and although the cold snaps are more persistent than usual, the trend is for higher highs and higher lows, with lows soon to be settling above 40 degrees.
Lettuce, Swiss chard, kale, broccoli were all planted from transplants a couple of weeks ago. We have now harvested our third or fourth batch of salad greens. Overwintered cilantro and garlic are growing like crazy. We always over plant garlic and start using the excess like spring onions, chopping the entire plant in favorite dishes. That extends the fresh garlic calendar by several months.
A few days ago we planted corn and sugar snaps. Both planting areas were expanded by about 5x over previous years. We had two or three days of rain after the seeds were planted, so am looking for nice germination there, in maybe another week.
Tomato plants, pepper plants, and egg plant are thriving in their containers. They will go into the garden around the third week of next month. I'll start some early cucumber plants and squash/zucchini plants in containers mid week, planning on speeding the harvest by a few weeks.
Last year we decided to freeze lightly cooked tomatoes and also froze several batches of marinara sauce. That worked out so well that we will increase the effort about 4x and will buy a dedicated freezer to hold the veggies. We probably will freeze both corn cut off of the cob and sugar snaps this year. Next fall and winter, we will likely freeze some greens, just to have in case cold weather takes out our winter greens early again. This year we went almost the entire winter without greens from our garden. That was painful, buying all of those tiny batches of fresh greens at $4 per week.
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hendi_alex
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 3604
- Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 7:58 am
- Location: Central Sand Hills South Carolina
Sounds great, hendi_alex. You are undoubtedly one of the most varied and productive gardeners on the forum. So many times you describe such a delicious visual of the harvest and preparation. Glad things are going well for you.
We show some very cold temps for Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, so I will have the propane heater going in the greenhouse again.
On freezing greens, I take several messes of turnips, mustard and collards to my Mom during the fall and winter. She will cook a batch and freeze most of it. She also freezes them uncooked. She has a special touch when cooking greens, so they taste great whether fresh from the garden or freezer.
We show some very cold temps for Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, so I will have the propane heater going in the greenhouse again.
On freezing greens, I take several messes of turnips, mustard and collards to my Mom during the fall and winter. She will cook a batch and freeze most of it. She also freezes them uncooked. She has a special touch when cooking greens, so they taste great whether fresh from the garden or freezer.
The weather has been weird this year. I still have a couple of broccoli still producing side shoots. I planted the original seedlings in July last year. I have pulled most of them out to plant corn, but it has been so cold that I have hon tsai tai resprouting and the lettuce, pak choi, Won Bok, romaine, and carrots are still doing well so I haven't even started my warm season crops yet. Beans are year round, but peppers are slow, epggplant and tomatoes are sprouting now, I will try some of the squash since while it is cold, it has not been particularly wet and most of their problems are with mildew. Even my sweet basil and cucumber made it through the rain without fungal issues.
