Here come my Fall Greens!

[desertlady]

AWESOME!!

 

[Southern Gardener]

Looking good Steve! It's way to hot to plant greens yet - the high tomorrow is supposed to be 104! My winter squash is coming up, but it looks very sad. According to the weather guy we're supposed to get a "strong cold front" tomorrow night and bring us 89 degree temps! My teeth are chattering just thinking about it!

 

[plainolebill]

No, I haven't, Bill. I like sauerkraut but it is one of those foods (like pickles) that I eat so little of, that making it probably isn't the best use of my time . . . he says, probably mostly because he has failed so badly at any kind of pickling . . .

But, let me ask you about the kale -- Do you sow the seed in late summer/fall and does it grow enough for that year's use? Do you do that for next year's crop? Or, are you talking about spring-sown kale for fall/winter use?

My Scotch kale is doing okay, altho' the leaves are taken from it regularly. I am very disinclined to allow this year's plants to overwinter so I haven't left or made use of my kale thru the winter in many, many years.

Steve

Hi Steve, We usually start plants in 4" pots outside around July 15th and plant them when other crops are harvested (we planted them about 10 days ago) I've direct seeded too but seem to have better/earlier growth with plants. They usually make enough size ~18" by the time winter truly sets in so we can eat all winter long. We really like the flat leafed Siberian or Red Russian varieties best and those are very hardy here. We had 3 days of 7 degree weather a couple of years ago and they just pop right out of it as soon as the freeze breaks. They will grow more in any kind of mild weather spell.

Our kale bolts pretty fast as soon as it warms up so it's strictly a winter crop. A local woman (Carol Deppe) has mentioned a 'Hunger Gap' kale that flowers a month or so later than normal kale but I haven't been able to track down any seed. She has a sort of home farm survival type book called The Resilant Gardener which is interesting. Her website is interesting too, talks about eating virtually nothing but potatoes for a winter - thousands of pounds if I remember correctly.

Does the bok choy survive your winters or is it a fall harvest?

 

[digitS']

I find this exciting, Bill . . . no, not the idea of eating thousands of pounds of potatoes! Each American eats about 125# of potatoes yearly, on average, if I remember right. That seems enuf to me .

No, the idea of having greens thru the winter so that the broccoli train doesn't have to stop here so often .

A winter without sub-zero is very unusual here. The coldest morning was only something like 9 last winter and that was almost shockingly warm! If it hadn't snowed so much and cool temperatures lingered so long, I would have almost thought I'd moved somewhere different after over 40 years in this valley!

As I say, I used to allow kale to stand in the open garden thru the winter. I don't really recall what it was like. Bok choy & mustard may survive but they aren't any good. Cover could be an answer but my simple, plastic tunnel has collapsed more than once after I've set it up in March - because of a heavy, late snow. I've always felt that I needed that thing to get a few weeks jump on the season, as well as catch the overflow from the greenhouse. Maybe, I need TWO - 1 for spring and a really strong 1 for fall !

Steve

 

[plainolebill]

Steve, Here's more information than you really want about Siberian and Red Russian Kales from Seed Ambassadors:

http://seedambassadors.org/Mainpages/still/napuskale/napuskale.htm

Bill

 

[digitS']

Salads?

I've had a couple people tell me about kale in salads and I just silently thought that they must be mistaken. Then, a guy actually talked about his kale recipe and it involved, essentially, marinating the kale. So, I thought that must make some sense.

Bill, now I understand that these Siberian/Russian kales are not Brassica oleracea. They are something other than sisters to cabbage & collards. Okay, I am prepared to believe that they are more tender as a Brassica napus. (I guess it would be going too far to call them "rutabaga greens" .)

Steve

 

[journey11]

Lookin' good!

I just got my greens seeded into the garden two days ago, but that's not too far off for my area. I didn't plant anything at all in my big garden this year, but being that I needed to purge my seed collection (hoard), I planted the whole 2500 sq ft to kale, turnips, beets, mustard, radishes and peas. If it all comes up, I may have to go sit on the roadside and try to unload the extras. Well, if the deer don't eat it all that is...

 

[digitS']

Snapped this picture yesterday from the opposite direction of the 1st. No, I didn't get anything transplanted into half of the bed - doggoneit! The weather has given us a "trace" of September rain, officially! That was after that 1/8th inch of August rain. No, we are not officially in a drought here. It is somewhat normal . . . Anyway, all the bright sunshine and quite high afternoon temperatures kept me from any transplanting tasks thru this month :/.

We have been harvesting a little out of this August sowing for a week. It is mostly Shanghai-type bok choy but that is Maruba Santoh closest to the camera. Maruba Santoh is supposed to be a Chinese cabbage but it really reminds me more of a mustard green - a very, very mild mustard green. I am perfectly happy with it raw as a salad ingredient

.

There was a light frost back on September 11th. This smaller garden is very protected. It didn't terribly damage even the cucumbers in the next bed over. (Elsewhere, it nearly killed 'em & did kill the pumpkin/squash vines.) Morning lows are predicted in the 30's for most of this week. A light frost won't hurt these greens but they may get a little tough if their growth slows a lot over the next few weeks.

I am hoping that we get some much-needed rain instead of too much frost. This bed should produce greens for the kitchen right through October if that's how things turn out. There is Choy Sum planted here but I've tried to keep it out of the picture . I was hoping that it would make some (sum) growth if planted in the fall instead of spring (and bring me additional choy ). Nope, the tiny, silly things are bolting to seed . . .

Steve

 

[journey11]

I hope you get some decent rain soon. Then they'll really take off! We finally got two days of a good soaking rain and now I'm waiting on the garden to dry out enough to step in there and harvest some of my young mustard and turnip greens. The deer ate all of my peas, but they haven't touched the other stuff....yet.

I've been wanting to try growing some of the Chinese cabbages. I will probably have to start them in cell packs since our weather here changes temp too quickly.

 

[digitS']

Journey, these Asian greens are an interesting mix of species. Some seem to be closely related but aren't. Some are said by the horticulturalists to be the same species but look & taste quite different.

The only way I've grown what most people think of as Chinese cabbage is in the plastic tunnel in spring/early summer. It seems quite happy in there and even seems to take quite a bit of heat. Outdoors, the barrel type of Chinese cabbage must not like the daily extremes of temperature and low humidity. At least, I guess that's what their problem was.

Then, there are these plants are very open that are of the same species. They will do okay in the garden and since there are so many different ones - along with the bok choys & others - they can provide variety in stir-fries and such.

Steve
who will likely turn off the water tomorrow . . . enuf with the sprinklers and chasing 'em around . . .