Grow Eat Northwest

Harvest Monday 7/25/2011

2011-07-25T10:57:00.001-07:00

Last of the strawberries were picked this week. We managed to get about 120 or so from the last pick, there were so many still left on the vines but got slug damage. I did not pick berries with evident slug bites. I am happy with this year’s strawberry pick, plan to deter slugs from berries was successful. So with few still on vine (left for slugs to enjoy) strawberry for 2011 is done, managed to get about 230 fruits ( about 5 lbs.)
I am happy to see harvests of some real greens since last 2 weeks, picked 3 bunches of Methi from spring sowing. I used greens to make lovely Methi Malai Muttor with basmati Rice. Yum. I can’t wait till next Methi is ready to use. I also picked chard and spinach. I was surprised to see chard growing in spring, from seeds sown last year. Since it was growing in place where I intended to plant Peas, I transplanted it to container. Big mistake, Chard did not like being transplanted and it refused to show vigor. For next year, I’ll be wintersowing chard as it comes up in Spring by its own.
I am too impatient and I dug up 2 potato plants, one was sown and other was volunteer on last year’s spot. There were 6 small tubers, not bad.
Raspberries continue to ripen, picked about 300 last week. We snacked on few and froze few. Now I have 2 bags (gallon size, filled about half) full of berries in freezer, Strawberries and Raspberries.

Linking to Daphne’s dandelions, where gardeners worldwide showcase their harvests. Gardeners from East are showing off their tomatoes while we in Northwest worry if we can even get a ripe tomato this year.

Harvest Monday 7/18/2011

2011-07-22T15:12:00.001-07:00

This week’s harvest has little green mixed in with red. I am glad to get some greens to make use in daily dinners. We picked many raspberries, 505 to be exact and yes, I counted. That’s almost 6 lbs there. Few days back, picked strawberries and more raspberries. Since we are not munching on those so much lately, I washed and froze the berries.
Snap peas wee promptly eaten raw by kids. Fenugreek was used to make methi-daal. Also harvested was 1 single potato from the volunteer plant.

Raspberries – #600 (7 lbs)
Strawberries – #65
Peas (Tacoma alifa) – #22
Fenugreek (methi) – 2 bunches
Potato – #1

First Tomato

2011-07-21T11:27:00.001-07:00

Sign of summer hope, first tomato has appeared for 2011. This is chocolate cherry type. Note soggy blossoms and raindrops. It’s still cold and raining.

Loaded Raspberries

2011-07-15T14:35:00.001-07:00

Cold Garden

2011-07-15T13:56:00.001-07:00

I am cold, my kids are cold, tomatoes are cold, even compost pile is getting cold.. in July. I am out wearing a polar fleece today. Summer is absent and Cliff Mass says it’s going to be absent for another couple weeks. There’s persistent cloud cover that won’t budge, light is so dim we have to put indoor light on at 4pm. Only good news is I haven’t watered lawn at all this year, not even single time. Now who wants to trade spots with this part of the country? I don’t think peppers are going to survive this year, CVG doesn’t think either.
Here’s walkthrough of garden – it’s cold and soggy.

Lettuce: (Black Seeded Simpson) in container. Seeds are from local ACE hardware shop. Sown on 14 June.

Bush Beans: (contender and blue lake bush). Seeds are from trusted Ed Hume, sown on 12 June and 26 June. Last year’s beans were bountiful, I am growing them on same spot this year.

Peppers: (Nu Mex Joe Parker, Italia Sweet and Thai Orange) all of the pepper plants are bought from local Home Depot. Joe parker is getting big, ready to be harvested next week. Thai peppers are suffering from cold, yet to flower. Italia variety have 2-3 tiny peppers. Nothing looks promising in this cold. Heat loving plants like pepper and eggplant are definitely not loving this weather.

Summer Squash aka Zucchini: (Black and Yellow) I sown 2 types, I don’t know which seedling is which, I lost track of what I sown. I guess I’ll find out in a month. Last year I was looking at zuk blossoms by this time, not sure what’s in store this year. Seeds come from Ferry Morse and Ed Hume. Sown on 13th June.

Tomatoes: (Black Plum, Chocolate Cherry, Yellow Pear and Roma). Look at my tomatoes, they look pitiful. Can you even spot 5 tomato plants here? Errr…. tomatoes are hating hating hating this weather, they are hardly growing, blossoms are falling off in cool, not setting any tomatoes. I have least expectations from Black plum but cherry types should set tiny fruits (usually I have seen cherry types setting fruit even in cooler weather.

Mix of all – Clockwise from top – Snap Peas (Super Sugar Ann) , Chavali Beans (Asparagus Beans), Cabbage (pinetree early cabbage), Beans (Yellow was). This bed is mix of all – mix in weeds too. Plan is to harvest peas first, beans will get good space to grow, cabbage will be transplanted to peas space then.

Methi, fenugreek in back and Beets in front. Fenugreek seeds are from local Indian store. Beets are early wonder. Methi will be ready as early as next week.

Cucumber (Mucher): Cucumbers are growing very SLOW. It’s been 2 months and these aren’t even second leaf stage. Heat is absent and cukes are not liking it. I won’t even bother putting in trellis for another couple weeks.

Harvest Monday 7/11/2011

2011-07-11T13:41:00.001-07:00

Last week’s harvest is mostly fruits and berries. Last few days of heat – 2 days above 80 and 4 days above 70 (Yeah, that’s what we call summer in Seattle) helped berries and fruits ripe. For 2 years I have lost cherries to crows, strawberries to slugs and raspberries to chickadee. This year I have been planning around saving a few for myself : ) I sprinkled generous amount of Sluggo every week for last 3-4 weeks near strawberry beds and slugs hiding spots. I noticeably saw slug population go down, I even found many dead slugs under rock slab, containers.

Harvested 132 Raspberries, 73 Strawberries and 265 cherries. That’s 3 lbs of cherries and strawberries each. Along with that there were 18-20 shell peas which kids munched on before photo opportunity.

Linking this post to Daphne’s Dandelions.

Harvest Monday 7/4/2011

2011-07-05T10:54:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately, nothing to post. I am still in waiting mode and hoping garden to produce more in coming weeks.

Harvest Monday 6/27/2011

2011-06-27T13:19:00.001-07:00

Garden is producing very little right now. Got few chives, enough to make 1 small meal - Chives Onion Bhaji: Onion + Chives + Besan.

Duh moment…

2011-06-24T09:35:00.001-07:00

“There are very few things to harvest this year, it seems so strange” I told my husband.
He responded with YES.
“I haven’t seen you much in backyard all spring long” He said

So it dawned on me, To get Summer harvest, I have to kick butt in Spring get soil prepping, sowing in Spring. Hmm. What was I doing all spring long? Well, life happened and things were just too busy.
Not anymore.

All hope is not lost. Now I get it. To get Fall harvest, I have to start planting fall garden NOW.

Fruits of the future

2011-06-23T15:12:00.001-07:00

Trees and vines are showing hope, I can’t wait to test the sweet juicy plump fruits and berries.

June showers are promising bumper plump strawberries. Only if I can get to ripe ones faster than slugs. Eeeek. Like last year, I have a perfect plan to save strawberries. Let’s see how this battle plays out…

Blueberries – I got 2 plants, these berries need 2 plants to help with pollination. One plant has few berries, other is not filled yet.

Northwest Bing cherries – Black crows are as impatient as me. I am getting ready with arsenal to fight it out. Here comes CDs, flash tapes, my grandma’s old saree.

Raspberries: I can’t believe how much raspberries have spread. Can you believe these were just 3 small canes couple years back? Raspberries are against back fence on rock wall.

Seedling hopes

2011-06-23T11:40:00.001-07:00

Summer has started officially on June 21st 1:46PM, it hardly feels like it. In pacific Northwest, summer usually arrives after July 4th, it’s a magic date – Cold and rain sort of disappears for few weeks. It’s so sad that we have to count summer in weeks rather than months. Summer in Seattle – it never gets too hot, reaches 90 for couple days then back to 60s, Summer in Seattle is just like extended Spring – we just call it Summer.

Oh well, this year I fell back on planning and planting, starting seedlings. It just sorta got pushed on to backburner. My garden is in sad state right now, lack of sunlight is not helping anything either.

Cucumber, Early Jalapeno and Basil seedlings

Shoebox containers with Shell Peas (Afila type bush peas), Broccoli Raab

Box 2 has methi, beets and onion seedlings. Only Methi has emerged so far. Lone butternut squash seedling shares space with other greens.

Summer in Seattle

2011-06-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

Summer in Seattle has not arrived yet. Well, we got few sunny days but last 2 days were so dull and damp. Fremont solstice parade saw many umbrellas and raincoats, lack of sundresses and shorts. Hoping for good weather ahead, at-least 6-8 weeks of warm growing season. Let's keep hoping.

This Picture if taken from Kerry Point in Seattle. Looking at Space needle, downtown buildings and majestic Mount Rainier at distance.

How to Series: Spring seed sowing part 1 – Lettuce, Spinach and Radishes

2011-02-10T08:23:00.000-08:00

Now that I got vegetable planting calendar ready for year 2011, here are basic things I am going to follow for spring vegetable garden. Weather is amazing nice in NW, sun is out, days are getting longer and warmer. This is great time to seed, but weather can turn unpredictable and we can end up with snow in April or May. I have decided to sow all my spring vegetables in container or under cover.

Lettuce Seedlings emerging – April 2010

Lettuce from last year’s garden (LEFTmost row)

- Lettuce : (40-50 Days in Spring)
Sow seeds in Late February (harvest micro greens/baby leaves in late March).
Sow again in mid-March for second spring crop (harvest by mid –late April)

Sow seeds in late February, preferable in container, so if weather turns freezing, container can be covered or brought inside. I have already seen lettuce seedling in my neighbors front yard, her lettuce bolted last year and seeds were scattered all over her front yard. Lettuce does not tolerate frost, it has to be protected in winter weather. Growth is limited due to limited sunlight this time of the year but micro-greens or baby leaves can be harvested as early as 3rd week of March. To maximize output, sow lettuce where maximum sunlight is obtained (southwest side of your garden).

Spinach growing in container – April 2010

- Spinach : (60-70 Days in Spring)
Sow seeds in Late February (harvest by mid-late May)
Sow seeds in mid-March for second spring crop (harvest by mid-late May)

Sow seeds in late February, in container OR direct seed in raised bed. Spinach is semi frost tolerant so be prepared to cover your raised bed in case of freezing temps/snow. Container sown Spinach can be brought inside in case of freeze. Spinach is cool weather crop so expect it to thrive in late March. February and March sown seeds are harvested around same time in mid-late May(March sown Spinach grows faster due to warm weather and better sunlight). As always, plant early crops where better sunlight is sought.

Cherry Belle Radish emerging from soggy grounds – May 2010

- Radish: (45 Days in Spring)
Sow in container late March/early April (harvest by Mid May)

Sow seeds in late March. I like to do first planting in container till frost danger is passed. And also slugs LOVE radish, since slugs are prolific in spring, I like to control slug damage by sprinkling sluggo/oatmeal/copper wire around containers. Radish are cool weather crop.

Contd…. (next to come: Green Onion, Broccoli and Peas)

Starting Vegetable Garden in 2011? Vegetable Planting Timeline

2011-02-09T07:54:00.000-08:00

Groundhog day has passed, prediction is for early spring. Weather in pacific northwest is staying amazing (please no jinx). East and Midwest is getting pounded by freezing temps and unbelievable record snow. All while, we in NW have record high temps in January (for second year in row), February has brought sun. Well, last year January was unseasonably dry and warm and June/July saw mild temp and constant rain. I can take wintry January but please please let this years June/July be nice.

All this sun and warm temperatures are making me plan for this years garden. Here are some thoughts about prepwork and seeds to sow. Late Winter/Early Spring is all about cool season vegetables – these are frost-hardy, thrive in cool weather, and do well in early spring

February:
February month is all about cleaning the garden, removing last years dead plants, removing weeds and put some soil, compost in raised beds.

March:
I usually start sowing seeds beginning of March. I know, according to “the experts” I should start 8-10 weeks before last frost i.e. by Feb 1st week. But I like to wait. Since I do not have fancy set up of racks, greenhouse and artificial light, waiting till March gives much better results for me.

Here is Planting calendar for growing vegetables in Northwest.

Type	Indoor Sow Date	Transplant	Direct Sow Date
Green Onion	1-Mar		1-Apr
Lettuce	1-Mar	1-Apr
Spinach	1-Mar
Broccoli	15-Mar	15-Apr
Cabbage	15-Mar	30-Apr
Cauliflower	15-Mar	30-Apr
Swiss Chard	15-Mar	15-Apr
Peas			20-Mar
Tomatoes	1-Apr	15-May
Radishes			1-Apr
Fenugreek (Methi)			1-Apr
Beets			5-Apr
Peppers - Sweet/Hot	15-Apr	1-Jun
Basil	15-Apr	1-Jun
Carrots			20-Apr
Green Sorrel (Chuka)			1-May
Green Beans			20-May
Cucumbers			1-Jun
Cilantro			1-Jun
Dill (Shepu)			1-Jun
Zucchini			10-Jun
Brussel Sprouts	1-Jun	1-Jul

In my next post, I’ll take up detailed planting for each of the vegetables.

Year 2010 in Summary

2011-02-08T03:57:00.000-08:00

Fall has passed and Spring is in short distance, I have been away from blogging for many cold months. Before I jumpstart on planning for year 2011, I want to look back at 2010, tally all expenses. Joy of growing vegetables is great, what’s greater is involvement of my kids, it’s amazing to watch – kids will actually EAT the usual and unusual vegetables we grow if they’re involved in seed starting, harvesting, watering.

It’s been good year so far. Joys of growing and harvesting are unmatched but If I have to put $$ to the year review, here it is. Of course manual labor hours are not considered :)
Total Spend = $130.21
Total Cost of Food Produced = $199.89

It’s boring to look at number but here’s tally of yearly harvest.

		Count	$$
Summer Veggies	Tomatoes (Agatha, Beaverlodge)	47	10.8
	Grape Tomatoes	85	8.5
	Mild Peppers (Cubanese, Jalapenos)	10	1
	Eggplant	1	0.2
	Hot Peppers	13	1.25
Roots	Beets	1	0.5
	Radish	38	5.2
	Potatoes	4 lbs	3.2
	Turnips	7	3
Fruits	Cherries	74	10
	Blueberries	79	8
	Raspberries	143	12
	Strawberries	73	15
Vegetables	Green Beans	250	17.5
	Snap Peas	143	13.04
	Squash (yellow and green)	6	2.5
	Zucchini	8	6.5
Greens	Bok Choy	3 bunches	3.5
	Chard	5 bunches	5
	Dill (Shepu)	10 bunches	10.2
	Fenugreek	35 bunches	34.5
	Lettuce	3 heads	4
	Mustard (Sarso)	1 bunch	0.8
	Rapini	1 bunch	1.5
	Salad (micro greens)	handful	0.2
	Salad (Mesculan Mix)	6 servings	3.2
	Spinach	1 serving	1
Brassica	Broccoli	1	0.3
	Cauliflower	1 mini	0.1
Alliums	Spring Onion	26	3.5
Herbs	Chives	13 oz	9.1
	Mint	26 snips	6
	Oregano	4 snips	0.8

Thank you for reading!

Week so far… Picking, harvesting a lot

2010-09-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

Summer is gone fast, there’s chill in the air – we are falling into fall/winter slowly. That translates into more harvests and picking many last of the garden goodies.

So far this week, We have been harvesting a lot - squash, cherry tomatoes (sweet 100 variety), Jalapeno, green beans, shelling peas, cucumbers, fenugreek and dill. Here are some photos….

(above) - Methi (Fenugreek)

(above) – Methi and Shepu (Fenugreek and Dill), both used as greens

(Above) in colander: Chard ‘bright lights’. in plate 1: sweet 100 tomatoes, green and wax beans. in plate 2: Agatha tomatoes, 1 black krim, peas, cucumbers and yellow squash.
(Photo captured with phone)

Ambat Chuka = Green Sorrel

2010-09-03T05:04:00.000-07:00

Ambat Chuka has a special place in Marathi Cuisine. Little I know that we can grow Ambat Chuka here, well sorrel thrives in Pac NW conditions. It grows well in spring and thrives in summer, I hope it continues to produce in coming fall. It’s got tangy, sour taste which come all together when cooked with daal – my favorite. We harvested big bunch of sorrel this weekend and made into Ambat Chuka Bhaji (no photos) – It’s almost been 10 years since I last tasted it. Happy.

Green Sorrel has many names :
English – Green Sorrel, Garden Sorrel
Marathi – Ambat Chuka
Hindi – Khatti Palak
Telugu – Chukka Kura

Ambat Chuka goes onto my list of things to grow next year!

Tomato Time…here now, gone tomorrow

2010-08-31T14:32:00.000-07:00

This is my very first year growing tomatoes, few are from seeds, few are store-bought plants and a few acquired. So far, I am able to get 10 ripe tomatoes ( 2 Beaverlodge, 8 Sweet 100), many more green ones are still on plants.
We got 3 beautiful days of summer last week but from today it’s all downhill. Big chilly air moved into Northwest and forecast says it’s going to stay. Temps climbing to upper 70s is almost a dream, that means there won’t be any more vine ripening of tomatoes for us. This has been my first year of growing tomatoes and it’s GREEN in color. (as in color of tomatoes so far.). KitsapFG talks that same and advises to keep tomatoes in greenhouse or bring indoors to ripen. Really? I have to give up so soon? All I have so far is 10 ripe tomatoes …

(Above) Agatha Tomatoes – I got seeds from wintersown.org. I started seeds in late April and transplanted out mid July (We got rains and cold all June). Very compact, determinate plant loaded with tomatoes.

(Above – 2 photos) Brandywine Tomatoes – This is heirloom type indeterminate plant. I got it as a seedling in local swap. Plant got too big quite early with lots of bloom. Unfortunately all the blooms are not translating into tomato yet. We got ONLY ONE green tomato on plant (above) so far. This is supposed to be huge 1-2 pound tomato, pink in color with burst of flavor. I can't wait ...

(Above) Black Krim – This is supposed to be black Krim, seedling got mixed up. I hope it ripens and I’ll find out soon. Semi-determinate plant I think. if you think it’s not Black Krim, please help me identify.

This tomato originally from the Isle of Krim on the Black Sea in the former Soviet Union. This tomato yields slightly flattened dark-red, slightly maroon, beefsteak tomatoes with deep green shoulders.

(Above) San Marzano Tomatoes – Started from seed, semi-determinate plants produce oval shaped fruits. These are supposed to be best for sauce and paste. This tomato originally comes from Italy.

(Above) Beaverlodge Tomato – Compact plant loaded with tomatoes. This is ultra early tomato which sets fruit and ripens in cold rainy weather. My plant has curled leaves – leafroll – due to excessive rain and improper drainage. I acquired this plant as part of local plant swap, it is first to give me ripe tomato. This tomato is bred at Canada and is earliest maturing tomato, best for cooler, foggy, rainy growing conditions (translate to Pacific NW).

(Above) Celebrity - Store bought, Indeterminate. This is a hybrid variety which is 1984 AAS winner. It is said to be mid-early variety with flavorful fruit. This plant was to set fruit very last from all store bought plants.

(Above) Lemon Boy – Store bought, Indeterminate. As Name suggests, this tomato ripens to yellow color. Appearance is of heirloom tomato but I am sure this one can be hybrid as plant did not suggest it was heirloom. I am curious to find out how it looks and tastes ripe…

(Above) Sweet 100 – Store Bought, Indeterminate. As name suggests there is over abundance of tomatoes on this 5 foot tall plant. It has given me 7 ripe sweet tomatoes so far.

I am also growing Kimberly tomatoes, these are from seeds shared by wintersown.org. It’s supposed to be early tomato on small plant. Kimberly has frilly leaves and I am so much interested to see how fruits looks like. It has not set any fruits yet, party due to my mistake of starting it late. It is said to be early type with small fruit which ripen in cold weather, even in autumn. I am patiently waiting ….

Happy Growing!!

Summer Flower Show & Happy 1st Birthday Dear Blog!

2010-08-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

Summer flowers are in full bloom, they are flowering a little later than last year. Maybe cold wet May-June is to blame.

(Above) Hydrangea – Nature own litmus paper. Hydrangea will bloom blue if soil is acidic or else red-pink if it’s alkaline. On my recent trip to eastern Washington – Walla Walla side , I saw white hydrangea – it’s bred differently and not indicative of soil PH.

(Above) Unknown – Please help me identify.
It’s growing tall up, 5-6 foot and bearing pink-purple flowers up on top.

(Above) Shasta Daisy

Summer Harvest

2010-08-23T03:47:00.000-07:00

I am back from vacation and garden was filling with goodies, was able to pick up good produce. I really didn’t picture everything that I harvested but here are few shots. Summer is busier with kids staying home, vacations, activities, hikes and much more, I am finding very little time to spend in garden. Really this is the time to relax and enjoy the hard-work we have put in garden over last few months.

Here are few pictures of harvests over last week. I was able to harvest Green and Wax Beans, 1 big Zuchini, Blueberries (last of the season), Lots of Radish, Chard, lettuce and Chives.

Vacation!!

2010-08-20T07:07:00.000-07:00

Fenugreek Love was on Vacation, still catching up with life! Few photos from trip to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Check out intense blue color of the lake, truly amazing!

Vacation!

2010-08-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

Fenugreek Love was on Vacation, still catching up with life! Few photos from trip to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Check out intense blue color of the lake, truly amazing!

Summer Garden Tour

2010-08-04T04:36:00.000-07:00

Tour of Fenugreek Love’s garden, this is how garden looks in early August.

Below is BED 1, growing from left to right – Lettuce, Turnips, last of bunching onions, French Breakfast Radish, Marigolds, baby Beets and Swiss Chard

Below is Bed 2, towards back are 4 tomato plants which are recovered from yellowing due to constant rain. I am growing tomato varieties – Celebrity, Tumbling Tom, Lemon Boy and Early Girl. All are store bought plants. Towards the front are 3 Zucchini plants.

Container garden: Ornamentals, Muncher Cucumbers, Golden Oregano, Marigolds, Cosmos, Chicks&Hens, Beaverlodge Tomato and 1 Ichiban Eggplant.

BED 3: This sits in partly sunny space. From back to Front: Blue Lake bush beans – 2 types, 1 Jalapeno, 1 sweet pepper and few bell pepper plants. Front row is Cabbage. There’s also one tomato plant hiding somewhere – Kimberly.

Bed 4 is completely dedicated to fenugreek, I do succession planting and harvest here. Right now, I have planted Dill and fenugreek in back part (still yet to germinate), front methi is ready to harvest.

Below is my pea patch. Not much action here, it is completely under-utilized (well, I think that for every other bed too). Tacoma bush peas, few pole peas and trailing cucumber vines are planted here.

Here’s My Cauliflower…

2010-07-30T03:52:00.000-07:00

Uj showed his Cauliflower, I am showing him/her mine :) Seeded back in early April, It never grew well, produced button heads. I tossed it in compost. What am I doing wrong?

Beaverlodge Tomato

2010-07-29T09:12:00.000-07:00

Summer in Northwest is very unpredictable, we never have sunny days in row. Most of the summer days include morning cloud cover and afternoon sunshine with 4-5 days of abundant heat (maybe in 90s). Not so good news for us gardeners who want to grow main crop tomatoes. Here by the time tomato plants grow, bear fruits and begin to ripen – comes September/October and plants are threatened with frost. I see many many people (friends and co-workers) growing tomatoes during summer and end up with baskets of green, unripe tomatoes by frost.

That’s the reason I am growing ‘Ultra-early’ or ‘Cold-Set’ tomatoes. Tomatoes which ripe earliest or set fruit/ripen in relative cold. For main-crop tomatoes, I have never had success with seed started plants, they just never reach maturity before frost hits. I have bought plants from Fred Meyer for main-season. My house sits on cooler side with morning sun exposure so it is extremely important for me to grow tomatoes well suited for my micro-climate.

The very first tomato to ripen this year is Beaverlodge.

“Beaverlodge tomato is bred at the Beaverlodge Research Center in Alberta Canada, these are Sub-Arctic series of tomatoes developed for short season gardening. They are considerably larger than cherry tomatoes and take about a month less than regular tomatoes. The plants are determinate, which means they form compact, bushy plants rather than sprawling ones. That growth habit makes these varieties suitable for container growing.”

Here is pictorial:

It made to the daily harvest yesterday :)

Weekly Update: July, week 4. How can another week go by so fast?

2010-07-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

Finally summer has arrived in Seattle and it is staying, we are enjoying beautiful days. Temperatures are staying in 80s, it is just so perfect – not too hot and not too cold, loving it much! Nice weather to my family means lots of outdoor time, hiking, visiting places and that’s the reason garden work is getting neglected.

It’s been long since I have sown anything, my time is just so consumed with weeding and HARVESTING produce. Here are some pictures of my harvests over last 2-3 weeks.

I have not started fall planting yet. OMG – thought just gives me shivers and I exactly know what that means – no broccoli or Brussels sprouts for me this fall. I have to be better next year. I have to make commitment to start fall sowing at least till this weekend.

We have been harvesting and eating lots of berries and fruits from Garden. We picked about 70 Bing cherries, 140+ raspberries (oh so delicious!) and 70+ strawberries. YES! I have won war against slugs, this year I was able to eat strawberries. Thank you SLUGGO! We also employed tacky methods to stop crows from taking cherries before we could, that involved – hanging old napster turbo tax CDs, wind chimes, blackberry thorns and mom’s old saree. I wish I could show you photo (I lost it with camera crash) but you get the idea… Mainly harvests for last 2 weeks were fenugreek (methi), strawberries and random other veggies. Here are more photos of what we have been eating from garden.

We were talking potatoes last week here’s another one that I pulled.

Strawberries, 2 blueberries and bok choy (some slug damage)

More Methi and strawberries

1 Salad head (Black Seeded Simpson), Turnips (Purple Top White) and few French Breakfast Radishes. Yes, Northwest can still produce radishes, we are not hot yet.

Lovely Chard and blueberries

More fenugreek and strawberries. I am making lots of methi thepalas these days :)

Potatoes

2010-07-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

Potato growing experiment is a success! I planted out just 3 potato eyes to check if potatoes can really be grown where I live, turns out – Yes, we can!! From just one potato, I planted 3 eyes, already got 3 big one and 4 tiny taters. Second plant is yet to flower so I am waiting on digging it out. I am sure that next year I am set to double it :) New potatoes had very delicate skin, came out just by rubbing potatoes with hand. They were so yummy, I microwave baked them and sprinkled with rock salt. Potatoes just melted in mouth – no butter required here.

I read that potatoes should only be planted out in Spring, but can I plant them out now? Will they grow? Has anyone tried growing them in summer, maybe this is good new experiment for me.

Geekgardener posted a comment that I am missing my potato harvest photo. Yes, between my camera issues and phone losing all it’s data – I lost lots of photos, glad this one was safe in archive.

Back after gardening break

2010-07-13T01:55:00.000-07:00

Towards end of June it starts to get really busy at work and lasts well into first few weeks of July. It is that time of the year, although I had decided to spend some time with garden every day, it did not happen. This time really coincides with start of fall gardening, fertilizing summer veggies but it goes on backburner. Well, things have now eased up and finally I can concentrate more on home front and garden too.

On from 5th July we are blessed with sunnier days and warmer temperatures, garden is loving every bit of the sunshine. I managed lot of gardening work yesterday, cleaning up garden – raking, weeding, deadheading old flower stalks. I transplanted pepper/eggplant/karela that have been indoors so far. Something has been chewing up on squash, I already lost 7 seedlings so I moved remaining Squash to other location. By now, I should be getting baby zukes but this damage is giving me a month of late start.

Last week was all about picking berries and fruit. I have a 4 year old Bing Cherry tree out in the yard, crows in my neighborhood wait impatiently to pick cherries from this tree. After loosing quite a bit semi-ripe cherries couple weeks back, I decorated the tree with old reflective CDs, wind chimes, blackberry thorns to scare crows away. Crows didn’t budge so I had to cover few branches with soft cloth (my mom’s old saree), that did the trick and I was able to pick sweet, succulent cherries. I got 3 raspberry canes from a friend last year, one broke during windstorm last year, 2 of the remaining canes came loaded this year. I got abundant berries from just these 2 canes – about 150. Canes that bore fruit this year will die down this year but raspberry sends out baby plants so I’ll have few more canes next year. I already spot 4-5 new canes but I’ll have to do some rearranging and placing for next year’s.
June bearing Strawberries are giving me fruits now – in July. Me and girls went with big basket yesterday and got big basketful. Generous sprinkling of sluggo last week really helped with slugs attack, at least I am eating strawberries this year vs last year I was picking leftovers from slugs.

Over last couple weeks, I have picked generous amount of chard, bok choy, sping onions and big bunches of turnips. First potatoes were also picked. Here are some photos:

I am already very late on fall planting, I have to fire up this week and get cranking ….

Weekly Update: week 27, more sowing and berries galore

2010-07-02T04:51:00.000-07:00

Start to the summer is surely bringing sunnier days to western Washington. Days are in high 60s and nights are staying above 50s, days are longer. This all translates into end of spring veggies, many of then are dying, bolting or yellowing. Summer vegetables are not growing big yet due to lack of real heat. Sun is out there but mostly hidden behind cloud covers. This weather is predicted to last first few days into July.
About a month back, my FIL built few vegetables beds using untreated cedar wood. two of these beds sit in shaded part of the garden, these receive mild morning sun till about 2 pm. I started out this bed with Rapini, lettuce, turnip and Spinach – all cool loving crops. Although it’s not hot yet here, spinach and rapini bolted and is pulled last weekend. This bed was poorly planted and underutilized since it’s built, now it is planned and planted for summer months – again with cool loving plants. Here’s how how it is planted:

Berries are ready, almost ready, maybe in about 1-2 weeks. Raspberries were earliest, these sit in sunniest spot. I picked very first raspberry on June 17th, they have been ripening steadily over last 2 weeks. I pick about 10 almost every 3 days from just 3 canes. I cannot wait for next year when these 3 canes have produced some more baby plants which will bear fruit next year. Strawberries are getting plump, they are still green though. last year most of strawberries were attacked by slugs – this year I have sprinkled generous sluggo around strawberries and protected them with copper barrier on one side. Let’s see how that goes :) I got 2 small blueberry plants alongside north fence, these berries will ripen soon.

Harvest continues – I picked Mustard which was ready to bolt, used it in mustard-bean curry on Sunday. Raspberries are flowing in. My biggest surprise and excitement came from real potatoes this week. Back in April when I came back from India, I saw 2 supermarket bought potatoes sprouted in pantry. Instead of tossing in trash, I cut ‘eyes’ and buried them out. Fast forward 3 months – Potato plant had flowered, 3 days back I buried my fingers down in soil and felt a good size potato. I could not wait any longer and dug out the plant – I got 3 good size potatoes and there were several tiny ones forming (I’ll wait a little longer next time). I have one more potato plant that isn't flowering yet.

Sorry, no photos for the week. Camera is acting funny and refuses to take any pictures. Happy Gardening!

Fall Gardening planning

2010-06-29T03:20:00.000-07:00

It’s end June and the summer garden season is not even really started for me, and yet I am thinking ahead to the coming fall and winter season. I want to do fall and winter gardening and I have to come to terms with the fact that we always have to be thinking about 2 to 3 months ahead of our current situation, sowing seeds and prepping now to meet future harvest expectations. Even though I tried fall vegetables last year, this is truly first full year of growing for me and I am learning as I proceed.

Typical fall and winter crops for me will include Fenugreek, Turnip, carrots, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, Swiss chard, lettuces and spinach. Here’s base plan for me.

	Sowing date	Days to mature	Desired Maturity Date
Brussels Sprouts	15-Jun	150	30-Oct
Early cabbage	25-Jun	80	30-Sep
bunching onion	1-Jul	70	30-Sep
Dill	1-Jul	90	30-Sep
Kale	1-Jul	70	30-Sep
Peas	1-Jul	60	1-Sep
Turnip	1-Jul	90	30-Sep
Beets	10-Jul	80	30-Sep
Broccoli	10-Jul	110	30-Oct
Kohlrabi	10-Jul	80	30-Sep
Swiss Chard	10-Jul	80	30-Sep
Lettuce	15-Jul	45	30-Sep
Peas	15-Jul	60	15-Sep
Beets	20-Jul	90	30-Oct
Turnip	20-Jul	100	30-Oct
Spinach	1-Aug	55	30-Sep
bokchoy	10-Aug	60	10-Oct
Broccoli Raab	10-Aug	50	30-Sep
Lettuce	15-Aug	45	30-Oct
Mesclun Mix	15-Aug	45	30-Sep
Radish	15-Aug	40	30-Sep
Fenugreek	25-Aug	35	30-Sep
Mesclun Mix	1-Sep	50	20-Oct
Radish	1-Sep	40	15-Oct
Mesclun Mix	5-Sep	50	30-Oct
Fenugreek	10-Sep	35	15-Oct
Lettuce	10-Sep	50	30-Nov
Fenugreek	1-Oct	35	5-Nov
Fenugreek	10-Oct	30	15-Nov

Garlic (overwinter)	overwinter		10-Oct
onion (overwinter)	overwinter		1-Sep
Spinach (overwinter)	overwinter		1-Sep
Broad Beans	overwinter		10-Sep

Happy Gardening!

Weekly Update: Week 26, Welcome Summer

2010-06-23T03:39:00.000-07:00

last entire week was cool and damp, few sun breaks made its way here and there but temps did not warm even to 70s. Although mild and cool, day length is increasing and it’s showing. Spinach has started to bolt, I pulled it out. I remained very busy at work and there was very little progress on gardening front.

Whoohoo… I spotted some red and wow – there it was, very first ripe raspberry. Me and girls ran out to backyard, plucked sweet, ripe raspberry and shared it by 3. Sorry, No photo :) To record, very first raspberry of the year was on June 17th! I still got cherries, blueberries and strawberries in line, although critters are also waiting it to ripen. My biggest menace is crows, last year crows got away with half of my ripe rainier cherries, birds got blueberries and slugs loved strawberries. I have big plans to deter crows this year, I am ready to fight…

Sown: More wax beans, Tacoma bush peas
Transplanted: transplanted Daikon to big container. Daikon needs loose soil of 8+ inches to grow I think container might be good idea. we’ll see. Also I planted out just one tiny Ichiban eggplant and one unknown tomato plant
Harvested: last of spring fenugreek was harvested along with salad mix (lettuce, spinach, Micro greens – mustard and beets)

Harvest Photos

Last of the Spinach, about an ounce. I used it in kids’s spaghetti.

Brocolli Raab (Rapini) and Salad Mix

Last of the spring sown Fenugreek, I am storing it for use in next 3-4 days.

First day of Summer in Nation’s Icebox

2010-06-21T03:10:00.000-07:00

It’s first day of summer and it hardly feels like it. Today’s facebook status update from my friend reads - “bundled up like in winter, too sad I already vacuum sealed all my winter gear”. Really? it is that cold and wet? Yes, yesterday we were 17 deg below normal temp. Yikes!!

According to Komonews.com’s weather blog - We enter Day 279 since the last time we hit at least 75 degrees. Yes, we are yet to reach 75 here and looking at next 10 day’s forecast, it isn't happening any sooner. It is COLD and it is WET, VERY WET. How wet are we? put it all together, and in the 37 days since May 16th, it has rained on 34 of them, with our only dry days coming on May 24, June 5 and June 18. That is completely unheard of for this time of year.

Okay, so doing some comparable analysis based on weatherman’s ideas: Checking weather in some typical cold spots around the globe -

Sammamish 53
Seattle 55
Calgary 63
Toronto 73
Halifax, Nova Scotia 70
Oslo 68
Yakutsk, Siberia 67 ( what ??)

so Siberia is warmer than us? Pacific Northwest summer can be either ‘tomato’ year or ‘cabbage’ year – No doubt we have declared this year as cabbage year but all I want this year is at least one ripe tomato :(

(Writing this is inspired by Komo’s weatherman blog - http://www.komonews.com/weather/blog )

Weekly Update: Methi and more…

2010-06-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

Sun came out of hiding over the weekend, it warmed to low 70s and it felt so good. I am sure plants got a good dose of sunshine for 2 days and us too :)

Week was all about fenugreek, I began harvesting spring sown methi and everyday brought in loads of it. It is time consuming – picking, washing, separating leaves but well worth it. Methi seeds were sown on 20th April, germinated on 26th and I harvested beginning 7th June = 47 days. Total I got 3.6 lbs from this sowing (yes, it’s a lot) – about 10 bunches.

Sown: None
Transplanted: Wax beans
Harvested: Methi 3.6 lbs, Salad Mix – Lettuce, Spinach and beet greens 3 oz, first few broccoli raab 2 oz, tiny cherry belle radishes and few springs of green onion.
Consumed: Consuming 10 bunches is not that challenge in my household, we made methi thepela ( keeps good for 2 weeks), methi curry, daal methi. Radishes and spring onions were made into salad with greens. Brocolli raab was used in bowtie pasta dish.

Harvest Photos:
Cherry Belle Radishes and spring onions. Cherry Belles are not top heavy, there’s very little foliage so I snipped it off. I was too impatient with Spring onions, pulled first few of the season.

Left: Salad Mix – outer leaves of lettuce (black seeded simpson), Spinach (Olympia hybrid, ed hume seeds) and beet greens.
Right: Broccoli Raab or Rapini, delicious bitter pungent greens with tiny brocolli heads. I sauted these with olive oil and mixed with bowtie pasta dish. Good taste.

and finally Methi weighing at 3.6 lbs or about 10 bunches!! I got 4 basketfulls (I’ll spare you with photos, all look the same). I still have more to be harvested from the same bed….

Happy Growing.

Garden Tour

2010-06-11T02:50:00.000-07:00

We had record rainfall in last 2 days – 3 inches. Weatherman tells me that Saturday will bring sunshine, me and my plants really need some sun at this point. I ventured out in rain soaked garden and clicked some photos. everything is so soggy and drenched, I seriously think that water table level is reached at soil surface. Here is latest in garden photos:

Happy Peas climbing up, first pea flowers appeared 2 days back. I did sow some more Tacoma Bush type peas 1 weeks back, yet to see germination. I think these are rotting in soggy soil. (See water puddles to right)

Row of beans, we have 2 types – Blue lake Bush and Yard long (or asparagus beans or Chinese long beans). Blue lake bush are short bushy ones, yard long are pole beans. I am yet to set up support trellis for pole beans.

Cherries: This year I am seeing some rust on leaves and fruits. Yet to find out why.

Row of radishes almost ready to harvest, these are cherry belle radishes. Very unusual as these are not top heavy, this type produces big root balls without much foliage.

Flowering Strawberry, I am dreaming sweet juicy berries with no slug holes :)

Tomato starts: Few are tommy toes that I started with seed. These grew fast and then I mistake of putting them out without any cold protection. These remain stunted. Also I have been pinching ‘suckers’ from some of my store-bought tomato plants. I rooted these suckers hoping they’ll produce tomato plants.

Black Beauty Zucchhini, butternut squah transplants in container. I’ll let them get little bigger before deciding their final spot. Seedlings have gotten mixed up, I don;t know which one’s which.

Spinach and bunching onions

Left: Row of beets, these are Detroit dark reds, usually take 80+ days to mature
Right: Unknown late cabbage variety and leaf lettuce

Broccoli Raab/Rapini/Italian brocolli is almost ready for harvest.

And finally sick looking tomato transplants, I cover them up during nights. Too much rain, excess water is bad for tomatoes. They were in bad spot with bad drainage before, almost 3 weeks of this never ending northwest rain tomatoes were looking so sick, almost dying. Yesterday I moved them to this bed. This is not the sunniest spot but at least these will live, I hope!

Weekly Update: Week 24, first week of June

2010-06-08T03:05:00.000-07:00

A mix week, good and bad – harvests are picking up, I am able to cook and eat from the yard. Weather is improving, after torrential rains and floods from first few days, sun came out on Thursday briefly. Weatherman promises good weather for next week – partly sunny with few showers – I’ll take that happily. On the sad part, I continue to have poor germination and slug damage. Just few days after Iron Phosphate based application, slugs are low. I still have to venture out at dusk with chopsticks and big rock to eliminate slugs.
Heavy rains earlier in the week washed away Basil and Tomato seedlings. Cutworms ripped 2 yellow squash seedlings that I transplanted this week. Is it cutworms or stem boarers? I found both squash seedlings had 100% cuts and damage at the soil level. I’ll remember to take pictures next time. so now on, I’ll protect them with cut paper cups, next squash seedling batch is almost ready to be transplanted.
Also, few other seeds failed to germinate, washed away with rains or rotted in this soggy weather – Cilantro, Guar beans, Begonia flowers, lemon grass complete the list. Also sad to report that 3 bitter gourd transplants did not take cool weather and rains, they have wilted beyond resurrection.

Harvests are picking up, I picked something almost all days last week, that feels good. I made some good compost tea last week and fed all plants. Did second application of sluggo near strawberry bed, I have to get to slugs before they get to my strawberries. Strawberries are flowering and it’s just weeks before these June-bearing plants will start producing fruits.

Saturday brought sun, we had wonderful sunny day (mixed with some clouds) after 3-4 weeks, temps were in upper 60s and the sun felt wonderful. Day started off with Victory Garden Veggie swap, I managed to swap many of my seedlings and surplus seeds for some nice tomato, peppers and basil. Back home, I did weeding for good one hour, cleared overgrown bamboo, helped husband clean the pond, planted dahlia tubers and transplanted some of the acquired seedlings.

Sown: Second planting of yard long beans, Bitter gourd, Musclan Mix and Swiss chard. I am replacing everything that was destroyed during the week. Sown more cucumber, daikon and wax beans.
Transplanted: Red Swiss chard, lettuce, Italian softneck garlic, butternut squash, zucchini
Harvested: Chives 6 oz, Oregano 7 oz, Salad Mix – baby leaves of Lettuce, Spinach and beets
Consumed: All Chives were added to Beet-Peanut salad. I made Spaghetti on Thursday, added oregano into making sauce. Salad mix was used as lunch on Friday.

Harvest Photos:
Salad Mix (Lettuce, Spinach) 4 Oz

Lots of Oregano 7Oz

Chives   6Oz

and lastly, first crop of fenugreek from container 8 oz

Happy Growing.

June Flowers

2010-06-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

What’s blooming on this first week of June?

Top Row – Purple Chives flower and beautiful rhododendron
Middle Row – unknown and Mexican Orange or choisya
Middle row - Japanese Snowball and orange geum Mrs. Bradshaw
Bottom Row – tomato flower and strawberry flower

Weekly Update: Week 23, last week of May 2010

2010-06-01T06:27:00.000-07:00

I am getting slimed, there are thousands of slugs in the garden, yikes. Where did they all come from? Last 4-5 days, I managed to get rid of (read: squish) at least 80-90 of them. Most of them are baby slugs, only about 6-7 were big size guys. It is said that for every 1 slug you get to, there are 20 more hiding. This foggy, moist, rainy weather is not ending and slugs are loving it, they are everywhere. Damage is seen everywhere – fenugreek, radish, bok choy, chard, spinach, marigold. I read that slugs eat food equal to their body volume everyday, this is insane, it is time to take an action. I got Sluggo – Iron phosphate based slug killer today. I’ll report back on results in few days.

Question for you readers – can I still eat food infested by slugs? what about slime? I see big spinach leaves with small holes caused by slugs, do you throw these or still eat after washing?

Okay, now moving to some gardening news. It is said that “When Bearded Iris starts to bloom then transplant eggplant, peppers”. Alright, bearded Iris is in bloom but do I trust yet to plant out eggplant and peppers? NO, not yet. Not that I don’t trust phenology but weather is not warm enough for peppers and eggplants. Last year, I planted out peppers too soon and these stayed stunted for good 2 months, when weather warmed up i n August then peppers started putting on growth. I think I’ll rather pot up eggplants and peppers, nurture them inside for some more time. I did transplant 3 bitter melon outside on Friday, these are dying I think, they did not take transplant well, are wilting and look pale.

Sown: None
Transplanted: Green beans and Yard long beans, Yellow and green squash, my lonely butternut squash seedling and few bunching onions. 3 Bitter melon seedlings.
Harvested: Fenugreek, half pound. some of it was slug damaged, I had to carefully throw away damaged, (about half of total), and triple wash it to remove any slime (there was some slime).

Happy Growing.

How’s the garden growing? – One More Seedling Tour

2010-05-27T03:34:00.000-07:00

Enough of the seedlings, really, I am waiting for warmer days so many things can be moved in to the garden. Here’s photo tour of the seedlings and garden in last week of May.

There is no germination in directly seeded green beans, Intense rain last 2 weeks managed to rot the seeds. Out of frustration, I started trayful of green beans inside, these have come up nicely.

Spinach on left and chard on right, spinach is growing beyond 4 leaves, this is first time for me.

Broccoli raab has put on new growth

Dill has sprouted in container, it is densely planted because I’ll am growing dill to use as greens, won’t be growing for seed

Neat rows of radish, I have 2 varieties growing – Cherry Belle and icicle. Seedlings are about 1 week old.

And now, now so good photos – Due to intense rains and cooler temps, warm weather crops are suffering. We still have temps in lower 60s during days and nights are 40s. Feels like March… Basil is dying, Agatha tomatoes are stunted. I am being lazy to bring them inside during nights, I think should start doing that.

May Flowers

2010-05-26T03:17:00.000-07:00

April showers have brought many many may flowers. I am lucky to to get cut flowers from own backyard, here are flower arrangements from this week. There are countless bees hovering around in the yard, too bad I don’t have any fruiting plants waiting to be pollinated.

Purple flowers are Lavender, Orange are Geum – Mrs Bradshaw and white globes of Japanese Snowball.

Weekly Update: Week 22, May 2010

2010-05-25T04:16:00.000-07:00

Northwest weather is in its trademark soggy state right now, we have been getting cloudy, rainy, cool days. Temps hover around high 50s during daytime and drop down to 40s during night. definitely this is bad time for all warm weather loving plants, tomatoes that I planted out last week are stunting back, no growth. How do I protect them from this low temps? Basil is dying, why did I plant it out so early, I should know better. I seeded 2 varieties of beans 10 days back (Green beans, blue lake bush and yard long), both have been rotting in the soil, no germination. Given my frustration, I started a tray full of beans indoors, not sure if beans can handle transplant out when weather warms a bit. Adding to all this craziness are slugs, these are everywhere. baby slugs and big ones too, I read that best way to get rid of slugs is just to pluck and throw them far away, I have been doing the same. Slugs got their favorites too – they seem to hang around more around radish, zucchini and strawberries.

Sown: Beans – Blue lake bush, Beans – Yardlong, Beans – Gawar
Transplanted: Mustard, bunching onions
Harvested: None

I just wish for the rains to stop and give us some warmer days. Happy Growing!

Bird nest flew into front yard

2010-05-18T04:34:00.000-07:00

Strong wind gusts brought a tiny bird’s nest into my front yard. Empty, with few feathers inside indicating it was occupied at some point. It is small about size of palm. Any idea which bird might build small nest like this? hummingbird ? bing suggests otherwise.

Weekend Update

2010-05-17T03:51:00.000-07:00

Phenology says - “When dandelions are out then plants beans“ and “When Bearded Iris starts to bloom then transplant eggplant, peppers”. Dandelions are out in dozens, my girls are having ball blowing dandelions with wind, I think it’s perfect time to plant green beans and yard-long beans. While driving around I am seeing lots of Iris in bloom, but in my backyard iris is yet to show color so I am holding off on planting squash to transplanting peppers. Every garden has it’s own micro-climate, I am sitting on lower side of the hill so cold air settles in my yard almost always. I am 15 days behind warming up than plateau just 1 mile away, likewise frost hits me 10 days earlier. Rhodies and Iris are starting to bloom elsewhere but not in my yard yet, I am waiting……

Sowing: Sowing more seeds continues, but I am getting bummed by poor germination on lot of things. Cilantro, lemongrass and Dill seeds aren’t sprouting. Few of my flower seeds (red Columbine, begonia, marigolds and cosmos) aren’t showing any hope either. I’ll try some different approach – maybe sprouting in paper towel? Haven’t tried yet. Few of the Indian veggies I am trying haven’t germinated as well – Guar and karela.

Growing: Radish, lettuce and spinach has germinated. Fenugreek, peas, rapini are doing well. I should be able to harvest fenugreek in next 1-2 weeks. This will be my first real harvest of the year, I am looking forward. Bunching onion are shaping up, they are due for haircut, tops are yellowing. I wonder if it’s common or they lack some nutrients.

This weekend I bought 4 tomato plants from local Fred Meyer. Ciscoe Morris suggested in Sunday paper that this week is perfect time to acclimate tomato plants outside. I follow Ciscoe religiously and I do whatever he suggests for the week, but problem here is my tomato seedlings aren't growing beyond 2 leaves. Well, I thought, why not acclimate store bought plants? I have never grown tomatoes ever, so this year it’ll be store bought + seeds grown (if it happens). Since I am no expert on tomatoes, I randomly chose 4 plants – Celebrity (local store fav, IND), Lemon Boy (Yellow tomato, IND), Sweet 100 (IND) and tumbling tom (DET). I have Agatha, Kimberly and Tommy toes seedlings growing.

This weeks weather forecast calls for cloudy, cold temps. Hope cool weather crops shoot up this week. Grow please grow.

Seedlings

2010-05-13T03:35:00.000-07:00

I started out with sowing later than last year and my seedlings are just emerging or in their cotyledon stage. I have got all summer veggies started out this way, all cool weather crops are directly seeded.

recycled food tray and recycled foam cups with seedlings. Summer seeds were sown here – 2 varieties of Tomato, eggplant, bunching onion, sweet banana peppers and bell peppers.

Ace sweet pepper and Agatha Tomato seedling. Agatha is growing faster than other varieties. In few more days, I’ll plant these out in bigger cups.

Basil and Ichiban eggplant seedlings. Basil loves hot weather, it is taking most time to grow.

Bunching Onion and Turnip. Turnips love cool weather, were sown outdoors last week. Bunching onions also do well in cool, they’ll be transplanted in a week

Methi sown in container has emerged. methi will do fine even in cool temps – our nights are still in upper 30s to 40s. Shoebox container holds cauliflower seedlings, these are not doing well, turning yellow and look poor.

One of the wintersown seeds (in Feb) have bolted, label faded and I still don’t know what it is. Have you seen anything tinier than this bolting so fast?

Rows of fenugreek (methi). My FIL seeded half bed with methi and remaining with coriander seeds. Half bed of methi has germinated well, nothing on Cilantro side. Cilantro aka coriander germinates slow, germination temp should be above 70F. Northwest hasn’t seen temps in 70s yet. I hope seeds don’t rot and stay viable for few more days…

Peas have emerged, I have just 8 plants coming up. About 5-6 didn’t germinate, lost 3 plants to hail and I have run out of seeds. In 2 small pots, cabbage is happy.

Beautiful Seattle Evening

2010-05-12T03:30:00.000-07:00

Sun came out after many gloomy dark rainy days and sun is going to stay with us for next 2 (wow) days! I snapped photo of this beautiful flowering kale and Space Needle in background. Enjoy!

Raised Beds are here

2010-05-11T04:33:00.000-07:00

TADA! My FIL built a raised bed for side garden, wow I am so excited. Since he built it, he claimed it and said ONLY he’ll be growing in that bed. I am off-limit, that’s a fair deal. It’s no fancy, we held together lumber with few pieces of nail. I am cheap and don’t want to spend tons in my second year of gardening, we’ll see how long this garden bed lasts. We amended soil by adding steer manure, compost and garden soil. He sowed Fenugreek in half part and cilantro in rest.
Plan is to buy more lumber for raised beds, I think I can accommodate 3 beds on north end of the garden and 1 by the back entry. Home Depot, Here I come…

(Update: I bought few more wood planks of untreated cedar and made 2 more bed, Now I have 2 beds (5 ft by 4ft) and one (5 ft by 3 ft). Uj pointed that raised beds should be 2 or 3 ft in width max, I agree, thank you. I got this serious issue of usable space in my garden and I have to make one of the beds 4 ft in width)

I seeded/transplanted this bed very carefully, it is my first time and I was more than excited. Weather is not co-operating for last 2 weeks, we are yet to see sun out. This is making all plants stunted, nothing is growing well in my garden. I should not complain of this never ending rain, clouds and mist – this is typical Northwest. This is how bed looks like right now -

Garden Bed 1 – lettuce and Spinach seeded back in March were transplanted. Beets, Turnip, Onion, Broccoli Raab and Chard were direct seeded. These seedlings never got any fertilizer or growth drink, these look poor and stunted. I think I should make a trip to home depot and buy some fish emulsion.

garden Bed 2 – FIL claimed this bed, he seeded fenugreek and cilantro in half parts. Fenugreek took off and is looking healthy. Cilantro (crushed coriander seeds) will need about 15 days and warmer air to germinate.

Freak Winter Storm in May

2010-05-04T02:18:00.000-07:00

I really don’t want 2 posts in a row ranting about cold weather and hail, but I can’t help it. While East coast is enjoying hot summer like weather, we are here stuck in hail and snow showers. It started yesterday around noon and ended by midnight – high winds, hail, slush, icy rain, thick droplets and more hail…

Slushy Intersection @Sammamish, Hail accumulation in my raised bed

I was going to sow beans and squash seeds yesterday but weather didn't permit me. I hope it warms up after this freak storm and I can get back to sowing. I have tiny seedlings and few seeds out in the raised bed, not sure yet about the damage.

and the spring sowing begins… (better late than never)

2010-04-27T07:08:00.000-07:00

What a week it has been, we got hailstorm, pounding rain one day and summer temps in 70s another day. I don’t have anything growing in garden yet so no damage from hail. I am so behind on seed starting, planting and spring chores this year, more important things like doing taxes took precedence last week.

Very first thing I wanted to do is to ‘make’ space for vegetable garden beds in the garden. We got very weedy space with old, non-flowering plants which needed to clear to get garden beds going. Even though I am late on plantings, I really want to make things right this year. This week is all about that, we (me and FIL) cleared up dying rose vines, cottontail weeds, dogwood, 2 overgrown butterfly bushes (why were these in garden at all, there are listed as invasive species in state of Washington) and small pine tree. Re-located lupines and summer lily.
Now next is building raised beds… we went to Home depot shopping over the weekend. I picked up lumber to build some raised beds. I am not into woodworking and never done so, I’ll request FIL to make one for me.

Sown this week

Basil
Lettuce, buttercrunch
Eggplant, Ichiban
Fenugreek
Cauliflower, Silver Cup
Hot Peppers, seeds saved from grocery store dry pepper
Bell Peppers, Ace sweet pepper
Tomato – Agatha, Kimberly (wintersown.org)
BokChoi
Flowers – Cosmos, Begonia Dragon Wing

Harvested this week
picking of mint for garnish

Happy Earth Day

2010-04-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

Lilac Blossoms…

Back to Gardening

2010-04-22T06:32:00.000-07:00

I am back to Seattle. It feels like spring and we are officially allowed to start dreaming (and working) on gardens. Yay! I can hardly wait for days to get longer and brighter and things to start growing again….

I was away for 2 months visiting family, had to plan trip last minute. Just before leaving, in late February, I threw seeds in few pots lying on patio. I have been reading a lot about wintersowing, I thought to give it a try… I didn't get much time to cover pots, these remained outside braving cold and rain. Now I am back and glad to see that few seeds managed to germinate. wintersowing success! Spinach, Lettuce and Peas germinated well, Cherry Belle radishes are bulbing up. Few brassicas seedlings are seen ( I don’t remember if I sown cabbage/Cauliflower or Turnip), time will tell.

Wintersowing efforts in February

Lettuce, Spinach and cabbage has germinated in April

Broccoli and Brussels Sprouts from last winter have bolted.

Sown this week
Potatoes – Supermaket bought, Yukon Gold and Russett
Peas – Super Sugar Snap, ed hume seeds from last year’s packet

While I was away for 7 weeks, 3 supermarket bought potatoes remained in pantry. These sent out shoots/sprouts. I still don’t know correct way of chitting potatoes or if I should/should not be using supermarket version But I am going to give it a try sowing them. I dug up trench 1 ft deep and sown cut up ‘eyes’ of potatoes. One is Yukon Gold and other is Russett (I think)

Harvested this week
half pound of Chives. I used big bunch in potato/carrot curry today morning.

2010 Plants List is here

2010-04-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

With vow that I may not purchase any seedlings this year (lol, yeah that’s going to happen), plant list is almost taking shape for this year. I did collect/order plenty of seeds over winter, I’ll grow most of the plants from seeds this year.

Vegetables (Variety is listed in front)

Amaranth, Midnight Red

Beans, Blue Lake Bush

Beets, Detroit Dark Red

Bell Peppers, Ace Sweet Pepper

Bell Peppers, home saved seeds

Bok Choi, Chinese Mustard

Broccoli Raab

Brussels Sprouts, Long Island Improved

Cabbage, Quick Start

Cauliflower, Silver Cup

Cilantro, seeds from Indian Grocery Store

Cucumber, Muncher

Dill, Dukat

Dill, seeds from Indian Grocery Store

Eggplant, Ichiban

Eggplant, Slim Jim

Fenugreek, seeds from Indian Grocery Store

Lettuce, Buttercrunch

Okra, Clemson

Onion, Evergreen Bunching

Peas, Super Sugar Snap

Radish, Cherry Belle

Radish, Icicle

Spinach, Giant Noble

Spinach, Olympia Hybrid

Squash, Waltham Butternut

Sweet banana Peppers

Swiss Chard, Rainbow Blend

Tomato, Agatha

Tomato, Chudo Rinka

Tomato, Cold Set

Tomato, Early Kus Ali

Tomato, Italian Market Wonder

Tomato, Kimberly

Tomato, San Marzano

Tomato, Sheyenne

Tomato, Sungold

Tomato, Tommy Toes

Turnip, Purple Top White Globe

Zucchini, Black Beauty

Flowers

Begonia, Dragon Wing Pink

Cosmos, Seeds saved from Friends garden

Lavender

Lavender, perennial in garden

Marigold, Saved seeds

Marigold, sweet cream

Morning Glory, Heavenly Blue

Nicotiana

Nigella, seeds from Indian Grocery store

Red Columbine

Rose Mallow

Roses, already in garden

Rudbeckia, Orange Red

Silver Dollar, Lunaria Annua

Tennessee Coneflower

Wild Blue Lupine

Wildflower Blend Seeds

Zinnia, saved seeds from Friend's garden

Fruits

Blueberry

Cherry, Rainier

Raspberry

Strawberry, June bearing

Herbs

Catnip, perennial

Chives, perennial in garden

Henna

Lemon Balm, perennial

Lemon Grass

Rosemary, perennial

Spearmint, perennial, transplant from friend’s garden last fall

Stevia

Sweet Basil

Away

2010-03-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

I am in Mumbai, India visiting my family for over 2 months. There’s no gardening happening at home in Sammamish or Mumbai. My mom’s house on 3rd floor has small ledge with 5-6 planters. Curry leaves plant, Aloe Vera, four O’clocks aka Gulbakshi , tulsi and pepper plant lives happily here. Here are some photos…

Just off living room, there’s my mom’s garden. See Curry Leaves plant in back, Tulsi and Aloe Vera in front.

My mom scattered some chili seeds from dry chili pepper in one of her empty planter, these germinated nicely and yielding 6-7 peppers every month. Peppers are loving this hot 80- 90s weather in Mumbai.

Lot of Firsts…

2010-02-04T15:17:00.000-08:00

Fist time in my memory (of 8 years that I lived) in Puget Sound, winter is over in January
It is almost guilty to hear chilly stories from East coast, while they are blanketed in deep snow. As far as south Texas panhandle is getting icy storms and London seeing record snowfall. All while we at Pacific Northwest enjoying record highs for January, looking for signs of winter that lasted just for few days in December. Cascade mountains have hardly have a snow cover.
We are getting glorious mornings, temperatures in 50s, birds singing, daffodils blooming (and tulips too, go check out Shell gas station in Redmond, I’ll get picture proof if I can). Winter is over.

I am seeing lot of first buds and blossoms of the year

Bare Raspberry cane with bud, Almost flowering Rosemary (flowers in Feb, that’s first!)

Perennial Oregano is showing signs of life, Young leaves on Rose bush

We got first bloom of the year in my backyard
Check out Hellebores in bloom…

Helleborus, also known as Helleborus orientalis, was the hands-down favorite for shade. Hellebores have become so popular because they bloom in winter - wet or snow - in February. That’s when these low-growing evergreens with white, lemon blossoms come to life, blooming until late spring. Their evergreen foliage then graces the garden for the remainder of the year.

First Harvest of edibles from Garden

Check out this lovely bunch of chives up and ready to be picked, I saw one small flower bud coming up too. I remember last year, chives were not ready till late Feb. I picked chives and broccoli side shoots. Few months back I wasn’t sure if I should call broccoli as failure of 2009 garden, not so much….

Chives were topped on sizzling Roti (below). Broccoli was used in Vegetable Upma (below)

Seeds Inventory for 2010 garden

2010-02-03T04:27:00.000-08:00

My first ever seed order has arrived, with few trades and saved seeds, leftovers from last years – I am ready for 2010 season.

Here’s Inventory list:

Pinetree Seed order
Clemson Okra, Ichibaan eggplant, Henna, New Ace pepper, Only the lonely nicotiana (flower), Silver cup Cauliflower, Pinetree cabbage mix, Red Amaranth, Stevia, Lemongrass, Bunching onions

Seeds Trade
From Daphne’s dandelions – slimJim eggplant and sungold tomatoes (Thank you Daphne)
From wintersown.org – cold set, shayenne, kimberly and 4 other tomato varieties, dukat dill and wildflower mix packet ( Thank you Trudy)

Leftover seeds from 2009
bunching onions, carrots, beets, bush beans, Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, zucchini, Basil

Saved seeds
Marigold (I have zillion seeds of these, 3 varieties), Cosmos, Zinnia, Bitter gourd

To start year’s sowing, I scattered few onion seeds in one of the empty container last week. I am taking wintersown approach on this one.Happy gardening!

Is it Spring yet?

2010-01-19T14:47:00.000-08:00

The birds are singing sweet spring song, air is warmed up to nice 65. Crocus, Lily and daffodil bulbs are poking out of the ground, they are confused and so we are. Is winter over already?

We have been having wonderful weather this time of the year and I am not complaining. It was almost guilty to enjoy sunny warm day yesterday as news of snowy cold east were pouring in…

I am not complaining.

Below is photo of lily bulbs poking out…

Hellebore plant is setting out buds, ready to bloom beautiful green flowers in just few days…

Cherry tree with buds on nice sunny day yesterday…

Hope this nice weather lasts…

Last Harvest of 2009 and cleanup

2009-12-29T02:47:00.000-08:00

We have been getting spring like weather lately, Saturday was warmer with 50s. With that I went into garden attempting to make my final harvest and clean up the garden.

let me start with cleanup project:
My garden is a mess right now, with shorter days and juggling work, kids I rarely get time to go out in garden lately. Yesterday gave me fine opportunity to get start on cleanup work. I took down pea vines and supports, cleaned lettuce, bok choy bed. Bok choy were flowering and making broccoli-like flowering heads, I wish I could have clicked a photo. I made my observations around which plants survived hardest frosts, list includes – Brussels sprouts, broccoli, bok choy (to some extent), onion and garlic. I made a mental note to plant more of these for next year to extend harvest into fall/winter. This year is definitely experimental one….
Next cleanup was strawberry bed, whacking oregano perennials, cutting down old hellebore foliage. Lot got done in 15 minutes before my younger one was getting out of her late-afternoon nap.

harvests:
I dug out last of the carrots and beets yesterday, I was skeptical if these survived after long spell of frost in December. Carrots were damp and extremely sweet. Few days of good frost sure brings out sweetness in vegetables. Onions have survived, these are bunching types. I re-planted them with more spacing.
Brussels sprouts are bust, I think I planted them too late. all I’ll get from 3 plants is 4-5 heads. I hope I’ll do better next year.

California

2009-12-11T02:43:00.000-08:00

I was on vacation in California for thanksgivings. It’s December and they still have blue skies, crisp air, pretty flowers, green hills, ripening tomatoes and fruiting trees. There’s a reason people want to live in California.

Sun soaked Marigolds

Lemon Tree, I am thinking Thai curry with lemon leaves

Persimmon Tree, there were 100+ fruits on this 8 feet tree.

Rosemary

I spotted fennel growing wildly on freeway side, this is on Concord, Vacaville side. a closer look and it is indeed Fennel. Fennel is weed in California :)

FROST

2009-12-10T05:16:00.000-08:00

Western Washington is experiencing record breaking cold this week, we are in 20s during the day and teens at night. Ground is frozen solid, I still have carrots, beets and Brussels sprouts, don’t know how these fare against this frost.

For records, my backyard had first killer frost on 2nd December this year.
Frozen Pea vines
Methi:

4 days of hard frost killed young methi leaves
Below: Frozen Pond

Broccoli buds have appeared

2009-11-30T05:53:00.000-08:00

I have my doubts about broccoli, 6 of the plants look pitiful. I seeded broccoli back in July, never thrived, finally 2 of them are setting out tiny buds. Not sure how big they’ll get at this point. I am still giving them few more weeks before pulling them out and declaring ‘failure of 2009’. Not sure if edible yet but this picture is quite pleasing.

How to Series: Growing Methi (Fenugreek)

2009-11-16T07:20:00.000-08:00

When I first started out experimenting with growing vegetables, Methi was my first garden attempt. What I found was It works no matter you have green thumb or not. Methi is easiest to grow, ready to harvest in as little as 30 days. I was delighted to taste tender fresh methi from my own garden very first time I harvested, yield is far better and bigger than what you get at your neighborhood Indian store.

Most of the Indian stores sell methi wilted, about to make seed pods and sometimes it tastes like grass. And I used to pay 99cents for few twigs of methi. Well, not anymore. From early spring till late fall, I grow my own methi and buy frozen packs for rest of the year. Methi is semi-cold hardy so light frost doesn’t kill it. Methi makes it the perfect crop for those who just can’t wait to get the garden going, just open the pantry and soak some methi seeds in water.

How to grow fenugreek (Step by Step):

1 – Methi (fenugreek) seeds are sold in Indian grocery stores, $1.99 packet will get you more than 500 seeds. Store bought seeds work beautifully.

2 – Soak seeds in tap water for 12-24 hours

3 – Prepare ground by working soil, adding some compost. Methi can be planted in containers as well. Methi seeds are seeded densely (not in rows). Scatter methi seeds dense in desired growing area.

5 – Germination is expected in 1-3 days, methi seeds upon germination look something like above.

6 – Ready to harvest in 30-35 days.

Some harvest methi as micro-greens, just before first true leaves appear. Fleshy first leaves are bitter and are used extensively in daal or with fish preparation in Mumbai cuisine. If harvesting for micro greens (samudri methi), it is ready in 5-7 days after germination.

Also, I found that methi develops it’s trademark bitter pungent taste in warmer, hot weather. Methi grown in spring and fall has mild taste.

More about Methi: for those with botanical interest, methi belongs to legume family(Fabaceae) – flowering plants that produce edible seeds. Fenugreek is termed as Trigonella foenum-graecum.

medicinal properties: In West, fenugreek is widely used by lactating women to boost milk supply. Tablespoon of fenugreek powder 3 times a day is the trick. Fenugreek is natural remedy to control diabetes.

Green Elephant Plant Swap in Redmond

2009-11-13T03:40:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was quite an eventful, among many social gatherings with friends and family, I found 2 hours on Saturday morning to mingle with amazing gardening enthusiasts. I got to go to Green Elephant Plant swap in Redmond where group of people trade/give away extra plants, tubers and many gardening tips.

Jim Eichner organizes Green Elephant plant swap four times a year in Redmond. People gather extra wooded plants, divided perennials, tubers and swap. It is sort of tailgate party where we open up our car trunks, put stuff out on display. Towards the end of trade extra plants, shrubs, bare roots, tubers go into the big free pile.
I had my inhibitions at first but it turned out great! I went with 7-8 pots of strawberry, Golden oregano, lupines, geraniums and Shasta daisies. Well, strawberry babies were everywhere and looked like everyone was trying to get rid of them :) I put all my stuff into give-away pile and glad to have found takers for oregano, geranium and lupines. I came home with mint, stone crop, hen & chicks and giant Dahlia tubers. OMG – Dahlia tubers were a steal, a nice gentleman was unloading them by wheelbarrows into free pile. These tubers are expensive – that’s like $40-$50 in free stuff right there!!!
Taking the advice from other gardener, I planted mint into container and not in the garden.

Dahlia tubers that I scored…

There were at least 50 people trading plants, it was cold, chilly and pouring heavily – a true rain or shine experience. It was my very first swap and I was totally amazed at the generosity and openness of everyone. No one left empty-handed and some brought non-plant items like birdbath, planters and cookies to keep it fun and interesting.

Here’s website for more information - http://www.holycrossredmond.org/greenelephant.htm

Peanut Butter Tree

2009-11-12T05:10:00.000-08:00

We moved into our new house last year in fall, most of the shrubs and trees had shed leaves by then. In front yard, a wonderful smallish tree caught my attention – It had pinkish buds with blue berry like fruits. Quite unusual I thought. In Summer around late July this tree started blooming – had thousands of small pink-white flowers that looked like Jasmine and had very strong aroma. Many people who visited us in summer wondered about this tree, they had never seen such thing.

And I kept looking…searched folia, USDA plant database, internet but couldn’t find the name. All of a sudden, 2 days back, I landed on Petunia’s blog. I was jumping in joy to have stumbled on her page. Thank you thank you Petunia. There it is – It’s called Peanut Butter tree or Clerodendrum trichotomum or harlequin glorybower

More research on it -
USDA link is here -http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CLTR

Why is it called Peanut Butter Tree?
Internet tells me leaves of this tree have very strong pungent smell, when rubbed these leaves give out peanut butter smell. well, I never noticed before, I went to front yard for my own taste test, and yes, it does kinda smells like peanut butter.
Now that I remember about flowers, stamens of this flower do have strong PB like aroma. when stamens removed, flowers give out very sweet fragrance – earthy jasmine like.

Soggy Fall

2009-11-03T03:04:00.000-08:00

This is the soggiest fall in my memory (of 6 years in Puget sound). It’s raining non-stop for last 2 weeks and more rain is predicted for another 10 days. Halloween was super-soaker, bad for the trick-o-treaters. There was a big mix of weather yesterday – rain, thunder lightning, dark clouds, sun came out and a rainbow! wow! I snapped this quick photo.

This rainy weather is actually extending last frost date, last year frost came on October 22nd. This year cloudy blanket is keeping us warm and above freezing.

November harvest

2009-11-02T04:35:00.000-08:00

Few of beets, Icicle radishes, last Zuk and few peas. Beets were seeded in July, Icicle radishes on 5th Sep. Peas have been great success so far, I have been picking 5-6 every other day for last couple months, I have 8 vines that are producing snap peas heavily. They apparently are liking this cool weather and have not slowed down like all other plants.

failures 2009

2009-10-30T02:54:00.000-07:00

In retrospect gardening went well this year, many great harvests and equal amount of failures. In all, I’m happy with my newfound gardening interest. It is very delightful to witness small seedling magically appearing from soil, flowers budding from plants and many fruits/veggies getting to their prime.

With this, there are many failures to list.
Lettuce – I grew too much, last of few I added to compost pile directly

Bokchoy – fall sown, something kept eating leaves and stems never grew any fatter

Spinach – won’t grow beyond 3 true leaves

Brussels Sprouts – started way late? I still have hope as I think I can harvest it till December?

Peppers – planted in non-so-ideal location, these need more light and fertile warm soil. Although I managed to get 7-8 big size peppers, these small ones were still growing when I pulled up plants. I need to set these in sunnier location and maybe cover soil with black plastic to help them retain heat.

Butternut squash – sown too late, see above tiny raw lone squash I picked last week. I am sure if it had one more month to grow, would have grown and ripen. I’ll seed this variety earlier next year. It looks cute though, right now it is adorning Halloween decor inside the house.

Garden Planning 2010: growing Indian vegetables

2009-10-29T03:39:00.000-07:00

Year 2009 gave me good learning and more encouragement to grow my own vegetables. I grew lots of lettuce, peas – western vegetables. I did better with fenugreek (methi), dill (shepu), cilantro, mint and peppers. Next year my total focus will be growing Indian vegetables – that I love to eat every single day.

Here’s the 2010 plan -
Greens: Fenugreek (methi), Chinese Spinach (math), Spinach
Squash: Dudhi/Lauki/Bottle Gourd, Cucumbers
Beans: Green beans, Snap Peas, Long beans, Okra
Alliums: Spring onion
Fruit Vegetables: Tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, Eggplant, sweet peppers, hot peppers
Root Vegetables: Potatoes – Yukon gold and fingerlings

I’ll grow below veggies just because I have free leftover seeds from this year
Greens: Basil, Lettuce, Brussels Sprouts
Squash: Zucchini , Butternut Squash
Alliums: Spring onion
Root Vegetables: Beets, Radishes

Fun veggies:
I am planning to grow Kala vatana and Rajma just for fun, ever inquisitive mind wants to know how seedlings look like, are flowers beautiful? I also want to grow just 2 of each – cabbage and cauliflower. Just for fun.

Apart from leftover seeds from this year, I am planning to order few Indian veggie seeds from these seed stores, I checked their websites. Time to order for catalog :)
Johnny’s Selected Seeds – got good selection with bottle gourd and greens
Evergreen Seeds – Specialized company with Asian vegetables, good selection
SeedsofIndia – everything and anything from India. I usually tend to buy seeds from local area suppliers as these seeds are developed suitable to environment. I suspect success rate with seedsofindia as it seems these seeds are imported from India?

why I want to grow my own potatoes next year

2009-10-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

From msnbc.com (http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100246775&page=2)

What the farm director won't eat: nonorganic potatoes

Jeffrey Moyer is the chair of the National Organic Standards Board.
The problem: Root vegetables absorb herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides that wind up in soil. In the case of potatoes—the nation's most popular vegetable—they're treated with fungicides during the growing season, then sprayed with herbicides to kill off the fibrous vines before harvesting. After they're dug up, the potatoes are treated yet again to prevent them from sprouting. "Try this experiment: Buy a conventional potato in a store, and try to get it to sprout. It won't," says Moyer, who is also farm director of the Rodale Institute (also owned by Rodale Inc., the publisher of Prevention). "I've talked with potato growers who say point-blank they would never eat the potatoes they sell. They have separate plots where they grow potatoes for themselves without all the chemicals."

The solution: Buy organic potatoes. Washing isn't good enough if you're trying to remove chemicals that have been absorbed into the flesh.

The alternate solution from me: grow own potatoes, at least a few pounds :)

Update - Surprise squash vine

2009-10-23T07:52:00.000-07:00

I wrote about mystery vine that looked line from squash family. Here’s update -

Looks like this is pumpkin, not sure still. I ripped off the vine as it was growing bigger and getting unmanageable. From the looks I think this is volunteer pumpkin. how cool… To give some background: Back in June, I spotted this squash like seedling volunteer. Instead of weeding it, I let it grow. I never knew this small innocent seedling will grow into giant in couple months.

Will I be growing pumpkins again? intentional or not – answer is NO. Pumpkin vines are gigantic, even without any compost or special soil, they’ll grow monsters and take up way tooo much space. I have a small yard and I’ll use it to grow something more cool – maybe potatoes?

Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

Me and girls hit pumpkin patch at the base of Sahalee way yesterday, it was good fun.

What’s that got to do with gardening? oh yes, I witnessed first hand how pumpkins are grown in rich, moist soil. learned that sunflowers + corn + pumpkins are grown in vicinity because sunflowers ward off bugs on corn, yellow pumpkin flowers attract abundant bees helping pollination, birds gathering to collect sunflower seeds eat harmful bugs…organic growing concepts at their best.

Harvested fall planted fenugreek

2009-10-19T07:59:00.000-07:00

Harvested last of the zucchini, few snap peas and loads of fenugreek planted on 5th Sep here. I wasn't sure if fenugreek will grow in cool weather, it did. I am going to sow some more seeds in container today, let’s see if they give me yield before frost hits :)

Out of season berries

2009-10-16T07:01:00.000-07:00

What’s going on with Raspberry canes and blueberries? We are in cold zone, temperatures almost touching 40F at nights and 60s in days. Plants and shrubs should be changing colors and going dormant to face wintry weather. Instead raspberries are budding and blueberries are giving me second crop?

Raspberry flowers?

After windstorm 2 days back, it was partially sunny day yesterday. I went to examine raspberry came damage and saw cluster of buds on one of the canes. A good friend gave 3 canes as gift in early summer, since these are new canes friend told me that they’ll start bearing fruit next season. I wasn’t hoping on fall harvest. These are in sunniest spot in garden.. maybe that’s what to do with it. Not sure at this point if they’ll bear fruit or not… let’s wait and watch together. I am excited :)

Blueberries are going crazy too, I am surely getting 2nd tart crop in few days. Do these typically give 2nd harvest?

Blueberries

Peppers

2009-10-15T04:44:00.000-07:00

I seeded 2 kinds of peppers this year, back in March when things were cold and dreary – 1 packet of banana peppers ( 30 cent seeds from American Seeds) and 1 packet of bell peppers (30 cent seeds again). Banana peppers were a disaster and I pulled them mid July, they never grew beyond 4 leaves, were stunted. On other hand bell peppers were semi-success. I learned so much about growing peppers, what to do and not…..

I pulled all bell pepper plants ( 6 total) yesterday, got about 7-8 large green peppers and about 10 tiny ones.

Lessons learned, here’s what I’ll try to do next year:
1 – Pepper seeds are slow to germinate, they need 80F to germinate. Since I don’t intend to invest in fancy heating mats, here’s what I’ll do (which worked this year tooo.). Soaking seeds 6 hours in lukewarm water, heating soil block before sowing pepper seeds and placing it in oven with lights on. This guarantees germination in 6/10 days.
2 – Placing seedlings under light and keeping on heated surface
3 – Heat soil in pots and cover with black plastic before transferring seedling to final pots
4 – Choose sunniest location

Windstorm

2009-10-14T06:51:00.000-07:00

We had forgotten how winter feels like after picture-perfect incredible summer. We had huge windstorm yesterday with gusts upto 50mph all day long. We went straight to Winter and skipped fall.

Wind shook all tress, dried loose orange red fall leaves acted as sails and intensified wind velocity. In my neighborhood, beautiful display of orange, yellow, red fall colors was gone in 6 hours….

Comparatively little damage in my backyard – Pea supports were down, Zucchini plants uprooted (it was time anyway…) and raspberry cane broken (sad).

Blackberries along the fence wall

2009-10-12T02:51:00.000-07:00

Although unwanted but still qualifies as surprise. Volunteer blackberry vine along he back fence has always annoyed me, I meant to get rid of it for months. While weeding on the retaining wall along the fencing wall yesterday, I spotted surprise cluster of blackberries. Hurray!

I don’t REALLY need blackberries in my own garden, they grow like weed here in pacific northwest. 10 minutes of berry picking in my neighborhood once a week in Aug-Sept keeps my kids very happy in this berry season. I don’t even go far, we got plenty of blackberries just walk around the this suburban community.

So what happened next?
I popped sweet ripened berries in my mouth and at the same time whacked berry vines, so ungrateful of me. Hmmm.

Beets are ready

2009-10-09T03:26:00.000-07:00

Purple/Red beet heads are peeking out of ground and ready to be harvested. These were started from seeds on 20th June , transplanted in a month and ready by 5th October. That’s 100 days till harvest. Not all of them are ready yet, some are still in ground, not sure if this depends on amount of sun or water they are getting.

Notes added later: I went back and checked seed packet information, these are – Detroit Dark Red. Packet says 60 days till harvest. (?, it’s almost 100 days now…)

I am finding that Vegetables in my backyard are typically taking plenty more or less time to mature than what’s on seed packet, it just varies. Peas and cucumbers were earlier than maturity days on packet. Peas (50 days, maturity days listed on seed packet – 70 days) and cucumbers (muncher, 45 days, maturity days on packet 62 days) . On the other hand, butternut squash listed as 90 days, I seeded those on 1st June, it’s 130 days today and all I have is tiny tiny green fruit that may never ripe. I think I just have to go by what works for me, make a journal of success/failure from this year.

Bloom Report: Roses, Geranium and more

2009-10-08T02:55:00.000-07:00

Yellow-orange fragrant rose by the back fence

Geranium weed flowers: These were identifies as wild geraniums by UW botanical guests at Farmer’s market. UW (University of Washington) sends experts every Saturday to Redmond Farmers market; many people seek guidance on identifying plants, starting a garden, bugs, pests, organic gardening etc. Many times King county plant and wildlife department also holds informative sessions on ‘Invasive weeds and control’, 'Identify friendly/invasive plants/bugs/animals’. Thank you for such a great service.

cool mornings

2009-10-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

Although days are surprisingly sunny, nights are getting cooler, we went down to 37F last night. I strongly suspect we got light frost 3 days back, Sunday morning. Grassy area behind the house just didn’t look bright green. maybe light frost or I was too sleepy.

Here are some of the random tasks I need to accomplish this month:
1 – keeping up with lawn, re-seeding
2 – get pond maintenance done
3 – clear out bamboos
4 – trim and prune all trees, plants
5 – Harvest last of herbs: Chives, Mint, Rosemary, Oregano
6 – pull out summer squash, cucumbers, peppers

Harvest Friday

2009-10-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

Harvested 3 zucchinis, handful of snap peas and baby beets.

Update – Fall Planting Gamble

2009-10-02T07:08:00.000-07:00

Fall sown seeds have germinated and nice seedlings are bracing chilly temperatures in night. Although days are unusually sunny and nicer, our nights are down to 45F now. We did get down to 40F last night. Not sure when the first frost is expected. Lot of local weather stations suggest frost does not occur until October 22nd but it can differ by couple weeks depending on particular location. I am up on plateau and not shaded by trees etc. I’ll start keeping track of frost here on this blog.

Here’s update on fall planting:

	Beets (Top, above brick): Beet seedlings have emerged. seeds planted 15th Aug, 75 days, expected maturity 10 Nov Fenugreek (bottom, below brick, barely visible, day 5 in ground) : seedlings just starting to form. Seeds in 5 Sept, 30 days, expected maturity 5 Oct
	Fenugreek (bottom, day 15 in ground) : edible greens forming. Seeds in 5 Sept, 30 days, expected maturity 5 Oct Brussels Sprouts (Top left corner in background): no sprouts forming yet. 3 July, 120 days, expected maturity 3 Nov
	Radish, cherry belle: ready to harvest soon. lost many to slugs, poor soil. 20 Aug, 27 days, expected maturity 20 Sept
	Carrots: seedlings. 15 Aug Aug, 90 days, expected maturity 15 Nov
	Radish, Icicle: will be ready to harvest soon. 15 Sept, 30 days, expected maturity 15 Oct
	Turnip: seedlings, need to move them in ground. 5 Sept, 60 days, expected maturity 5 Nov
	Bunching onions: seedlings, need to move them in ground. 5 Sept, 70 days, expected maturity 15 Nov

Sedum in bloom

2009-09-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

Nigella Kalonji

2009-09-28T03:32:00.000-07:00

Nigella Kalonji flower in bloom.

I sown nigella seeds thinking these were onion seeds (someone told me kalonji seeds are onion seeds), well I didn’t get onion harvest but I got to photograph this beautiful flower.

Harvest Friday

2009-09-25T02:29:00.000-07:00

Harvested 3 zukes, dill greens, bunch of snap peas and some lettuce for salad.

Sunrise on first day of fall

2009-09-23T02:55:00.000-07:00

Can’t believe it’s first day of fall today, sunny and temperatures are expected to be in late 80s.

Sunrise captured from my kitchen window – first fall sun rising above the cascade mountains

End of Summer

2009-09-22T02:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked official end of summer. In US, summer ends on September equinox on around Sept 22nd.

The September Equinox

On the equinox, the sun rises directly in the east and sets directly in the west. This is true for both the fall and spring equinoxes. So on two days of the year you can find the exact cardinal directions of East and West by using the sun. The ancients did this when they set up their calendars at Stonehenge and the Mayan pyramid, among others.

Do we have equal length day and night here in northwest? let’s look at local weather station data:

Sunrise: 6:55am
Sunset: 7:08pm

okay, so days are longer by about 13 minutes than nights, not quite equal. we’ll have equal days and nights on Sept 26th. Did bing on sunrise and sunset data and found this interesting site. http://www.sunrisesunset.com/calendar.asp?comb_city_info=Seattle,%20Washington;122.3;47.6;-8;1&month=9&year=2009&time_type=0

So what summer veggies are growing in my garden on this last day of summer?

Zucchini, bell peppers, muncher cucumber and loose leaf lettuce

Neglected garden for a week

2009-09-17T02:22:00.000-07:00

For 2 weeks in each quarter I get super busy at work, I have to work 15-16 hours a day. I get up, brush, cook food, pack kids lunch and off to work…. come back, feed dinner to kids and Log back in to work for another 4-5 hours. This is crazy week.

I don’t have time to garden. Sorry.

I’ll let zukes grow big and weeds/grass grow wild, see you back next week.

Mystery vine from squash family

2009-09-15T06:09:00.000-07:00

Sometime in June, on left side of the house, I noticed upon a small seedling. I was busy weeding and this tiny seedling came very close to being plucked and thrown into compost pile. It looked interesting, nothing like regular weed selection, it looked more like belonging to squash family. Out of curiosity I didn’t weed it, instead watered it every week. Today after 2 months, it has grown into a sizeable vine, with some tiny flower buds appearing.

I still don’t know what it is… maybe I’ll never know as winter frost is approaching and it may never set fruits... It’s got huge leaves and giant tendrils that are curled to weeds in it’s path. This vine is just growing on the ground, maybe I’ll give it a support tonight…..

Do you know what it is? I am not happy that I may will never even know what it is as fall is approaching…

Fall Planting Gamble

2009-09-14T04:31:00.000-07:00

First time in last 5 months, I went to sleep with sweater and socks on last Monday Sept 8th. It was rainy, cloudy and cold here yesterday, few thunderstorms made an appearance too. Well, according to weather reports low temperatures stood at 43 F.

This is time to pull summer vegetables from garden, weed and prune roses. Instead, what did I do in the garden? – I did sow some seeds. This itch to sow and grow, experiment never dies. I am playing a pure gamble and let’s all watch what happens to my late fall garden experiments.

so what did I sow yesterday?
1 – Fenugreek: This is my experiment, I want to assess if fenugreek will germinate and produce this late in summer. Since very few people grow fenugreek for greens, there’s hardly any data available on web. This is for my own knowledge, I am trying fenugreek this late. During summer fenugreek yields in 30 days, so I have some hope here before killer frost arrives.

2 – bunching onions: these will go under cloche if it gets too cold
3 – spinach
4 – bok choy
5 – icicle radishes
6 – beets
7 - turnips

To get faster germination, I helped seeds in warm water for 24 hours except spinach. Spinach seeds went into freezer for 12 hours, followed by 12 hours in tap water.

I’ll keep updating about this winter gardening over few months…

Harvest this week

2009-09-11T02:56:00.000-07:00

Harvested this week are -
Few summer veggies: 3 cucumbers, 4-5 zucchinis and handful of snap peas.
cucumbers went into salad for dinner, snap peas were munched 2 minutes from taking this photo and zucchini was made into curry (see below)

Greens, I got 2-3 heads of leaf lettuce and fenugreek. (not pictured)

Root vegetables: Beets
Beet greens and beets were chopped along with onions and chilies. Made beet curry with beets, greens, onion and tomato. yummy.
Herbs: loads of chives, rosemary. Few twigs of catnip (??) and lemon balm for drying. Bag full of Mint for freezing and giving away…
And what did I make with beet greens and zucchini on hand? Vegetable curry…

Surprise bean in my compost pile

2009-09-10T12:46:00.000-07:00

Surprise bean has sprouted from my compost basket, too sad it is too late for the tiny seedling.

Fall Gardening Timeline

2009-09-10T03:19:00.000-07:00

Most of the fall planting for year 2009 is almost done. For my future reference, here is the fall gardening timeline I used, I’ll report back on seedlings, growth and actual harvest dates as it happens.

July 3	Sown Brussels Sprouts seeds directly into ground
July 12	Sown Broccoli seeds directly into ground
July 10	Sown peas in ground 0.75 feet apart every 5 days from 7/10 thru 8/15

Aug 15	Radish – cherry belle in ground
Aug 15	Thin Broccoli and Brussels sprouts
Aug 1	Sow lettuce for early fall harvest
Aug 14	Seeds in warm water – carrots, bokchoy and beets
Aug 15	Seeds in ground – Beets and carrots
Aug 20	Sown Dill seeds in 2 containers
Sept 1	Already harvesting early snap peas !!!
Sept 4	Seeds in warm water – Fenugreek, Turnip, Icicle radishes, bokchoy
	Seeds in fridge for 8 hours followed by 12 hours on paper towel - Spinach
Sept 5	Seeds in ground – Fenugreek, Turnip, Icicle Radishes, Bok Choy, Spinach
Sept 6	Sown bunching onion seeds
Sept 10	Add compost to all veggie beds
	Thin carrots, bokchoy and beets
Sept 30	Sow Garlic sets into ground
October	Assess frost situation and cover beds if needed

Yummy Peas for my little girls

2009-09-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

Peas are up, yay!!! My girls are going crazy. So far Peas have been easiest to grow in my garden, this is our first harvest of fall planting. I used Ed Hume seeds, variety – Super Sugar Snap . This is what says on packet

I helped seeds for about 24 hours into warm water and directly sown into the garden. I planted 10 seeds at a days interval so I have a plant which is producing pods right now and other just beginning to germinate. Biggest plant has already given me 10 peapods in last 3 days.

Peas life cycle -

tiny pea seedling 3 days old ( 6 days after seeds were sown)

Pea seedling with true leaves – 10 days after germination

Pea plants are crying for help – we need support. Time to build trellis, in my garden I go cheap route using sticks and fiber twine.

ready for harvest yet?

ready for picking … in 1.5 months

Bloom Report: Roses

2009-09-03T00:42:00.000-07:00

A rose to rise
A rose to fall
A rose to conquer all

I have countless rose buses in my backyard – well countless really means 7, that’s still too many for me. When we moved into this house last winter, all of them were pruned back to roots with about 2 inches of stem left. I had really given up hope for these almost dead rose plants. To my surprise most of them sent out shoots early summer, some are busy blooming and few are recovering, 2 are dead. Some plants are climbing variety that are “once-bloom” types, other yellow and orange roses are continuous bloom in summer. I also read that roses develop on two year old canes, I have high hope for other non-producing 3 rose shrubs in my garden.I did not give rose food this year fearing it might be too much for the plants as they were trying to live again, added some compost about 2 times. I am still learning about fertilizing, composting, pruning and harvesting roses.

My little one in front of lone orange rose bloom, this rose shrub produced only 5-6 roses this season, it is still recovering from almost deadly hard pruning. You can see Lilac, geraniums, Day Lily and Japanese snowball flowering plants (all non-blooming this time in season)

Here’s what I learned so far:
Bloom Season: Roses start to bloom early summer, June through September. More you cut roses, more they’ll set out new shoots and buds.
Going Dormant: If un-cut roses are let develop fruit then they go in dormancy. Towards early fall I’ll purposely let roses develop fruit signaling them to go dormant and store up all all the energy for next season.
Rose Food: not sure yet…
Pruning: Hard pruning of roses is done in early spring, if you have a hybrid rose (read plant tag) then prune it back to 12 inches.
I read that roses are produced on two year canes, true? maybe or maybe not. Pruning this year would have destroyed my tiny rose plants, so I gave it a pass this spring.

Still have high hope from this rose shrub, it is showing signs of recovery. Pruned almost to roots last winter is sending new shoots and few tiny buds…

This is fragrant pink rose, only produced 1 rose in entire year. Is this ‘climbing’ variety? What should I do to make this plant bloom vigorously?

Rose is favorite flower in my house, it sits in flowerpots, is offered to god or sometime adorns my hairstyle. One of the rose shrub went crazy this summer and produced 100+ fragrant yellow mellow flowers. Mid-summer I almost ended up making ‘GulKand’ ( translation: Sugary Rose), damn busy schedule at work I could not get to it, maybe next year. Gulkand is prepared using edible rose petals with sugar, sundried for 10-15 days. It’s got medicinal properties – It’s an ayurvedic tonic, spoonful of gulkand reduces acidity, cools down body temperature in hot months and useful in teeth or eye inflammation.
Not sure about eating gulkand as medicine, I would have surely made Gulkand Ice-cream…. well, no dwelling on missed opportunity, wait is on for another year…

August Update: sowing, growing and harvesting

2009-08-31T16:20:00.000-07:00

There’s slight chill in morning air, sun is rising later, fallen leaves are accumulating faster and yes, August is almost over. Foggy morning for last 2-3 days is calling out for ‘fall’ season. Summer garden is at the fullest right now, yielding bountiful vegetables. It will all be over in another 2-3 weeks and I want to enjoy each single day that’s remaining in this summer.

Here is gardening update for month of August
What’s Harvested: 4-5 Zucchinis, Lettuce, 20-30 cherry belle radish, handful of peas, spinach, cilantro, blueberries, beets with greens, herbs (chives, oregano, mint, rosemary) and loads of fenugreek
What’s Growing: ‘Muncher’ cucumbers, mystery squash, butternut squash, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Bell peppers, carrots, radish, fenugreek, dill, beets, lettuce and peas
What’s sown: beets, bokchoy, more radish, rainbow chard, turnip, fenugreek and spinach

This is what I harvested yesterday: Lettuce, radishes, 4-5 zucchini (not pictured), handful of snow peas(not pictured) and yes, fenugreek.

As the old leaves are giving way to new life in form of fall garden, I feel lucky and obliged to this wonderful nature, water and sun.

What’s for dinner – Zucchini Curry with Roti

2009-08-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

We have been getting lots of zucchinis lately, I have about 5 plants that I started from seed back in June. 3 of them are busy producing fruits, I get about 3-4 zukes per week. I have been busy finding recipes to use them in meal, here’s what I made today for dinner.

Zucchini Curry with Roti
1 teaspoon Oil, few Mustard seeds, pinch of turmeric
2-3 Zucchini
2 small Potatoes
2 Green chilies
pinch of Curry Powder
salt to taste
pinch of jaggery/molasses or sugar
Heat oil, add mustard seeds and turmeric. Once mustard seeds sizzle, add chopped potatoes, zucchini and 3 or 3 cups of water.
Green chilies, curry powder, salt and jaggery goes into that. cook for 8-10 minutes.
You can serve with homemade Roti. (Frozen Roti can be bought from Indian grocery stores).

Enjoy!

marigolds

2009-08-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

Marigolds bring memories back to me, it is considered holy flower and used heavily on auspicious days. This year I have just 2 small pots with tiny yellow marigolds. I went cheap route and bought 30 cent seed packet from Walgreens. To my surprise, seeds did germinate and I have 3-4 plants in 2 pots unexpectedly.

I remember my mother saving marigold seeds from dried flower and re-use them to make new plants year round (we lived in tropical sunny region). Not sure if I can do same with the hybrid flowers now-a-days, I am going to give it a try.
This year for Ganapati festival I did not have many homegrown flowers, there’s hardly anything blooming in my garden late August. I got couple phlox, few roses, marigold and geraniums. Most of my garden flowers are spring and early summer bloomers – Lilac, Syringa, Iris, roses, Day lily, Japanese snowball etc. My quest next year is to plant late summer blooming flowers – annuals and perennials, and of course lots of marigolds. I dream of making marigold garlands for next year Ganapati.

Readers out there – do you have any flowering plant suggestions for me that blooms late summer?

Growing Broccoli

2009-08-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

So I know nothing about growing broccoli but somehow I have timed it nicely, thank you to cheap seeds being sold at Walgreens. few months back in June I was browsing clearance section as usual with 2 kids screaming and pleading to buy some cheapo toys. I went cheapo not for toys but for seeds… they were discounted 3 for a dollar, what a deal (if they really produced anything ;)). I got marigold, carrots and broccoli packets.
Fast forward to August – While browsing found that broccoli is cool weather crop and should be planted 85 to 100 days before first frost of the season. Secret to best tasting broccoli is cool weather (and we got plenty of that in this part of the country). Let’s say first frost date in Sammamish, WA is October 22nd, rewind 100 days and we got 12 July. Well, I started plants right around beginning of July, unintentionally I timed it nicely. Let’s see what I actually get in another 2 months, wish I can fast forward time.
Clearly these broccoli starts are not healthiest, they have been attacked by some creature leaving tiny holes on leaves. I am not applying any pesticide or natural remedy at this point, playing wait and watch game, if it gets worst then I may so some milk spray on leaves.

Here’s what I have been reading about broccoli lately -
http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-5-16-1347,00.html

It’s all about radishes

2009-08-25T11:22:00.000-07:00

Summer here in northwest is short lived and relatively cool, night temperatures usually drop to 50s or 60s. I think that’s the reason radishes make easy and most suitable crop here. Even said that my very first radish plantings were a disaster as I spaced them too close, they did not have enough space to grow roots. I have learned my lesson and I hope my successive plantings give me good harvest.

Today is all about radishes.

Sowing seeds: I am planning to sow 2 kinds – cherry belle and Icicle. Cherry belle (source: ‘clearly more seeds’ packets) have 22 days of maturity and Icicle (source: ed humme seeds) have 27 days. I never sow them directly in the ground, I soak in water for 12 hours and 6-10 hours on wet paper towel, then they go in ground, for me this ensures quick germination. Not sure if this works for all kinds of seeds…..I surely want to learn more about scratching and cold treatment to seeds to encourage germination.

Thinning: I sowed cherry belle some 10 days back, now that true leaves have appeared it’s time to thin radishes. I always end up spacing radishes too close so I thinned and spaced them (correctly I hope this time)

Harvest: Cherry belle that are in ground for over a month are ready for harvest.. at least few of them.

Let the fall gardening begin…

2009-08-18T13:41:00.000-07:00

Leaves are turning colors and sedum is showing pink buds, butterfly bush are busy blooming. Every man tended garden is green and rest is yellow golden, it is summer in its best form here in Pacific Northwest.
We have short growing season and truly blessed this year by unusually hot summer. Summer is coming to an end and something tells me that it is time to start my fall vegetable garden(or is it too late?)
I moved into into a house few months back, this is my first house with yard and my first growing year. I don’t even have vegetable beds built, most of the vegetables I grow are in containers and some open area in the yard. All my vegetable planting so far is trial and error.

For fall season, I’ll try growing these veggies -
1 – Fenugreek
2 – Butter crunch Lettuce
3 – Beets
4 – Carrots
5 – Bok Choy
6 – Brussels Sprouts
7 – Peas
8 – Spinach and
9 – Icicle Radishes

Stay Tuned and welcome to my BLOG!!