Monday, May 25, 2015

Rain, rain and more rain is making gardening interesting.

I do not remember when we have had so much rain and so many days in a row. It has already been a cooler than normal spring. The plus side is that in order to grow tomatoes in the greenhouse under low winter light without blasting them with lights, I ordered seeds for plants usually grown in Canada of all places. The
tomatoes are called Scotia and have out performed any expectation I had of them. They have thrived in the cool wet spring and laid on a generous crop of tomatoes--larger than I expected too. They will play out as it gets hot but we have been having BLTs and sliced tomatoes! Some of the other varieties are not faring as well although they are loaded with large tomatoes, the celebrity and lemony boy are both in one of the huglekulture beds and covered with large green tomatoes but few blooms. I was kind of hoping for a second and third crop before pulling them. The juliet is thriving out back and does have blooms and new fruit setting daily. The peppers are doing fantastically--loving the extra water and full of fruit on the jalepenos and some setting on the golden pepper. The ones in the greenhouse are loaded with blooms and smaller fruit, even the ghost pepper. 

I have finally pulled almost all the beets, all 400+ of them and found a much better way to use the greens. We love beets -- spiced beets, roasted beets, beets in our smoothies but the greens not so much. I decided to try making crackers from them and we are eating them by the  trayful!! Super healthy and low cal to boot. I have used the beet greens, carrot tops, collard greens, kale and kohl rabi greens in addition to onion and leek greens in these. With or without topping they are a great way to use the greens. I am even using them with an egg as binder to make a pizza crust. Lemonade from lemons so to speak.

Cucumber plants are going crazy and blooming like wild so hoping to get more than a handful. Carrots were not a great producer this year and the special purple ones were a total flop. Will try again in the fall.