Today I put a few tomato seedlings in the ground (2 Momotaro and 1 Brandywine) and also direct-sowed butternut squash (Waltham) and cucumbers (Longfellow). I planted my dahlias (four out of the five I overwintered in the basement survived) and sprinkled cosmos seeds in between.
The basil plants had some damage from something/someone chewing on them, there were some big holes in the leaves. I hope they will recover.
Rhubarb, asparagus and a giant overwintered leek.
I planted basil and sage in the plot and checked on the progress of my vegetables I planted from seed: the peas, radishes, lettuce and chard came in nicely. The beets are just starting to show. So does the kale but the flea beetles are hard at work here this spring. The carrots are a no-show.
The seedlings – Brussels sprouts and leeks – are looking good.
Over the past couple of days I finalized my back porch plans. As usual there will be lots of herbs, which will make it easy for me to put the final touches on our family dinners. Specifically, I planted cilantro, Thai basil, Greek oregano, mint, sage, lavender, German thyme and rosemary. The sage and the rosemary are leftovers from last year that I overwintered in our kitchen, the sage is slowly coming back to life after I had chopped it back to a small stump. The mint is from my community plot, where despite my best efforts to eradicate it, it keeps coming back every year.
I also have basil in a big pot growing together with a hot pepper (Jedi) and flat parsley growing with a Japanese eggplant. In addition, there is a pot where I sowed butter lettuce and another one with rainbow Swiss chard. The last big pot is empty and will likely have a patio-style tomato.
With help from my plot neighbor David who generously offered to share his bounty. About a third comes from my asparagus micro-patch, seen below a couple of days earlier, the rest is from his patch. And this asparagus mushroom tart is what I will be making for dinner tonight, but I will use regular pizza dough instead of puff pastry and will substitute cremini mushrooms. So good!
Today I planted my potatoes. It is a bit late, but so is everything this year. I planted Magic Molly, a purple variety, and Banana fingerlings, both seed potatoes from Moose Tubers in Maine. The Magic Mollies (six cut-up pieces with nice large eyes) went in next to the fence behind the asparagus and the fingerlings were planted in two rows next to the garlic. When I was digging the trenches, I found a ton of worms in the soil. Yay! I also planted sunflowers in my plot.
On our back porch, I planted Swiss Chard, lettuce and nasturtiums and transplanted some mint I had weeded out in my plot into a planter. Other plans for my back porch include tons of herbs – sage, thyme, rosemary, parsley, basil, Thai basil, maybe cilantro -, eggplant, hot pepper and perhaps a small-fruiting tomato variety. And a few pots with flowers.
I have been volunteering at the greenhouse at City Natives on Tuesday mornings. I had done that years ago and started again this spring. What a magical place to be, especially during our cold and wet spring here in Boston. Those tomato seedlings in the picture above smell so lovely – the smell of summer! I love helping to take care of the seedlings in the greenhouse and hoop house and the vegetable beds outside. Especially, since I did not start seedlings myself this year and my garden is just waking up after a very long winter. So good to get gardening again!
City Natives is an educational urban farm, run by The Trustees of Reservations. The farm runs classes on-site and throughout the city, teaching urban gardeners anything from garden planning over pest control to foraging and bee-keeping. Most of the seedlings will be sold at two plant sales, at City Natives on May 12 and on May 19 in the South End.
My garden had a very late start this year. I just started planting seeds today, April 27, which I think is the latest I have ever started. We had an extremely long and wet winter, with sleet and freezing rain just last week. But now, spring seems to have arrived for good. Today I seeded carrots, radishes, beets, lettuce, peas, kale and Swiss Chard. Because of the birds that have been raiding my peas these past two years, I decided to try row covers this year, which I placed over my two rows of peas and the row of lettuce in between. We’ll see what happens.
The rhubarb is starting to come up (see picture above), but I will need to add more compost on my rhubarb mound. The garlic is also coming up nicely. Unlike my plot neighbor, I do not have asparagus yet. I hope there will be some. I am thinking of starting a larger asparagus patch in my garden next year.
Garlic
Freshly planted plot, with some leeks still standing from last season
It is the end of January and a few days ago, I finished the last of the hot peppers I grew in a container on our porch. I had harvested them in November and stored them in the refrigerator. I was surprised how well they kept. I was sad to see them go, but I got a fuzzy feeling cutting them up and adding them to a tasty beef chili. Nothing better than cooking with home-grown veggies from the garden. In the middle of winter no less. I also still have home-grown carrots in the fridge and of course lots of garlic in the pantry. I think the garlic will last me all through the season.
Leeks … the only thing still growing in my plot. Today I spent a few hours in the garden harvesting my last carrots, parsley and kale and a handful of leeks before I did a final weeding of my plot and added a cover of salt marsh hay for the winter. I checked on the garlic and saw a couple of thin green sprouts.
I am sad the season is coming to an end, but it was a pretty good one. Tonight for dinner, we had roasted vegetables (the leeks, carrots and garlic came from my garden) with a smokey yogurt dip and salad (parsley from the garden). It always feels good to have home-grown food on the table.
September bouquet: dahlias, parsley, radishes and asparagus
The four dahlias I planted this year gave me plenty of flowers for beautiful arrangements all summer and fall, big and small. I liked experimenting with combinations of flowering vegetables and even weeds.
Mini dahlia in soy sauce dish
Unfortunately, the night frost we had a few days ago killed them off and the day after, I dug up the tubers. I cut off the flower stalks leaving about 3 to 4 inches and carefully dug up the tubers using a pitchfork and then gently shook off most of the dirt. I am letting them dry in a paper bag for a few days before I will store them over the winter in the basement. I will trim the stalks to 1 to 2 inches and store the tubers in a basket or some other well ventilated container loosely filled with lightly moistened peat moss or vermiculite. I then inspect them regularly during the winter to make sure they do not rot and do not dry out. Any rotting parts will be removed. Here’s to hoping they will survive.
