up some seed-grown tomato plants I’d promised him, got his first look at our five raised beds and promptly pronounced us farmers.
This weekend certainly was a weekend for planting. The smaller of the two tomato raised beds is full — three pairs of seed-grown plants, a Ramapo we got for free at Rutgers Day and a volunteer pair that I figured were big enough to leave alone. Wish I could say what varieties the three pairs are, but I’ve managed to lose the labels. Sun golds? Bloody butcher? I have no idea, only that they are three different types. I’ve got others that need a couple more weeks, I think, and then they will go into the bed for 10, sharing space for a while with garlic. The first tomato bed may share space with radishes for a while. Why not?
All the leeks are now in. We were thrilled to spot seedlings at a local produce shop and bought three four-packs, with at least four seedlings per square, or so it seemed. I haven’t counted but I would guess five dozen. Oh yeah, there are a few still in the basement that we’ve grown from seed. No idea where we will put them. Maybe we’ll wait til the peas have been harvested and have some fresh squares to fill. A nice problem to have!
Peppers are in too. Thanks to another neighbor who bought three four-packs and only wanted two of each, we have sweet, bell and hot peppers. We returned the favor by sharing our cherry hot four-pack. The ninth pepper is Trinidadian perfume, bought at Rutgers Day and is not supposed to be hot.
Next to them are three rosa eggplants, also from Rutgers Day, and a mix of regular green zucchini and the scalloped pattycake variety. I figured I had to plant more than one seed per area just in case, so you know they will all germinate and we will have a glut.
The 12-foot bed, also known as our Fort Knox, is filling up with peas and burgundy beans that we hope the groundhog won’t get to this year, plus some salad greens, three types of cucumbers (glut!), beets, brussel sprouts, collards (though they looked just like the broccoli plants so who really knows?), coriander and lime basil. Other varieties of basil will go in by the end of the week. We probably get some parsley plants too.
Our fifth bed is leek and potato soup — four different potato varieties, plus leeks. Three of the potato types were planted a while ago and the plants look simply huge to us novice farmers.
Here’s a look at the potato plants, about nine days apart:
I’ve decided to grow lemongrass.
I know New Jersey and zone 6b isn’t exactly the tropics and January isn’t the height of a hot, sticky summer either. But I needed some lemongrass for a recipe and thought why not?
I’d read that you buy the freshest-looking lemon grass at the store and hope it still had a root or so. Mine came wrapped in plastic and looked like it had been scraped clean. But I put it in a glass of water and pretty much forgot about it, even though it was right there by the sink and barely changed the water.
Some of the outer leaves dried, and I peeled those off. The very center looked dry, too, so I was wondering if this would work. Lo and behold, a root developed. Then it fell off — drowned? I left the stalk in the jar, figuring I had nothing better to do with it. And I forgot about it for even longer (I don’t know how long). And when I looked again, there were roots!
I wasn’t sure exactly where to plant it, and so I stalled some more. Finally I looked at it again this weekend and the roots had gotten longer. I had an empty container with the the dead remains of a few petunias that never did much that either needed to go into the basement or be used. So I stuck the stalk in it. The pot also happens to be next to our wood-burning fireplace insert, so I am hoping the temperature is cozy enough for this stalk to survive until June, when it can go outside and hopefully really thrive.
I’ll report back on its health every once in a while.
Here’s a Web site that might provide you with more encouragement.
Or just call me crazy.
Alliums to Zinnias: A journey of two New Jersey gardeners 