Starting off with "first" harvests, we have a nice head of Ching Chiang.
Next, some turnip greens (sorry, blurry).
And some cilantro, starting to bolt (again blurry, what's up with that?).
The Kitchen Goddess picked chive flowers and tarragon to make a flavored vinegar.
For continuing harvests we have mesculin and radishes, great to eat with the aforementioned vinegar.
And another large head of tatsoi.
That whole thing went into a batch of soup that night, with tofu. Here it is on the stove prior to adding udon noodles. It was delicious!
And lastly yet another head of tatsoi, and more radishes.
I had reported that I planted all corn, both dry and sweet, as well as beans, both snap and shell, on May 28. I was worried about the weather getting colder, and it did. So the results have been very interesting to me.
Here is the dry corn bed (Floriani Red Flint) yesterday. You can see in the six rows on the left that germination was very good, to the point where it will have to be thinned.
But what about the sweet corn? Well, very poor germination, forcing a replant. The Sugar Buns and Silver Queen were only about 40% germinated, and surprisingly the Honey Select was better, maybe 75%. For some reason I thought the Honey Select would be the fussiest about temperature. I hope there's enough time in the season to get a good crop.
Looking at the same photograph, the rows to the right of the corn have, well, nothing. This was supposed to be 5 rows of dry beans (Kenearly Yellow Eye and Midnight Black Turtle). These also had to be replanted. Oddly, however, there was very good germination of the bush snap beans (wax and filet).
So, I'm learning. Supersweet corn really does hate temperatures below 55-60, so if there's any chance of that occurring, better off to wait. Or maybe I'll try treated seeds next year.
That's all for this week. Thanks for reading, and thanks once again to Dave at Our Happy Acres for hosting Harvest Monday.
Your greens are doing fantastic with your cool spring. And your soup looks delicious. Fat udon noodles are just fabulous, do you use the fresh variety that's white and silky and smooth?
ReplyDeleteYup, white, silky, smooth, and delicious!
DeleteSome lovely harvests - that tatsoi is beautiful! Some of my tatsoi seedlings were eaten by what I think were slugs early on in the season as was a komatsuna that I was growing in the same area. I sowed our beans a few weeks ago - I think it was the tail end of the super cool weather and all came up except for the soybeans, which had zero germination, which was very disappointing. I hope that I have a few seeds left to resow at least enough to give me some seed for next year.
ReplyDeleteI try to always put Sluggo around brassicas when they are small. Sorry about your soybeans, guess they are fussy too.
DeleteFloriani is such a good corn, it makes THE BEST polenta. Have you experimented with germinating the corn seeds before planting them? I did that with zucchini and cucumbers this spring after sowing some seeds in pots and having them all rot. The ones I started on moist paper towels in baggies on my heat mat almost all grew quite well when I potted them up. I lost a couple of cucumbers that I sowed directly after germinating them, but one of those was to the birds.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a good technique, but very labor and space intensive for the amount we want to grow.
DeleteThe wild temperature swings sure do make it hard to get seeds to germinate. We've had it hot here lately, not exactly soup weather for me but yours sounds delish! I neglected to make chive vinegar this year, but when I do I like to drizzle it on potatoes.
ReplyDeleteYes, not feeling soupy today!
DeleteWow, that Tatsoi looks amazing, as does the soup. Yum, udon noodles!
ReplyDeleteI've had to replace my tarragon plant as I seem to have lost it (kept it in a container over winter and now no idea where it is - think I dumped it accidentally). Anyway, if my new plant does well, I must remember to try that flavoured vinegar. I also use tarragon often - my favourite is tarragon and mint steeped in boiled water than cooled and served with ice. Very refreshing.