18 Tuesday Feb 2014
Posted in Growing, Inspriation, Ornamentals, Vegetable garden, Winter
AROUND THIS TIME OF YEAR, Brussels sprout plants want to complete their journey to flower and set seed. The crown of the plant begins to open up and resembles a cabbage of sorts. I find them incredibly beautiful in both form and color, especially in the light of late afternoon sun. The varieties shown here are Rubine and Bubbles.
Bubbles
Rubine # 2
Rubine #1
09 Monday Sep 2013
Posted in Fall, Fall Flowers, Flowers, Growing, Harvest, Photography, Vegetable garden
Tags
beans, cabbage, comice pears, dahlias, fall, garden spiders, harvest, honeybees, matricaria, savoy cabbage, squash, tomatoes, verbena bonariensis
Mystery dahlia, but quite lovely
AS SEPTEMBER GENTLY NUDGES US INTO A FALL state of mind, there are lovely moments nearly everyday. The colors of late summer and early fall flowers are rich and vibrant. Tomato harvest is peaking. Cabbages are just this side of splitting. Pears need picking almost daily. Cactus are blooming! Winter squash are ripening and bees and spiders are busy, busy, busy.
I’ll let the garden speak for itself.
I think this is a banana squash. The seed came from the zucchini packet!
Bartlett and Comice pears
30 year old (maybe older) mammillaria pringlei.
Berkely Tie-dye
Is this a beautiful blossom? Bean blossoms are seldom seen as they are often hidden by the leaves.
These are EVERYWHERE.
As are these (on the tiny flowers of sedum ‘Autumn Joy’)…
and partaking of nectar from caryopteris ‘Dark Knight’
and drinking at the birdbath. We have a beekeeper in our neighborhood–hooray!
Savoy cabbage
Matricaria (also known as feverfew); they look so cheerful and like sunnyside-up eggs. They self-sow freely.
Many plants in my ornamental and vegetable gardens are volunteers, like this verbena bonariensis whose seeds likely came from compost added to the garden. I like to leave volunteer flowers in the vegetable garden to enliven the scenery and invite lots of pollinators and predators alike.
16 Wednesday May 2012
Posted in Vegetable garden
Red cabbage blossoms
LITTLE BY LITTLE MOST OF THE VEGETABLE GARDEN is headed for a long nap. Nearly all of winter’s plantings are gone now.
Only a few ‘Fizz” kale plants (above and really good kale), some endive, escarole, and volunteer lettuces remain. The garlic won’t be ready to pull until mid-July and we should be back home within a week or two after that.
Celery ‘Red Venture’
Last spring I planted Red Venture celery. The leaves have a strong celery flavor and were useful in soups, herby pesto type mixtures and a few leaves chopped and added to winter greens salads. The stalks were slightly bitter. Now the plants are bolting. When I cut the bolting stalk, it seemed tender and I sample a slice–sweet and tender!
I cut a few, peeled and sliced them and added to a salad. They add a sweet note paired with bitter greens and a robust dressing of garlic, anchovies and red wine vinegar. A revelation in that most bolting stalks of lettuces, etc. are tough and woody. Always something new to learn when you grow your own vegetables.
I have five Arrowhead cabbages just now maturing so have to figure how to use them. Not enough time to make sauerkraut before D-day, I think.
Our weather has been fabulously warm the past week so yesterday I planted the seven tomato plants purchase at the end of April at Christianson’s Nursery in Mt. Vernon. I pulled a whole row of fava beans to make way for the tomatoes and pulled off the string bean sized pods. Planning to cook them as green beans and see how the taste. That will be a first!
So that I will have something to look forward too upon our return I also stuck some squash seeds in the same bed as it will be the only one watered in our absence. And, I couldn’t imagine being without brussels sprouts this coming winter so I dropped some seeds in a few pots; with luck they will have germinated and be ready to plant before our departure. I had wonderful luck with these varieties last year: Roodnerf, Oliver and Bubbles, the best I’ve ever planted.
11 Tuesday May 2010
Posted in Iris, May flowers, Spring, Transplanting, Vegetable garden
Tags
cabbage, clematis, fava beans, iris, pears, peas, Spring, tomatoes, transplanting
PICKING THE FIRST PEAS AND FAVA BEANS OF SPRING IS SHEER JOY! The favas may need another four to five days, but we’ll see. I planted two varieties, Negreta (3ft tall) and Aqua Dulce (5ft tall). The Negreta are about a week or more ahead of the Aqua Dulce for harvesting.
And, the some of peas that were a real mixed bag of age, varieties, and viability and planted in December are nearly ready to harvest. Can I exercise a little restraint and keep myself from picking a pod or two as I admire them?
They have really taken off!
The Arrowhead cabbage that I planted last fall are nearly ready to harvest too, it’s surprising since the other cabbages have long since bolted. One Savoy is still forming a head.
On Friday and Saturday I transplanted all of the tomatoes and some of peppers, most into one gallon pots, then into the coldframe they went. They were twenty-eight days since seeding. Tomatoes grow like weeds; happily for us they certainly taste better! Just about the time they are ready to outgrow the coldframe, the fava beans should be nearly done and can come out to make room for tomatoes.
I’m excited to see that we will indeed have pears. There quite a few of each type. We’ll wait another week or so before thinning them. These are the Bartlett’s. This is a great time of year!
In the flower garden, the iris ‘Saturday Night Fever is in full swing. Very large flower and tall stalks. I purchased this one at the Seattle flower and Garden Show about ten years ago and it has multiplied nicely. Time to divide this year after blooming has finished.
Another lovely, delicate bearded iris is ‘Lenora Pearl‘ from White Flower Farm. It is a reblooming iris, blooming again in the fall. This has proved quite vigorous and in also ready for division after ten or elven years.
We have several clematis trellised up against the house and this one, ‘Crystal Fountain’, is quite showy. Deb and I each bought one from here in 2005. I kept mine in a pot on the deck until last fall when it went into the ground (much happier and growing like crazy), against the house and behind the miniature climbing rose, The ‘Rocketeer’. This clematis is a rebloomer throughout the summer.
Time now to attend to matters outdoors and take advantage of more fabulous weather–predicted to last the rest of the week!
Musings from the back roads
Celebrating the Harvest
All things botanical in photos and words—in my West Seattle garden and elsewhere; seeing and creating art and assorted musings.
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