Ramps, Ramps and more Ramps!

I went for a walk in a park after work and found a hill covered in ramps! So of course had to pick few

- I could have picked truck full of it if I wanted! Some will be eaten and some will be planted.

 Just look at these beautiful bulbs just asking to either grill or sauté them! or make a soup or add in a salad.

 So I ended up with a steak and sautéed ramps in balsamic reduction. YUM!

Harvest Monday, May 13th

I forgot to post harvest for today's Daphne's Harvest Monday, May 13th so apologies in advance. Here are some shots throughout the week based on what I felt like eating or snacking on :)

Too bad we got hit with frost last night and will again tonight but too early to see what damage if any. How does your garden grow these days?

Around the garden May 10

Some pretty visuals of what's changing in the garden, starting with some pretty flowers

 

Here are some flowers promising many berries later in summer and some greens.

And some regular greens for the kitchen.

And some not so pretty - these is a lot of damage from bugs and snails once again and looks like Asian greens took the brunt of  it, even if everything has been covered by floating row covers. And since I refuse to spray all this will be pulled out.

Transplanting seedlings

Today was a very good day to transplant my seedlings - tomatoes and peppers first. Originally I planted two 36-seed trays of tomatoes and about 24 peppers. As usual tomatoes turned into a "forest" and have been hardening off outside during the day, but only 50 will be planted in the main garden. Since we're supposed to have rain for next two days and temps in 70s today was perfect for transplant. Let's hope they like sunshine and rain.

 As you can see I already moved some to a large pots - these will be moved yet again over the weekend into 14" pots for the patio garden. I really hope that no more groundhog damage this year. Though raccoons visit is definitely a problem already.  Anyway, here are my slow-growing peppers. I have a bed in the large garden amended with composted sheep manure so hopefully it will help growing.

 The sweet onions that I planted from seeds are only now ready to be planted outside - they're actually going to go for the Community garden - I've run out of space in my own garden so will have to give them up.

 Another two novelties for me - fennel and artichokes. I've never grown either one so will be interesting to watch these. They'll be transplanted over the weekend to the unprotected bed and I hope deer won't eat them.

And lastly these two containers with tomatoes will be going for my coworker's garden so hope they'll keep growing and produce for her well!

How does your garden grow these days?

First May weekend in the garden

It's been another busy weekend in the garden, really wish I had more time to play outside during the week to catch up on all the weeding - so far weeds grow much faster than anything else. So far greens are very slow in growing, and peas are really having hard time growing  - they're only about 4" tall so not sure if we'll have many peas for snacking and definitely won't be as good as last year.

 

But at the same time I picked few more asparagus shoots, couple of young onions for crabcakes, and some radishes and few leaves of salad for lunch today.

Have to say lunch turned out very yummy!

And of course more planting has been done - beans were planted, both pole and bush varieties: Brittle Wax, Roc D'or, Purple Queen, Velour, Fortex, Asparagus bean, Red Noodle, French Gold, Lima and Soy beans. I'm yet to plant green beans in the small garden - Blue Lake and Tenderbush.

Then I did 4 rows of corn that my hubby likes - it will be sharing space with squashes and watermelon, which were also seeded but I'm thinking it was too early. We'll see if they grow well or not.  I planted 3 varieties of watermelon - Sugar Baby, Black Diamond and Million Bucks and 2 cantaloupe varieties.

On opposite site of the same bed I planted zucchini, yellow squash and cucumbers - Diva, pickler and marketmore. On another bed another set of cucumbers - spacemaster, endeavor, green fingers and straight eight.

I also went to the local farm and raided their nursery - added few more peppers to the ones I already had growing as they're not growing as fast as they should - so I picked up habanero and banana peppers. And I was surprised how little their selection of tomatoes was this year and how tiny they are -  mine are about a foot tall and ready to go into the ground now! But it's still too chilly for them so I'll wait at least another week to transplant.  I also got few packets of "flower mix" and sprinkled them all over the back of the garden and at the side of the house where so far we haven't been able to grow anything - if they take and bloom then great, and if not - no big loss.

And I also went to the community garden today and got my plot assigned. I was hesitant if I'd sign up to it again given busy schedule and all, but it really feels good when I know someone else can enjoy fresh organic veggies. So I'll plant zucchinis and tomatoes and some peppers there. It's all good.