Baymule’s 2019 Garden

[digitS']

... is that Good King Henry in the foreground

Curious about that perennial plant. How it tastes ... if it has an invasive habit ... if a crop can be grown and harvested through summer ..?

Orach was such a common volunteer in a previous garden. I may not have quite the same conditions needed, these days. Sown seed produced a nice bunch in the hoop house that we brought in for dinner. Space is at a premium in there, however. For years, I had so many volunteers that I had only the need to assign a place for one or two to go to seed, transplant several dozen that were in the way of other plantings, and plow right through excess seedlings.

Lambs quarters were available for harvest in the big veggie garden when I recently plowed through with the rototiller. It really isn't the same as orach, not as flavorful, not as tender, and not many plants of useful size on that recent day - meanwhile, with orach at home, waiting for harvest. Besides, leaving it to go to seed seems too risky. But, what of the spinach cousin to these, Good King Henry?

Steve

 

[baymule]

What is Good King Henry?

 

[Trish Stretton]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitum_bonus-henricus

The plant I see in your pic looks like the one I have finally got to grow- sort of has a whitish dusty look to the tops.

I try to leave room for old plants when I find them along with beneficial weeds after I decided that I wasnt growing food just for myself, but for the locals (birds and insects) as well.

 

[baymule]

We fenced off the "good" parts of the garden yesterday and let the sheep in on the rest. In a few days, the garden will be cleared and I can pull by hand the so called cultivated areas. Yeah, right.

 

[baymule]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitum_bonus-henricus

The plant I see in your pic looks like the one I have finally got to grow- sort of has a whitish dusty look to the tops.

I try to leave room for old plants when I find them along with beneficial weeds after I decided that I wasnt growing food just for myself, but for the locals (birds and insects) as well.

That's lambs quarters and I have thousands of them. The sheep are mowing for me!

 

[flowerbug]

That's lambs quarters and I have thousands of them. The sheep are mowing for me!

i bet they really like it in there!

 

[Trish Stretton]

That's lambs quarters and I have thousands of them. The sheep are mowing for me!

Thats funny!! I cant wait to tell my work mate that her family have been eating lamb and not royalty all these years.

 

[baymule]

i bet they really like it in there!

They do. I open their gate and they follow me, running ahead, to the garden. When they have full bellies, they go to the gate and yell at me, wanting to go back to their nice cool barn, to ruminate.

 

[baymule]

We’ll, that didn’t work, the stinkers figured out how to squeeze under the plastic mesh fence. Meanwhile the weeds have been galloping to the sky.

I was trying to figure out why this year is such a bust, I was severely overloaded. I just couldn’t keep up. I have been trying to reclaim the tomatoes, they are now weeded. I couldn’t even get to the Cherokee purple and they hung there, rotting. DH pulled them, there are green tomatoes on the vines, maybe I can coax them to produce.

I am now fighting my way to the side where I planted eggplant, Brussels sprouts, kale and cabbage. Maybe I can salvage something. Maybe not. It looks pretty bug eaten.

At this point a fall garden looks to be my only option.

 

[baymule]

I wasn’t kidding about galloping weeds.

This is a 32’ row of Cherokee Purple tomatoes, pulling the weeds took 2 days. Some are so big that I used pruning loppers to cut them down.