Vegetable Gardening

[Grog]

Right now, no way am I going to let these vegetables go to waste.

I have been thinking a lot about that recently, and it gives me a new take on "finish your plate."

I just have a small container "garden" this year, including four cherry tomato trees (lots of flowers, some green tomatoes, and lots of promise there!), various types of lettuce, a (single) zucchini plant (thanks Buddha Bellies!) that is gloriously blooming right now, and about a dozen beets and carrots (each). There is A LOT of love and work going into each gram of food that will come out of that "garden" because there are no economies of scale at all.

There is NO WAY I would let one leaf of lettuce go to waste from that garden. Or one single carrot. I don't think I could stand the stress of serving those beets at a dinner party when the time comes to eat them: what if a guest does not eat the beet? Or the last leaf of lettuce? I'll just keep them for myself and my husband (who's discovering what lettuce really tastes like).

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Smilingcat-
Thanks!-Yes i will certainly look into making a plastic 'hoop house' of some kind....or even some discarded glass windows set on straw bales like people used to do a lot back when. We'll see whether I success this fall with what I'm planting from seed now.

We are so much appreciating every leaf of lettuce coming out of the little garden these days! We are eating about 5 times the number of salads we used to, simply because we have all this wonderful fresh lettuce! I have so much lettuce right now that I have to give some away every few days, and I find myself very carefully picking just the right people to give some to. Makes me feel like I'm checking them out as 'suitable foster parents' for my lettuce!

One week from today my big wonderful garden fence will be in and my garden will be relatively safe (except from possible climbing raccons, but nothing is perfect). No deer, rabbits, or woodchucks will be able to eat my stuff. I can't wait!

Tiny seedlings of radish, bok choy, beets, lettuce, and kohlrabi are poking up from the ground already in pretty little green 1/4" tall rows, and I'm hoping no rabbits will mow them down over the next few days before the fence goes in. (fingers crossed) There were deer footprints through the open garden beds the other morning, but nothing much there for them to eat yet.

Oakleaf- you could always blanch and freeze a small bag of green beans for your DH's return...

[Grog]

Cute moment at dinner last night, as my husband and I talked about the "garden":

Me, excited: And there is a little zucchini that's starting to grow there! I just saw it today!

He, nonchalent: How do you know it's there?
Me, puzzled: What do you mean, how do I know it's there? It's there!
He, getting puzzled: But how can you see it?
Me, laughing: It's not growing underground!! It's above ground!

My husband thought zucchini and cucumber grew underground.

However big the quotation marks around "garden," this is proving to be educational for everybody.

[smilingcat]

Cute moment at dinner last night, as my husband and I talked about the "garden":

Me, excited: And there is a little zucchini that's starting to grow there! I just saw it today!

He, nonchalent: How do you know it's there?
Me, puzzled: What do you mean, how do I know it's there? It's there!
He, getting puzzled: But how can you see it?
Me, laughing: It's not growing underground!! It's above ground!

My husband thought zucchini and cucumber grew underground.

However big the quotation marks around "garden," this is proving to be educational for everybody.

Too funny!! But I can see this happening.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

We've been enjoying a surplus of leaf lettuces from my older little garden for the past few weeks. I have been giving fresh lettuce to a woman friend I fitness walk with, and once I gave it to her in a flat tupperware box.
She returned the box to me the other day full of soaked broccoli sprouting seeds.
This was something new to me. So I did what she told me and now three days later I had a nice 2 cup harvest of green broccoli sprouts- my first sprouts ever!

I've always liked alfalfa sprout sandwiches, so I did some quick reading on sprouting and today at the health food store I bought some more sprouting seeds to try: alfalfa, flax, and more broccoli seed.
I soaked and set some alfalfa up in a jar, and some flax in a plastic box.

Cool to think that I could grow fresh greens in the middle of winter blizzards.

Do you guys do sprouts too?

Deaimond- this is some 'gardening' you could certainly do without any land at all!

[mudmucker]

I've been doing red clover and radish sprouts for a while now. I like them better than alfalfa. There's a natural foods shop a few towns over so I get my sprouting seeds there.

[NoNo]

I stopped by my garden after work today. It's not really mine, it's my aunt's BF's, but I offered to help plant and weed in exchange for some veggies. Things are coming along, although the month of rain we had really has slowed development. The recent sunshine seems to be helping, so if things stay this way we should be in good shape. Plenty of tomatoes (those are just getting flowers now), the zucchini are starting to sprout, the eggplant and peppers are coming along well, the broccoli and cauliflower should be ok, there isn't nearly as much corn as we'd hoped, and the beans just aren't taking. There are some other veggies, I can't remember, but overall we're on the right track. And you can't go wrong with the fresh eggs from the chickens