GA: Broccoli harvest FOY! (piracicaba) And kale and chard too!

2 or 3 of the piracicabas have already sent flower heads up and a few flowers started opening so I harvested them.  Not very big, just enough to snack on during the ride home, none left at home.

Also did a first small harvest of kale and chard.

GA/BY: Harvest so far (seems puny)

Here's what's been harvested so far this year:

kale

chard

broccoli (including a nice head of Belstar tonight)

basil (not a lot though)

stevia

peppers -- mostly jalapeno or hungarian sweet, not a ton -- and all pepper plants look kinda pathetic

garlic scapes from the few garlics that produced scapes

No zucchini yet, though looking at last year the first was July 4th, and this year a few are on the way so it's not that far behind.

Leafy green harvesting galore: kale, chard, broccoli leaves

(The broccoli leaves are from pruning to avoid them touching the tulle, to hopefully avoid cabbage moth egg-laying.)

Alternating with a salad one day, and sauteed the next.  And OMG adding nutritional yeast to the sauteed version takes it to major NEXT LEVEL.

Great greens harvest: Chard (fordhook and barese), kale, lettuce

 ^^^

And another chard harvest -- still under plastic

^^^

Another chard harvest -- still under plastic (mild day today)

Not sure how much they're actually growing given the cold weather and low sun, but it's nice to get a few more harvests.

Chards semi-flopped from cold; will cover from tonight's snow

Last night wasn't particularly cold -- minus 5 -- but today the central bed's chards are semi-flopped and didn't bounce back during the day.  So, did a potentially-final? harvest.

Snow is coming tonight/tomorrow (5 to 10 cm) so just for fun I decided to cover the chards (and the mini late-sow lettuce).  Placed a tall fence over them then simply draped the blue curtains over the chards (including the ones against the west house, which haven't flopped yet) and a sheet over the lettuce.

Un-tulled central kale/chard

Noticed today that the tulle had been lifted up at a spot, by the tall kale.  This piece of tulle is just not big enough to contain the tall plants, so I decided just to un-tulle it and use these ones for mulching, since there's more than plenty in the west kale bed for eating.

First harvest of kale, chard, lettuce (which are all doing great)

^^^

Have been hardening all of the cold hardies

For the last week or two most of the cold hardies (chard, parsley, celery, piracicaba broccoli) that I started inside have been hardening off, now just coming in on the coldest nights.  Should be ready to transplant soon.

WS-potted up sprouted chard and round 2 Waltham broccoli

So, for the Waltham broccoli, there is round 1 indoors which continues to all look horrible (while the indoor piracicaba still looks all great) -- and now this PT-sprouted-then-directly-potted-up-for-WS round 2.

When more of the chard sprouts I'll do up some for indoors.

Final chard and green onion harvest due to yard makeover

Needed to pull out the chard and green onions to complete phase 1 of the yard makeover.  The chard was still going strong, and the roots were 1 foot long.  Makes me a wee nervous about next year when the central bed depth of good stuff is going to be like half that, but, we'll see.

Kale harvesting galore -- lettuce and swiss chard too

Have been harvesting lots of kale.  Chard isn't being as productive but still getting some harvests.  Tons of lettuce -- and there's no need at all to thin lettuce -- it's fine for it to be super thick, still get lots of harvest.

Lots of kale, lettuce, and chard being harvested for salads

Ok I have wayyyyyy too much lettuce.  No way in heck can I eat it all especially as I'm favouring kale and chard for their more healthiness.

Perfect amount of kale I think, with ~16 or so plants.

Good amount of chard too, with ~10 or so plants.

Making lots of salads with the Transformed Salad kit from Pure Kitchen.  For some reason though I was disappointed, the dressing lacks kick, it's kind of blah, I would have sworn it's not the same dressing as on the Transformed Salads I had, but oh well, still enjoyable.

First salad of the year: chard, kale, lettuce

Very nice!

Salad harvests! (lettuce, chard, onion)

The lettuce I started March 25th is doing very well, now at the stage for picking nice baby greens (individual leaves).  The chard are also at the nice young stage for picking leaves for salad.

Harvesting update

Harvesting update reflecting where things are at these days:

Zucchini:  TONS have come in already.  Probably 30-40.  Freezer really filling up.

Tomatoes:  Just starting.  A few cherry tomatoes here and there, and one large one.

Ground cherries:  Trickling in, like the cherry tomatoes.  Finding some on the ground, empty...

Beets:  Two so far, one of which was quite small.

Garlic:  Two so far, both quite small, only 4 cloves each.

Carrots:  One so far, just for fun.  Disappointingly not a good flavour, but edible.

Chard:  Haven't been harvesting much, but plants doing well.  Some were getting shaded by zucchini plant so they really stretched up and have long stalks.  Have now pulled back the zucchini leaves to give more sun to the chard.

Peppers:  A few jalapenos, which really aren't hot.  A few banana peppers.  Scooter harvested one very young and small green pepper.

They've sprouted already!

Wow, that didn't take long.  Quite a few of the cabbage, chard, and kale seeds sowed on Sunday are up already.

Harvest: Kale, chard, bok choi

Just like the title says.

For the kale, tried a new recipe.  Kale salad (i.e. chopped kale) with a great chickpea dressing.  So easy, and pretty good!  I omitted the suggested "potato croutons" out of laziness, but will try them sometime.

Used the chard and choi for my tofu / yellow pepper rice dish.

Harvest: Kale, chard, green onions

Woo!  Used some kale, chard, and green onions for a vegetable soup recipe. 

And wow, WHAT a different the multiplier onion sets are compared to the normal onions.  You get soooooo many more green onions!  Multiple little green onions per bulb instead of just one.