Currently Browsing: Vegetables
Celery
I bought some celery starts at the local garden center this spring, even though I didn’t think celery would grow here on the wet side of the Cascades. Celery needs a long growing season, 5 months, and cool weather. We have the 5 months (May through September), but generally not cool summers....
Kale flower buds
My over-wintered kale decided it was time to produce seeds in March. We had unusually warm weather in February and March which triggered the kale clock to get on with it and produce the next generation. It bolted, forming single towering stalks with flowers. Normally when vegetable greens...
Winter Red Kale
Kale is a perfect vegetable garden plant. It will grow almost anywhere. It survives our Puget Sound winters without cover. It tastes best in the cool seasons, especially after a frost. It’s easy to cook. It’s delicious. It’s good for you. Wow. I plant every year for...
Spring leeks
The little leeks planted last fall are wonderfully tasty this spring. These leeks were the last to be transplanted last year, intermingled with small cabbage transplants. The cabbages, alas, froze to death in that very cold snap in November, but the leeks lived. They will be good until the...
Growing leeks
The Roman emperor Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned, but he did like his leeks. Egyptians grew them from at least the 2nd millennium B.C.E. As did the Mesopotamians. The leek is the national symbol of Wales, originating from a battle in a leek field (Wikipedia). I’m sure there...
Elephant garlic flower bud on scape.
Flowering plants, aka angiosperms, appeared on land 125-250 million years ago, depending on what fossil you are looking at, how you classify angiosperms, what author you are reading, and whether you have looked closely at that strange rock you picked up on vacation...
Spinach, May 27.
Cool nights, damp days, occasional sun breaks: perfect weather for spinach. We planted our spinach on March 21. Last frost is usually March 15, but this year we had frost through March. It didn’t seem to hurt the spinach. This year’s seeds were from Territorial Seed; Olympia...
New lettuce plants.
Lettuce is a name for a Tokyo Mew Mew anime character, a rager band [sorry, no link], a group of ladies [no, no link], an initiative to prevent e. coli eruptions, a Sydney taxi driver with a blog, a Yuma Lettuce Days festival, and, well, you get the idea. Pets are probably named...
Chive buds.
Chives wave their hollow leaves (known as “straws”) gently in the breezes, their purple buds dancing along with the beat. I think they are trying to attract attention. They are mentioned only in passing in chapters on alliums. Yet they can be found in most herb gardens and kitchen...
Young Rhubard March 18.
Another weird plant. Rhubarb stalks look like celery, but they are nothing like it. The stalks are edible, the leaves are poisonous. The roots last for years. The taste is wonderful! Rhubarb is also called the pie plant. My great aunt did. She loved rhubarb pie.
When we moved...
The Celery Challenge
Kale Flowers
Winter Kale
Spring Leeks
The Gourmet’s Onion: Leeks
Elephant garlic scapes
Spinach weather
Lettuce By Any Other Name
The Little Allium
Pie Plant Heaven