First Cabbage Harvest

My cabbages came back from the brink a couple weeks ago and are quickly becoming harvest-able. All my cole crops are happy for the cool weather we've been having, though if it continues I fear I will be harvesting only green tomatoes. Today I harvested my first savoy cabbage, picking one that isn't as large as it could get, but which will clear out some space for its neighbor to mature. I cut an X into the stem I left behind, which supposedly will encourage the plant to make 4 more tiny cabbage heads. We'll see.

I'm thinking of making this one into kimchi. It's not Chinese-style cabbage, but the head is loose enough that I may be able to get the salt in.

Not much else has progressed dramatically in the garden since my last post. I harvested my daikon radishes for kimchi, but they were a touch disappointing. I'd hoped they'd be bigger and/or I'd have more of them, so I wouldn't have to buy radishes from the store, but I think I'll have to. Next year I can plant a larger, longer-maturing variety for more kimchi, though.

That still didn't put a damper on my garden enjoyment, as you can see here:

Does my baby have my nose?

This past week I've just been harvesting delicious summer squash and thinning my green onions. My carrots are coming along and I ate one of the white ones today--it was wonderfully sweet and zingy. Next year I'll plant way more carrots, because they're just so much better when you grow them at home.

Hopefully the weather will warm up a bit to give everyone's garden plants the last little jolt they need. I've been talking to other people and most of them have tons of unripe tomatoes still too. My cabbages have set a lot of fruit but they're still too tiny to harvest--I'm hoping they'll all ripen at once for pickling.

Planting Turnips, Carrots, Radishes, Greens, Green Onions and assorted seedlings

Whoo hoo I did it! I finished planting everything I needed to get into the ground right away. The only things left are finding space for the remaining cole crop seedlings and digging a mound for my fall garlic planting. I finished not a moment too soon, since we're expected to get pounded by storms this evening.

Freshly planted garden, viewed from the SW corner.

And from the NE corner. Yeah, my rows aren't perfectly straight, but I don't think the plants will care.

July 16th Planted:

Roots

• Hakurei Turnip (38 days)
• Purple-Top White Globe Turnip (55 days)
• White Satin Carrot (68 days)
• Sugarsnax Carrot (68 days)
• Miyashige Daikon Radish (50 days)
• Scarlet Queen Green Stem Turnip (43 days)
• Shunkyo Semi-Long Radish (32 days)

Greens

• Garnet Giant Mustard Greens
• Toscano Kale
• Champion Collards
• Redleaf Amaranth
• Goldberg Golden Purslane
• Summerfest Komatsuna Greens
  
• Cooking Sorrel

Onions

• Evergreen Hardy White Bunching Onion
• Nabechan Bunching Onion

Cucurbits

• 8-Ball Summer Squash (2nd planting)
• Sunburst Patty Pan Summer Squash (2nd planting)
• Amour Pickling Cuke (2nd planting)

Misc. Seedlings

• 2 Watermelon Seedlings (var. unknown)
• 4 Cayenne Pepper Seedlings
• 4 Brussels Sprouts Seedlings
• 2 Purple Kohlrabi Seedlings

For most of the plantings I did a box-style layout, giving turnips 6-8" and carrots and radishes 2-3". I planted a lot of the Hakurei turnips, because I liked them so much. I really hope they grow well. The greens should be exciting too, though I don't know if the kale and collards will get beyond the 'micro-greens' stage. I tried to arrange the root crops so that the quick-maturing varieties were in a very sunny spot, which I can sow with a fall crop of greens or peas.

At this point my space is pretty much used up. I'm kicking myself for not having the neighbor till the garden further east, but I was too lazy to move the giant rock pile out of the middle of the paddock. Most of the west side is unusable because of the shade from the maple trees. Oh well...I can always refine it next year.

In other news, my peppers are looking droopy. I'm trying to water them well, but they just won't perk up. Maybe with the coming rainstorm, all the fertilizer will be mobilized and the plants can take it up and be happy. If the peppers bite the dust I'll gladly plant other stuff in their place, since it's prime real estate.