Garden 2.0

It’s that time again: time to plant and tend to our vegetable garden! Last year was such a success that I was really looking forward to doing it again this year. Of course, I have completely forgotten just how much work goes into a vegetable garden and was quickly reminded with the recent work we’ve done. With Michael being unemployed, he’s been working hard on prepping the yard for a low-key summer. Neither of us want to spend the summer months pulling weeds in our monstrous yard, so he put down bark on half of the yard. I think it will help a lot.

The manual labor was hard and time consuming, but Michael did a fantastic job and I think it looks great. He also built two more raised beds. Doesn’t the yard look so much nicer? He did a great job. He also got a complex hose system going to water all the raised beds on a timer throughout the summer. I think that was part of the reason our garden did so well last year. If we forgot to water for a few days, it wasn’t a catastrophe because the soaker hoses did most of the work.

About a month ago, we planted the first stage of this year’s garden. We have onions, red leaf lettuce, kale and spinach in the ground so far. The lettuce wasn’t looking to great to be honest. Unfortunately, we took a little too long getting it into the ground. But we’re currently trying to nurse it back to health. There might be hope.

Our spinach was super tiny starters, kind of limp and fragile looking, when we planted it. Now? It’s flourishing. The leaves are big and leafy and a gorgeous healthy green. I cannot wait to start plucking the leaves for salads. Our kale is the rockstar of the garden, though.

The kale has become a monster in the garden! It’s so beautiful and healthy. It seemed to grow three times as big in just a week’s time. It also seems that in one tray of kale that we bought we got two different types of kale. As you can see in the above photo, there are two plants with spindly-looking leaves and two plants with wider leaves. I have no idea if they will taste differently.

After only about a month in the planters, I finally plucked some of the kale leaves to have for dinner. They tasted great! I now see that we must have gotten some sort of variety pack because there are three distinctly different looking kale plants in our bunch. One night for dinner we had pork chops, some leftover rice and the kale.

The kale from our garden was good; it wasn’t as tough or leathery as the store-bought kale. In fact, it almost had a more delicate consistency like spinach or lettuce (before we cooked it, obviously).

Harvesting Kale

“Remove the outer leaves of the Kale plant as it matures, for a continuous cycle of growth. The center of the kale plant containing the bud will continue to produce fresh leaves when the outer ones are removed. Choose leaves that are bright green and fresh, as opposed to yellowed leaves, when harvesting kale for eating. The yellowish leaves can produce an undesirable taste, and their limp appearance may be unappetizing. (source)”

Harvesting Spinach

“Harvest spring spinach by cutting the entire plant before it bolts – goes to seed prematurely – in the summer heat. Cut outside leaves of fall spinach as soon as they’re large enough to use; the inner leaves will keep growing. Avoid washing spinach that will be stored for more than a day or two since it will begin to wilt.
(source)”

Memorial Weekend Michael planted the tomatoes and jalapenos. We are skipping the zucchini this year, which I am a tad bummed about because it was so prolific last year. That will be our garden this year. I wanted to do peas or beans but we missed the window to plant them. So next year, perhaps.

QUESTION: Do you have a garden? What did you plant this year?