Peas

This is it!  Pea season is officially over.  I pulled a number of peas off the vines today.  They taste great.  I got about 5 peas for each plant.  No fertilizer, just weeding and watering.

Cilantro

The cilantro bolted!  See the pictures of the pretty white “flowers” — that’s cilantro which went to seed.  I grew Slo-Bolt Cilantro.  So much for slow bolting.  Actually, it has been growing since the last frost.  It’s also from seeds that overwintered in that bed.

Tomatoes

Tomato season is almost here!  The first early tomatoes have started to fruit.  They are only a half inch in diameter.  In another 2 weeks, we should have some cherry tomatoes.

Lettuces

The lettuce looks great.  The Rocky Top is a strong grower.  The European Mesculan was a bust.  I cleared out the cilantro bed and planted arugula, salad greens, and mizuna.  In another 3 weeks, I’ll have more greens than I can deal with.

Cucumbers and Watermelon

Both went in the ground two weeks ago and the seedlings look great.  I’m going to try to grow these two up on stakes and trellis in the hopes of growing more in a smaller area.  I’ve never done it like this, so we’ll see what happens.

Chard

The chard which got water logged last week came back under the hot, hot sun.  It doesn’t like too much sun, but due to the flood of water, it’s doing ok.

Clean Up!

It’s not all growing.  Today was a big clean up day.  Planted sunflower seeds in an area next to the compost bin and cleaned up some of the beds.  In the next few weeks, I’ll have more clean up as the pea plants come out and something new comes in.

Related articles:

1. On the Farm, June 19, 2009
2. On the Farm, June 6, 2009
3. On the Farm, June 12, 2009

In the harvest is peas, spinach, rocky top lettuce, radishes, and cilantro. Here is what’s going on around the farm:

Lincoln Peas

Pea harvest season is here.  I’m guessing I’ll get about 3 weeks of peas.  The peas are looking real good this week.  A couple of the pods are huge and the are tasty.  The smaller plants actually seem to have more pods on them than the really big plants.  I put down a little extra fertilizer today to keep the growth going.  All of this watering is doing them well.

Tomatoes

I’ll have to do a tomato comparison, but I believe some of the tomato plants grew two feet or more this week.  Two of the plants are approaching four feet today.  Still weeks away from a tomato, they are looking great.  Again, put some fertilizer down to make sure the plants get a solid start before fruiting begins.

Chard

The swiss chard appears to be the only plant in the garden that can’t take the rain.  A few of the chard plants are washed out.  Chard is a fast grower, so I’ll replant next week if they don’t recover (sometimes they do).  Chard likes cooler weather, so I’ll need to replant in the shady section.

Peppers

We have multiple branches now on most of the pepper plants.  I feel like the peppers are growing really slow, but they aren’t do to fruit for a long time.  When compared to the tomatoes, they look like slow moving turtles.  Next month I’ll complain how they are growing too fast, I’m sure.

Radishes

I’ve pulled all of the radishes out of the ground that I’ve planted.  About a 75% success rate — that is, 75% of the seeds I planted, I pulled full radishes out of the ground.  I’ll wait a few weeks and replant some more.  Essentially, you can keep planting radishes all summer.  I take a bit of a break so I can figure out mid-summer spacing and replanting.  Radishes are easy, go anywhere plants — I can put them where ever I have space.

Cucumbers

I’m so happy to say that the cucumbers are in full growth in the garden.  I probably planted too many plants this year, but that should be the least of my problems.  I’m growing a traditional pickling variety and the seeds sprouted and have a great start.

Rocky Top Lettuce

The rocky top lettuce looks like a great variety to grow.  They are growing tightly (which makes for less weeding) and strongly.  I cut four inch leaves today.  They’ll be great for sandwiches.

The rain is really accelerating growth this week.  With the temperature turning from mid 70s to mid 80s this week, I expect some great growth and harvesting next week.

Related articles:

1. On the Farm, June 6, 2009
2. On The Farm, June 26, 2009
3. On the Farm, June 12, 2009

Cilantro

Wow, the cilantro is growing strong.  I’ve picked a number of bunches of cilantro today.  Too bad the tomatoes aren’t ready to go as they would make great salsa.   The cilantro smells so good.  This is slow bolt cilantro.  Cilantro bolts or goes to seed and becomes bitter very quickly.  Slow bolt cilantro is suppose to go to seed much slower.  You can see from the first photos a slight difference in some of the cilantro.  This is the cilantro slowly starting to bolt.

Radish

The radishes are huge today.  I’ve pulled a number of radishes out of the ground today.  Also for the first time in 5 years, we have a critter in the garden.  Based upon what was eaten and the location (and also what I normally see in the garden), I’m guessing I have rabbits.  I’ll keep an eye on it and hopefully the rabbits will eat only a reasonable amount.  They are hungry after all.

Peppers

The peppers are starting to grow.  They’ve been about 3 inches tall for the past few weeks and they’ve added about two inches in the past few days.  We are a long way to actually eating a pepper, but they are looking good.

Rocky Top Lettuce

The rocky top is going strong.  I took a small batch of baby lettuces out today and they tasted wonderful.  The rocky top is delicate when it is in the baby stage, but in another couple of weeks we’ll have a strong batch of lettuce.  At this point they are growing very tightly together and require almost no care, which is a treat.

Peas

Check out the peas — we’ve got pods.  I’m so excited.  I’ve never grown peas before so I was surprised to notice the snaps growing on the vine.  There are about 4 pea pods per plant — a little less than I expected.  I was able to pull a pod and took a picture of the inside.  I think they need a week or two more but so far they taste great.  I also took a picture of the pea blossoms.

Garlic

The garlic is growing perfectly.  It was planted in the fall and is about 3 to 5 feet tall today.  There are a variety of theories on growing garlic, one of which is to cut the tops of the garlics — called the scapes — to allow for the bulbs to focus on growing.  I’ve cut the scapes and I haven’t cut the scapes and have found no difference.  Anyway, I cut some scapes — enough for me to throw in a stirfry.  I have some pretty good pictures of the scapes.  It looks to be a great garlic season.

Beans

The greasy grit beans are going strong.  This is also my first year growing beans so we’ll have to see how they grow.

Related articles:

1. On The Farm, June 26, 2009
2. On the Farm, June 19, 2009
3. On the Farm, June 6, 2009

The cilantro patch in full bloom.

Related articles:

1. Live from the Farm: Radish
2. Live from the Farm: First Garlic Harvest
3. Live From the Farm: Weeds

Carrots

Carrots among the Garlic

The carrots were planted on a windy day.  Good news, they’ve seeded and are growing nicely.  Bad news, they aren’t all in the places that they were planted.  This happens and I don’t get too worried about it.  The picture above shows a carrot growing among the garlic plants.  It will be interesting growing two in-the-ground plants right next to eachother.  So far — so good.

Tomatoes

Tomato Plant, May 27, 2009

The tomato plants are looking good.  For the first time, I planted the plants in the order in which they’ll bloom (early season, mid-season, and late season).  Not suprisingly, the plants are growing at the same rate.  Above is an early season tomato plant which is growing considerably faster than the other tomato plants.  It’s hard to tell from the angle, but the plant is about a foot tall (the other plants are still in the 8 to 10 inch range).

Peppers

Peppers, May 27, 2009

The peppers are strong, but they haven’t been growing high.  Peppers thrive in heat (which is the reason no many people grow hot peppers in the Midwest — the hotter the pepper, the more heat and sun you need).  We’ve been averaging upper 60s for the past few weeks and the pepper plants need 80s.  I’m hoping the weather picks up a bit and they’ll start to take off.

Herbs

Parsley and Cilantro, May 27, 2009

Cilantro and parsley are tough herbs to start.  I’ve had many failed attempts at getting both to sprout and I’m happy to say there were no problems this year.  Above you’ll see a few solidly growing cilantro and italian parsley plants.  If you’ve never grown the two, it’s actually a little hard to tell them apart.  Usually the smell test works — cilantro has a strong distinct smell.  Please disregard my lack of weeding.  Honestly, I’ve made mistakes and pulled herbs instead of weeds so I like to give it just a little time to establish themselves to figure out whether it is a weed or not.

Peas

Peas, May 27, 2009

The spinach is also going strong.  I have three different stages of spinach growing right now.  The picture above is from the first batch.  I can start cutting each of these plants for some baby spinach, but I think I’m going to let it grow just one more week.  There is another set of plants about 2 weeks behind and then a third set which just popped out of the ground.

A good start and plenty more pictures to take and a couple of more seeds to get in the ground in the next week.

Related articles:

1. Peas, Spinach, Radishes and More…Growing
2. On the Farm, June 19, 2009
3. Friday Growing

Cilantro is fresh — coriander is the seeds that grow when the plant bolts.  Cilantro bolts fast.  If this is your first time growing Cilantro, grow slow bolt cilantro to allow the fresh leaves to grow longer without bolting (or sending up the coriander seeds).

When I think Salsa, I think Mexico.  When I think Mexico, I think Oaxaca.  Oaxaca was the origin for maize, beans, cacao, tomatoes, chili peppers, squash, pumpkin, and turkeys. Also available in the fertile region of Oaxaca were pineapples, avocados, zapotes, and maguey.

If I were to go off the grid, I would probably go off the grid in Oaxaca.  Ok, back to growing…

I grow:

Cilantro Oaxaca
Nice strain from the Zapotec people in Oaxaca, Mexico. Excellent flavor and good bolt resistance. It is also a good producer of coriander.

Cilantro is tough to grow.  It’s another plant I would normally start inside, but this year I’m trying directly in the ground.  Half the plants I cut for things like salsa.  The others I let bolt to send up the coriander seeds.  I cut the plants and allow the seeds to dry and then pull them off the stocks.  The coriander seeds will last all winter.

What seems like a simple plant provides a lot of different options.

Related articles:

1. On the Farm, June 12, 2009
2. On The Farm, June 26, 2009
3. In the Ground: Parsley