Your Warm Season Greens

[digitS']

This very same post is in the "eating from the garden" thread.

Chard!

This has worked so well I will mention it in 2 threads : here and in the warm season greens threads. Yeah!

In something like 6 weeks from sowing, the chard is plenty big enough for the kitchen. The edible amaranth was last week. They beat out the bok choy through the heat of mid-summer, growing where the potatoes had grown, through several months earlier. Yay!

I harvested a few bok choy plants today, for stir fry tomorrow. From 3 sowing beginning in mid-July and including the last group, which will be moved into the greenhouse next month, I should have bok choy any 2016 day from here on out .

Since orach volunteers were moved in amongst the potatoes when they were planted about the first of April, this bed has already been in continuous production for 5 months. Bushels of potatoes, all those greens, a couple of handfuls of snow peas soon, even several flats of plants for the winter greenhouse. Imagine if my entire vegetable garden was maintained to this level of production ..!

Steve

 

[journey11]

Excellent eating there. I'm just hoping I can squeeze a few more things in now. Took me too long to get to some of them and had to cross them off the list. Succession planting is a real art form. One my poor addled brain has yet to master. I tend to hang on to things too long before pulling them out and miss my window. Been contemplating what I might do for a cover crop this late too. Turnips maybe? Winter rye?

 

[digitS']

I've planted Austrian winter peas as a late cover crop. Since they were supposed to survive the winter and make rapid growth in the spring, and didn't, I decided it was a fail ... By my estimate, only 10% of the seedlings survived the subzero winter. I remember that there wasn't much snow cover that winter and I kind of watched them being slowly burned to a crisp .

Maybe, I would have been better off growing something that could be expected to perish in the cold, like oats. Oats surprises me. It's best to sow the seed very early in the spring, before the final frosts is fine. However, I guess it can be expected to winter-kill as a fall cover crop. It may not be cold enough in your winters, @journey 11 . You should think about how you would deal with oats surviving into spring, if you go that route.

No experience with oats as a cover crop but I have grown winter rye early and late. It's way too late here for the preferred course. I had such great stands of rye by April 1st from late July planting! Tilling it in was difficult if I planted the seed later but I could pull TALL July-sown rye in April with my hands and compost it. Maybe some day I'll do that again.

Yeah, turnips might work and there is a variety of Daikon radish that is used as a forage or cover crop. Here's another brassica but I'm not growing them for overwintering. This is just after the original planting (there, near the top) was thinned today and what was taken out, given more room. They are all a little topsy turvy after the experience . Bok choy:

Those are another plant that will winter-kill ... or, about 90% of them will. Of course, I expect few will be left after October harvest.

BTW. The tiny seedlings in between the original planting and the transplants ... those are intended for transplanting to the greenhouse and a December harvest. I hope I wasn't too late getting the seed in. They are tiny!

Steve

 

[digitS']

Here's the bok choy for tomorrow's stir-fry. They are from the first sowing in July. Those are in that bed but not in the picture with the transplants.

Steve

 

[ninnymary]

Steve, your produce is always gorgeous! If I lived close by, I would be your shadow, trying to learn as much as I could.

Mary

 

[Nyboy]

Ditto Steve 2nd shadow here.

 

[digitS']

Where freezing temperatures and frozen soil occurs, we cannot expect production from our vegetable gardens 12 months out of the year. (True also with searing heat ...) It's unlikely that most of us would willingly give up crops that take 3 or 4 months to mature. Even the early-maturing potatoes were in their allotted ground for about 3 1/2 months. We can, however, interplant and succession plant. We can transplant into and out of a garden bed.

Not every square foot is available for changes through the growing season. Scheduling has to be based on our location and crop. I don't know that counting back days-to-maturity from first frost often works. Shortening daylight hours and cooler late season days will alter those dtm numbers for most plants. Further, some plants make rapid growth in cool temperatures, others in warm temperatures. It's likely that there is a balance and those that do best in some situation will be inhibited or bolt to seed outside of the preferred conditions ...

Journals are a good thing. Each year is a little different but maintaining a calendar gives us guidance, especially if it results in success for one year/one crop. Year to year variables can be overcome partly by having diversity in the garden. Even including more than one variety of the same vegetable is a good idea, if we have room. But, there will inevitably be seasons when something fails. Maybe something else thrives.

I haven't figured it out. I take an easier route that fits well with stir-fries, emphasizing leafy greens. You know how it goes -- first the leaves, then the flowers, next the fruit, and finally the seed. Harvesting at the leaf stage lowers the risk of loss. Still, those leaves are often the favorite of pests. I gotta pay attention ...

And, I like to try new things!

Steve