The Taste Of Green
I simply love this time of the year when the days are clear, the nights are cool, the maples are blooming, the buds are swelling on the trees, and so many green things – good to eat too – are poking out of the ground, …
Tag: lettuce
Before The Rain
Before the rain is a good time to: 1. transplant Swiss chard 2. transplant lettuce 3. check on tomato seedlings in greenhouse. Sigh. Too early to transplant outside. BUT
Hardening Off
It’s time to start hardening off the babies. At least, for those of us in the Northern Piedmont (and in the mid-Atlantic area). Yep, time to start hardening off the hardy annual vegetables that were lovingly started indoors. That include you people who took one of my “Starting The Veggy Garden from Seeds” workshops a few weeks ago.
Everything but parsley – maybe lavender and pepper (they all can take several looong weeks to germinate) – should be up now.
Continue to give basil, tomatoes, pepper, marigolds and any other warm lovers like eggplants plenty of light and warmth. Take them outside on sunny days only when the temperature is above 50F/10C (mmm… maybe even 60F/16C for eggplants). Place them in a sheltered spot, just an hour or two the first time, then more and more progressively over the course of a few days until they can be left out the entire day when it’s mild. It’s not time to plant them out yet – by a long shot – but fresh air and sunshine will do them good. Continue reading Hardening Off
Simple Pleasures from the Quasi-Winter Garden
The lettuce beds are looking lush and fluff – if you lift the agricultural fabric swaddled over them, that is – providing huge bowls of greens, but, with the temperature regularly dropping below freezing (at night only for now, thankfully), I am hungering for soup. …
Fall Salad Days
I think I love my kitchen garden more in the fall then in the spring: cooler temperatures are accompanied by a lot less bugs and the beds are brimming with salad greens (sorrel, lettuce, frisée, endive, mache, arugula), cooking greens (tatsoi, pakchoi and other mustard, …