This year's veggie garden: A lot of flops and one huge success

Vegetable gardening is all but finished for the year. The occasional tomato ripens up and we're still eating onions from the garden, but for the most part, it's all over. I'll have to start buying vegetables from the grocery store within a week. That makes me so sad. (You can read about the varieties I planted here.)

Overall it was a lousy year in the vegetable garden. The tomatoes were mostly a disaster. It was so cold so late into summer that they got a really rough start. Last year I froze tons of them. This year I didn't even have enough to give away to neighbors.

The cucumbers were awful. I might have planted them too late, or maybe it was just bad weather, but I grow them almost exclusively for pickling and I didn't enough to even make one batch of pickles. We ate a few in salads and they were delicious, but if I'm going to be pickling, I need enough to make at least a few jars at a time.

 The zucchini were OK. Not great, and I never had to resort to making zucchini bread to use it up, but what we had was delicious.

The green beans were a disaster. I think green beans are probably my favorite vegetable. I didn't plant nearly enough of them and they just didn't keep producing. I had enough to make green bean soup (a summer favorite) just once and the rest were consumed in the garden. I love them raw!

Three crops that I planted at home did really well this year. The Swiss chard was amazing and just keeps on producing, to the point where we almost can't look at it anymore. The beets were so delicious, but I only really had enough for two dinners (with some leftovers to put on salads).

But the real standout was a new crop for me this year: kale. I'll be honest, I didn't like to eat kale in spring. I do love it as an ornamental. But I've learned that if I grow something, I'm much more likely to eat it and I was hoping that would be the case with this nutrient-packed superfood.

When it became clear that I planted way too many seeds in the new raised bed, I transplanted the thinned seedlings to bare spots in the circle garden by the house. To my surprise, they almost all grew and not a single critter (wild or domesticated) bothered them one bit. I still think they are gorgeous and worth planting just for that, but it turns out I love eating it too.

I planted three varieties: Redbor Kale, Rainbow Lacinato Kale and Nero di Tuscana Kale

For eating purposes my favorite has been the Nero di Tuscana, which has slim, dark leaves.

I know that kale chips are all the rage, and trust me, I've tried them. I think I tried them five separate times and every time I hated them. They sort of turned into salty dust no matter what I did.

And then I found this recipe and I'm hooked. I crave this salad all the time. It's so good. In fact, since I discovered it, this is the ONLY way I've eaten kale. I've also taken it to a couple parties where it was a huge hit, and I don't think kale is known as a big people pleaser. My recipe is a version of this one although I've changed it so much it doesn't really resemble that one much anymore.

The Impatient Gardener delicious kale salad

A BIG bunch of kale (my favorite for this is Nero di Tuscana, but other varieties work too)
About 3 ounces good parmesan cheese, shaved
One shallot
Juice from one lemon
Teaspoon of lemon zest
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Toasted pine nuts (optional)

Rinse the kale well, remove the back rib and chop crosswise into half-inch wide strips. I wash it again in a salad spinner to make sure no bugs have come along for the ride and that it's very dry.

Chop a shallot finely and combine it with the lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. You can play with the amounts, but I generally like more acid in my dressings so I do at least 50-50. Combine it all and put it in the fridge. I find that the dressing is best if you can let it sit for an hour or more to mellow a little.

Combine the kale with the shaved parmesan. I use my vegetable peeler to get wide strips of cheese. It will seem like a lot of cheese, and in fact it is, but everything else in this salad is super healthy so go for it.

Toss it all together with the dressing (go a little heavier than you would for a regular lettuce salad) and let it sit for 15 minutes or so so the kale gets a touch softer (don't worry, it won't go limp on you). Toss with pine nuts and serve.

If you try it, let me know what you think. 

This year's seed order

Since it seems like so many people are dealing with less-than-stellar spring weather, I'm making a concerted effort not to spend too much time complaining about it. So instead of mentioning that there is still a 5-foot tall pile of snow in my yard, or that I'm behind on pruning things because I can't get through the snow to actually get to them, I decided to talk about what I've ordered so far in terms of seeds.

Here's what I've ordered so far (I still need to pick up some cukes and nasturiums):

From Dagawalla Seeds & Herbs (first time ordering from them):

Huichol Nicotiana: I'll admit that I ordered these on a bit of a whim. Margaret Roach wrote about interesting Nicotianas  on her A Way to Garden blog and I feel hard for them. I figured it was worth a shot.

The seeds arrived yesterday and what I found when I opened the envelope pretty much charmed the pants off of me. Check it out ... a hand-written note (and a free pack of seeds)!

From Fedco Seeds (my first time ordering from them):

Beans: I love beans and usually eat them straight out of the garden. I never have enough beans because I get stingy with my garden space. This year I'm hoping to actually have enough. I grew Velour last year and loved it although the beautiful green color doesn't stay when you cook it.

Jade Bush Green Bean
Velour Haricots Verts
Golden Rocky Bush Wax Bean

Peas: I love peas too and this year I'm going to try to get them in on time, which never, ever happens. Cascadia is a bush variety and Sugarsnap is a taller variety that is supposed to produce really well.

Cascadia Snap Pea 
Sugarsnap Snap Pea

Beets: I didn't grow beets last year and I missed them. So they are back for this year. Margaret Roach says this is the best beet mix there is. Good enough for me.

3 Root Grex Beet

3 Root Grex Beet mix

Scallions: I never have a lot of luck with these but then again I don't treat them very well either. They are cheap and don't take up much space so I figure it's worth a try.

Evergreen Hardy White Scallion

Lettuce: More than almost anything, I love lettuce from the garden. Nothing you could ever buy in the store tastes like homegrown lettuce. I think these are mostly made up of leaf varieties, so I just cut as needed. The key is to do lots of plantings which I usually forget to do.

Lettuce Mix
DeLuxe Lettuce Mix

Swiss Chard: I have grown to absolutely love chard and I grow this one as much for the taste as for looks. This produced all summer for me last year.

Bright Lights Chard

Swiss chard 'Bright Lights'

Broccoli: I kind of hate broccoli, but I do use rapini and broccolini in a couple of recipes and I don't mind it. I've found that the best way to learn to love a vegetable is to grow it yourself. Funny how things taste better when you grow them. This kind is a non-heading variety.

Piracicaba

Kale: I love kale as an ornamental. I am always amazed at the beautiful containers Deborah Silver creates with kale. But kale is also really, really good for you and it's another vegetable I'm trying to make a concerted effort to learn to love. Whether I learn to love to eat it or not, I will certainly enjoy its beauty. And the dogs absolutely love kale (and all other leafy vegetables) so I can always feed it to them if I have too much.

Redbor Kale
Rainbow Lacinato Kale
Nero di Tuscana Kale

Redbor kale

Other than the aforementioned cucumbers and nasturiums, I think that's about it for me for seeds this year. I also grow onions from slips, and tomatoes and zucchini from plants, but mostly because I just don't need tons of those so growing from seed doesn't make a lot of sense. 

I'm excited to get growing. Now, if I could just find the vegetable garden under all this snow ....

The prettiest vegetable?

Swiss chard might be one of the prettiest vegetables there is. I admit that I started growing it for it's looks, but now I really think it's delicious and I love it with a beautiful piece of fish. Plus, it's about as easy to grow as it gets.

 

With it's shiny dark leaves and multi-colored stems, Swiss chard is absolutely a vegetable that could and should make the leap from the vegetable garden to the border.

Tomato race: I'm behind

Before we get to this post, I just wanted to mention that I did a little tree planting 101 tutorial on The Design Confidential yesterday. Basically you shouldn't do anything you've ever seen a city tree planter do, but check it out if you're looking for some info on planting the framework of your yard.

 

Late last week, I swung by the community gardens at the YMCA to check on the progress of our tomato experiment going on there. And the news, I'm afraid, is not good.

My mom's Legend tomato (in its protective plastic partial enclosure) is not only bigger than mine, it has TOMATOES! What the heck? Although her Delicious tomato has no tomatoes on it, it too is bigger than my Delicious.

Tomatoes on my mom's Legend tomato, above, and filling up its enclosure, below.

My Legend tomato. No tomatoes here and it is slightly smaller.

A few interesting shots from other gardens:

The trellis structure in the middle is just branches tied together but I really like it. Looks arty. And the marigolds brighten it up.

 

This gardener put PVC pipe sections next to all his or her tomatoes to help get water and fertilizer to the root zone.

 

These are maybe the tallest tomato cages I've ever seen, but the holes in the wire are so small I don't know how this gardener will get the tomatoes out.

Professional weather grousing

Midwesterners are professional weather crabbers. That is to say, complaining about the weather is pretty much our main hobby. The first sentence out of the mouth of many a midwestern baby has been, "Hot enough for ya?" or of course, "Cold enough for ya?" And that's pretty much what we say for the rest of our lives. It's basically what comes after "Hello" in any given conversation.

I do my best to avoid complaining about the weather on the blog too much because it just gets old after awhile. But after yet another 50-degree mid-June day, I think I've earned the right to complain a little.

My biggest problem with the weather is what it's doing to the plants. The tallest peas, which I actually planted on time this year, are only about 16 inches tall. The tomatoes appear to be stuck in some kind of time warp; most of them don't look like they've budged since I put them in the ground. That's just what's happening in the veggie garden. The annuals are ridiculously small this year and I can see that it will be a good month before the containers even look like anything. The buds on the peonies are just nickel-sized and the clematis look like they want to bloom but are afraid to.

The tomatoes and the few basil plants that look like anything anymore all seem to be stuck some sort of time warp: they don't seem to have grown at all.

Over on the other side of the garden, the peas are finally starting to climb but there is no sign of any peas. The lettuce is doing great and the beets and Swiss chard in the foreground are in dire need of thinning.

 

A new plant I'm trying this year is malabar spinach. It's supposed to be a beautiful vining plant and the leaves, which are quite thick, taste like buttery delicious spinach. I hope it lives up to the hype but it too hasn't done much since it was planted.

There are a few things that seem to like the weather. The lettuce is delicious and plentiful and the hostas seem particularly large this year. The only other good thing about the weather is that I'm so far behind in my garden maintenance that I feel like I have a little more time to get things in shape before "real" summer weather arrives.

So am I suffering alone here or has the weather in your part of the world been lousy too?

The lazy gardener's guide to seed selection

A   lot of gardeners have been blogging about ordering their seeds lately. Some of them take a strategic approach to the whole thing. Margaret at A Way to Garden orders from about a half-dozen companies. Carol at May Dreams Gardens ordered so many seeds she couldn't keep track of them. I'm sure both of these women, and many other gardeners, put a lot of effort into researching the varieties they will plant this year.

I wish I could say the same, but the fact of the matter is that I usually try to place my small seed order in one shot, with one company. I quickly read through the descriptions of the varieties, sometimes Googling them, and make my decision. I do not pore over catalogs for months before deciding. In fact, I figured out my whole seed order during my lunch hour Friday. And I still had time to eat my spinach cheese pie.

In addition to the onions, which I've already told you about, I'll plant the following things from seed (ordered from Territorial Seed) this year:

Boro Beets (a really dark red beet that's supposed to be good for roasting, which is the only way I like them)

Cannellini Lingot Beans (I've recently become enamored with Cannellini beans)

Mcpick cucumbers (a pickling cuke, but I love them fresh on salads)

Nickel Bean (a French green been)

Red Beard Onion (these are green onions or scallions)

 Super Gourmet Blend Lettuce (this is a blend of Slobolt, Buttercrunch, Red Sails, Salad Bowl, and Valmaine)

Super Sugar Snap Peas

In addition to these, I'll grow lots of tomatoes, herbs and zucchini from plants. I think I will skip the peppers and the carrots as I found them to take up too much space in my small garden for their yield.

I might still pick up a seed package here or there if I think if something I'd like to add or I realize that one of the varieties I purchased really isn't going to perform during my short growing season.

One more gardening chore checked off the list. Now we wait for the snow to melt.

The makings of a veggie garden

For the first time in my life I'm going to try my hand at vegetable gardening. Well, not the first time. When I was a kid my mom gave my brother and I some space in her veggie garden to grow things that are satisfying for kids to grow. In our case it was radishes. I detest radishes, but fortunately my dad liked them, so I would merrily pick a radish and hand it to him, waiting to watch him eat it and compliment me on how good it was.

I've also grown a lot of tomatoes (although technically I suppose that would be fruit gardening). It was actually the tomatoes that led me down this path. A few years ago I created what I call the Circle Garden. It's not a circle, but it's round so let's not get too technical about it.


It's one of my many gardens that is still under construction (although, aren't they all?). In one segment of it I planted rhubarb and tomatoes. Well that was great. For three years. And then last year my tomatoes were not doing well at all. I had yellow leaves, not a lot of fruit, and, generally, they were unhappy. I realized that the problem with the circle garden is that it doesn't allow anywhere for me to rotate where I place the tomatoes (the rest is planted with perennials and then herbs, a climbing rose and a clematis in the middle). So, last year I started thinking about a veggie garden somewhere, but where? I didn't want it too close to the house (come on, they are NOT pretty, at least not to me), but there wasn't a lot of sun elsewhere.

So we ended up putting it on the opposite side of the property (I'll explain more some other time), after cutting down a few huge pine trees. But the inspiration for this garden—the thing that REALLY made it happen—was lunch at the Kumeu River Vineyard in Auckland, New Zealand. It was there where I saw this raised veggie garden.


The problem there was the birds, but without the top netting I thought this kind of garden would work perfectly to combat the deer and bunny issues we have. So my dear husband set to work and built me something like it. This is the first bed completed.I'll have post more on the veggie garden soon. I'm really excited. Now if those veggies would just hurry up and grow (oh yeah ... have to plant them first.)