It was a overcast, blustery winter day for this morning’s veggie harvest.
…Actually, it was in the upper 70s with a slight breeze, the birds were chirping, and the bees were buzzing busily around with giant pollen baskets on their legs. I saw at least 4 different types of butterfly- I really need to learn to identify those. One was some sort of skipper, and one was a sulfur. I didn’t get a good look at the birds, because I was concentrating on the veggies, but there were palm warblers and probably other species.
This weekend, we did some work planting. We pulled out two big dying eggplants, and transplanted some tomatoes and bell peppers that I’d had growing on the porch. I’m not sure how they’ll do over the winter, but they were being by a mysterious something at home- plus the tomatoes were threatening to grow into bunny reach. This would be bad, because they’re toxic & she’s not necessarily smart enough not to eat them.
Today I harvested several pak choy heads, a bunch of collard greens and misome, and a few radishes. I also harvested the first parts that were big enough to take of the chard and parsley- and our first carrot. The carrots are growing much more slowly than I expected- this one was growing right next to another one, so I pulled it out to give the second some space to grow.
The misome seems much more pest resistant than the pak choy. There seem to be very few things eating it. It also seems like the type of plant that can be harvested bit by bit by trimming off the outer leaves. At some point, I’m sure it’ll flower, but until then we’ll keep taking it.
About two weeks ago, I planted some onions, radishes (a different variety), more carrots, and turnips. The radishes sprouted very quickly- no surprise there- but the onions and turnips took longer. No sigh of the carrots yet- I suspect it will be a while.
We’re likely to get frost a few times this winter, so I tried to plant things that are somewhat hardy. We’ll see how it goes- it certainly hasn’t been very wintry so far.
So I harvested three plastic grocery bags full of veggies today. We’ll freeze a lot of the leafy greens and cook with them later. I’m thinking of trying to make a modified squid luau (only without the squid) with the collards.
