What's Growing: Radish Scapes

Mixed feelings on how the Potager is coming along this year. No matter how things grow, walking among the paths of the Potager is always uplifting. Mornings are beautiful with the sun streaming across the garden and the Robins singing.

Many of the seeds I started never took off. I actually ended up buying starts of tomatoes, peppers, and brussel sprouts. Is it because I used choir instead of seed-starting mix? Or just because? I will be rethinking next year's approach.

Banana Pepper from start. I planted both hot and sweet varieties.

Italian plum tomato from start.

Lemon Boy tomato from start.

Brandywine Red tomato from start.

Cherry tomatoes.

This year I made tomato cages from bamboo and grape vines. The tiki tomato ladder was becoming quite rickety. I have one very small German Striped Tomato from the seeds I saved last year that I didn't give up on. It is just starting to take off, probably too late but one can always hope.

Brussels among Borage

Borage is a great bee magnet and the flowers are edible.

My lettuce (again!) and spinach bolted with the mix of "Mercury" days. The trick I've learned is to keep things well watered during the heat spells – hot and dry = flowers and seeds. Next year I will really pay attention to lettuce seed mixes that are slow to bolt. A savvy local farmer told me she plants her lettuce between rows of kale and chard which shade the lettuce nicely and I bet looks beautiful, too. Planting my lettuce between rows of garlic did practically nothing to hinder the flea beetles. I could plant a "trap" crop of Arugula, their favorite. A trap crop is planted with sacrifice in mind usually a few weeks earlier than the crop you want to thrive. I've also recently read that catnip deters the beetles so I will let my catnip go wild. Lettuce under shading Sunflowers sounds appealing, too. I've been sowing lettuce every few weeks since my first sowing flopped. Some of it is coming up nicely, or was, until the bunny (make that bunnies) dined on it for dinner one evening. I now have two generations of rabbits running around. Guess that old saying is true. But I still should have a worthy fall crop of lettuce and spinach.

Newly planted lettuce among garlic and pole beans just starting to climb.

My cucumbers barely germinated. I have two small plants. The eggplant I may have accidentally weeded out. I haven't grown it before but now see what it looks like after a trip to the nursery – oops. I remind myself that this is gardening.

On the sunny side of the Potager, my snap peas were awesome this year and are just now fading. They are/were the tallest they've ever been and I enjoyed snacking on them as well as using them in stir-frys and salads.

Again I remind myself of the ups and downs of gardening. As usual, the Swiss chard and kales are beautiful, up. The broccoli rabe is not growing very well this year but it is planted next to some strawberries, a bad combination I recently learned, down. I have scallions!, up. The artichokes (another new trial this year) aren't looking very big and lush. Will they flower before cold weather?, down. I have blueberries!, up.

Swiss chard, kale, scallions, beets and carrots.

Who took the art out of artichoke?

Oregano and thymes are in flower. Purple perilla has reseeded itself from last year.

The bush and soy beans are just beginning to flower. So far the squash is growing well. At the community garden we are infested with cucumber beetles. My garden seems to be fairing better. The few beetles I've found I've crushed with my bare fingers! – a newly acquired gardening skill. I have nasturtium planted among the cucumbers and squash which is said to deter the beetles. I've also been regularly checking under the leaves for signs of eggs.

Fuzzy Soybeans

Something new this year, radish scapes. I almost prefer the radish scapes to the radishes! I believe I read about them in Mother Earth News.  A woman from WI (a state I'm partial to), wrote that she lets some of her radishes go to flower. They then form scapes and are delicious to eat. I put them into salads and stir-frys. I left some of them to go to seed for an easy fall crop of radish just as she recommended.

Radish Scapes

Bye Bye Barberry

I have been enjoying watching the Robins pick the berries off my Cardinal Dogwood just outside my back porch. I've observed three adults at one time vying for a loaded branch, Mom showing two waiting fledgelings perched on the leaf trellis how to pick their own berries, the fledgelings eating for themselves.

I'm reminded of a similar scene this past Spring of House Sparrows picking the berries off a Barberry shrub just off my front porch – an invasive species eating an invasive species. The Barberry was practically the only shrub we had when we moved into our home, but now that I've been planting and planning the garden for four years, it can go.

Early Spring, getting ready to clip back the Barberry

I'll give the shrub credit. It has awesome color, fragrant small yellow flowers in the Spring, and beautiful dripping red berries in the Fall through Winter. It is tough, thoroughly hardy, and takes a good pruning. I understand why it appeals to so many and can be found on nearly every lot and street corner. But the Barberry is aptly named, it has thorns – big, sharp, painful, thorny barbs very much like barbed wire. It would make a formidable fence or barrier. To me, not a very inviting front porch planting and impossible to weed and work around. Most arguably it is invasive. I can attest to the ten or so starters I found throughout my front garden bed after the thorns were removed. I'm also reminded, again, of the Sparrows who ate the berries and deposited them elsewhere. It would sadden me to see our beautiful Northeastern woods overrun with Barberry. Thinking of our beautiful woods also prompted me to rip out a small Burning Bush as well that sentimentally I was holding onto because it was the first shrub I ever propagated from a cutting.

After lopping off most of the branches – I did suffer a few good barbs

It put up a fight but was finally defeated by the Toyota

The carnage – notice the Barberry, and Burning Bush, plantings across the street

I would not classify myself as a true die-hard-only-native-planter, but I do try to be mindful of the choices I make in planting my garden. I must admit, I felt good, real good, after ripping out this bad boy. Bye bye Barberry.

In its place I wanted to plant an evergreen. (This is my year of planting more evergreens in the garden.) Our native evergreens tend to be tall and large, not foundation friendly, and would overpower our front porch. I didn't want a conical shape but something more mounding to retain the curve of the porch. I chose a hardy Bird's Nest Spruce. Although derived from the Norway Spruce which can also be considered invasive, I don't think this variety will pose a threat to our natural surrounding environment. It rarely sets cones and grows very slowly. It will however, provide an excellent wind break and cover for song birds. It is tooted to be a good choice for rock gardens and foundation plantings. It will take some time for this specimen to fill in. It will be fun, and a lesson in patience, to watch it grow.

The Black Lace (left) can really show off now

A very young Bird's Nest Spruce

Now, I just have to paint the porch. It's always something.

Project: Painted Herb Recipe Pots

While mulling over gift ideas for Mother's Day, spring birthdays and summer kick offs, I came across a few potted herbs that included a recipe on their plant ID tags. I thought bon appetit!, what a great idea. I picked up a few inexpensive terra cotta pots and sketched out a rough idea of how I would illustrate the recipes on the pots.

Mother of Mojito Mint! Basil and Oregano – classic pizza herbs and I have a sister and brother-in-law who grill a mean pizza! Lavender infused honey – I do have a honey of a niece.

Once again I turned to my stockpile of inexpensive craft paints. A little water, a few old brushes and I set to work. It was great fun to see these recipes come to life.

Limes and bees and pizza slices, oh my. Just a few finishing touches and a coat or two of polycrylic and we're finis! Potted up these make a one-of-a-kind gift that can be placed inside or out and reused each year.

Or maybe you would like to create one or two for your very own deck or balcony. Salad mixes, dill pickle pots, strawberry pie pots, mosquito repellent pots, chamomile tea pots ... so many possibilities. For more painted pot ideas also see my previous post Project: Painted Pots.