What Are You Planting Today, This Week, This Month?

[digitS']

I'm not much of a salad person but baby beets cooked are a favorite vegetable. DW doesn't like how they "bleed" onto the plate so I've been exploring alternatives. I don't feel that I've really found it with white beets. They are just fine as a green but their roots need some refinement. I'd have to grow that chard I had side-by-side to note the difference between it and Perpetual Spinach! Fine by me to have lots of it in the garden .

I had an Asian amaranth in the 2016 garden, also. Wow, what a difference in preferred growing conditions from its cousins! It would not grow after sprouting early in the season. Planted in summer heat, it was happy. First light frost - dead!

I see in UK seed catalogs that vegetable amaranth is listed as "Callaloo." That's what it is called in some parts of the US.

They also have Orach seed. Wonderful! Some call it "Mountain Spinach" and now I'm talking about something very closely related to true spinach. And, it does make a good salad green ... except, I've got the red and purple .

Orach will be the first vegetable harvested from my annual garden. Before I even get out there to do anything with the soil, the volunteer orach will show up as tiny seedlings. I just have to move them around where I want them and leave one or two plants the entire season for more seed and volunteers in 2018! Talk about Easy Gardening ..!

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

You need these:
https://strangeandyummy.com/2012/07/01/golden-beets/
I don't like dealing with tiny beets. I like when they grow really big, really fast. Then I get a lot of slices out of them.

 

[digitS']

You sure I need those, Ducks!?

"Beets are, shall we say, an acquired taste. Imagine, if you will, a clod of dirt that someone has dripped peach juice on. Take a bite. That’s a beet."

Whoa! What a concept. I'm not sure if I disagree with the writer ... after all, I don't care too much about beet roots. Oh, I'll eat them but I like them attached to the the stem and leaves of the beet. I usually grow enuf beets that even those thinnings that people complain about - I can fill a small pan with those and have a serving or two. Thinning beets hasn't been too much of a problem with me. Probably, it I wasn't averse to eating dirt - I'd be eating them right out in the garden! The young leaves, of Perpetual Spinach and such, I like those right thru the summer and fall.

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

That's pretty funny about the dripped peach juice!
Everybody has different tastes. I DON'T like beet tops. I hear that they taste like spinach, but to me they Don't taste like spinach. SPINACH tastes like spinach.
I LOVE fresh beets. I don't bother thinning my beets. My soil is pretty amended so they just grow away from each other.
What is "perpetual spinach?"

 

[ducks4you]

Never mind--I looked it up. It's Swiss Chard, which I grow in a flower garden bc I don't like the taste of THAT, either. Very pretty, just not as tasty.

 

[ChickenGrass]

Well,
Today my seed order came from suttons,
I planted some leek (blue green Neptune)
Spring onion (laser)
Lettuce (little gem)

 

[ducks4you]

@ChickenGrass, are you good at planting leeks? I've always wanted to start some, and I might do it this weekend, but I could use some pointers.

 

[ChickenGrass]

Hi there,
This is my first year growing leeks.
but I learned from this video
Heres a link ,

 

[Smart Red]

Great video!
I learned how to grow leeks the size of baseball bats watching "The Victory Garden" back in the 1970s

 

[ninnymary]

Call me crazy but I moved this rose, buds and all. Darn thing blooms even in winter and doesn't go dormant

. I know it'll do just fine.