March 28th, 2012

In the main garden
Garlic, Brussels Sprouts, Asparagus, Snow peas, Snap peas, Spinach, Marigolds, Onions, Bush Beans, Radishes, Kale 

In the herb garden
Rosemary, Thyme, Sage, Parsley, Oregano, Mint, Onions

Growing indoors

Collard greens, Spinach, Bib Lettuce, Parsley, Poblano Peppers, Anaheim Peppers, Basil, Aster, Celosia, Tithonia

This week 

• Asparagus - The first asparagus spears have grown to about 18 inches.   There are about 15 spears in all, and it is really hard not to eat them.   Bobe convinced me that we should definitely wait another year before eating any of them.
• Peas - Some of them are now about 6 inches tall.  A lot came up, but it is still a little spotty. On the 26th we sowed another batch.  Maybe about 20-30 more of each.  Still in a pretty tight space, so we will see if this experiment works!
   
• Onions - The onion sets in both the vegetable garden and the herb garden broke the surface.  Some popped up in 3-4 days.   By now, I would estimate that about half of the onions have broken the surface, some reaching 6 inches high.

• Note:  Not sure if I wrote about this already, but last year we tried three types of onions from seed.  About 40 came up, but over time we ended up with about 6 onions, none of them bigger than a pearl onion.  I gave up on trying that again, but I saw a bag of onion sets at ACE for $1.99, and I couldn't resist.  I actually had not really known what onion sets were until I saw the bag. I thought onion sets were the same as bunching onions (perennial onions), but obviously I was wrong.   Onion sets look like mini dried out onions that are between a dime and a quarter in size.  One interesting thing I read, was that the smaller sets grow into bigger onions.  The ones that are closer to a quarter in size, were pulled too late, and will flower earlier, so they are best used as green onions.  Pretty cool, and definitely not intuitive.  

• Bush Beans - We sowed about 15 contender beans into the middle of the middle bed.  Probably should have dropped in 2 beans in each spot, but I figured we would try with just one and see how many come up.  Rather than dig a hole, we just pushed the beans down about 1 inch.  If I notice that some are a week behind the others, I'll just reseed the ones that failed, which will hopefully give us a nice staggered picking.  The plan is also to reseed in about a month as well.
• Radishes - Finally got the radishes in the garden, in between the garlic stalks.   They are supposed to mature in 30 days, which is really quick, so that should be fun and interesting.  Any ideas on what to do with white icicle radishes aside from salad?   Bobe said that she used to eat salted buttered radishes as a snack. That sounds pretty good.
• Kale  - Emily convinced me to use the other half of the future sweet potato bed for kale, so that is what went in this weekend.   Same as the spinach. Just sprinkled the kale all over, and added a little soil on top.  Much different than the way we did it last year, in a single row, spaced about a foot apart.
• Drip System  - After installing the first half of the drip system, I realized that because we are planting in wide rows, we actually needed way more mini sprayers/sprinklers than drippers.  The drippers are good for putting at the base of plants like tomatoes, peppers, etc, but for wide rows of greens, peas, beans, onions, etc, the mini-sprayers work great.    I also installed the drip system all the way around the front of the house, so now the whole thing is automated.  We'll have to water the grass, but aside from that, I don't think we will have to water anything garden related or any of the shrubs/bushes/flowers.