Chickweed

I could grow old pulling chickweed. It’s everywhere. In the beds, in the grass, in the rocks, even where I didn’t know I had soil. The best thing about chickweed? “common chickweed can reroot from stem nodes in moist areas.” Great, so if I pull a clump out and a small piece flies away it will re-root. Urg.

90% of what I found online tells me to use something extremely toxic. Here, I started this blog because of my guilt over Round Up, which seems pretty benign compared to Weed-B-Gon. Alas, there is another remedy that my garden mentor suggested last year: a flame weeder. Yes, indeed, this is like a blowtorch and especially recommended for rocky areas. Apparently it doesn’t burn the plant to death, it causes a chemical reaction inside which makes it die. Die, chickweed, die!

No discussion of the death of chickweed goes without the few but whiney chickweed advocates who espouse its health benefits. “Natural anti-inflammatory!” “Makes great pesto!” “Fights cancer!” If they’re so into chickweed, why don’t they come over and clean me out? Perhaps I should post on craigslist: “Free chickweed. U-pick.”

The Truth About Radishes

Did you know that radishes are bitter? They're all nice and innocent, red and white like a candy cane, then BAM the spice kicks up when you're about three chews in. Spicy like you put a lot of pepper on them. I had no idea. All this time I thought radishes were kind of unnecessary. Sure, they add a little color and the nutritionists like that, but it didn't go much farther than that for me. Then I ate Shelby's Radish.* I wondered if it was my soil or if I'd done something wrong, but luckily I was on the phone with my mom who confirmed that radishes are indeed spicy - good radishes, that is. I guess I'd never had a good, fresh radish. Good thing radishes are about the easiest thing you can grow in your garden because I'm going to plant some more, and I'll have to find some recipes that highlight their flavor.


*Shelby urged me to plant the radishes. Shelby must have known that radishes have a nice little kick to them. Shelby did not harvest her radish before she left the continent, so I had to eat it in her honor. It was excellent, Shelby, thanks!

Complete Salad

For years...since the first veggies I planted in Chicago in 2004 to be exact...I have desired to grow sufficient vegetables that I could have one complete salad all grown at home. In addition to growing several different kinds of vegetables, this required all of the vegetables to ripen at the same time. It finally happened! My first complete salad: red leaf lettuce, snap peas, cucumbers, and a yellow carrot. You can see the joy on my face as well as Mr. Salad's.

Bad blogger eats veggies

I'm such a bad blogger! My apologies to all of my devoted fans out there (including those of you I had to remind to read this)! Perhaps I've just been too busy in the garden? Here's what's new:

1) Snap peas are AWESOME! The longer you leave them on the plant the fatter and sweeter they get.

2) The broccoli is producing little florets, but they are very loose and go to flower very quickly. All the web chatter says this makes for inedible, bitter broccoli but Shelby tried some last night and said it was tasty, flowers and all.

3) Lettuce is still kicking, in fact finally producing fuller more compact heads just like real lettuce you buy in the store!

4) Strawberries ripen every few days or so but some critter keeps chewing them off. I got one full plump one tonight.

5) Raspberries, feared to be completely overwhelming, are amazing. They taste like store-bought with added sugar. Yum!

On the flipside...

-Cucumbers never showed up. I planted plants around the fourth of July and they look like they're going to bear fruit. Added some zucchini also.

-Carrots look great but are growing slowly and are all tangled in each other because I didn't thin them (I was overzealous). I'm banking on survival of the fittest to kill the little ones and let the big ones grow straight, but I'm going to let them grow another month if possible.

-Peppers, left in their starts too long, seem to have gotten stunted because they're not growing even now that they're in yummy compost. Oh well. Next year!

So, vegetables are doing great! I've also been busy landscaping and building the deck but those will be posts for other days...stay tuned.

Lettuce

Today I harvested my first head of lettuce. It was great! I grew it from seeds planted in late April. The lettuce was slightly more bitter and dare I say more flavorful than lettuce I get in the store. Much to my surprise, there was only one bug on the whole head and not that much dirt. I think the midnight slug attack from a few weeks ago paid off - the lettuce had been chewed in and out and through by the slimy nocturnal creatures so in one weekend I initiated every slug attack I had heard of:

1) Go out with a headlamp in the dark and pick them off (Eeew. Between the lettuce and the dahlias I got about 50.).
2) Put coffee grounds around the base of the plant (thanks to the barista at Victrola who gave me a whole bag).
3) Sprinkle eggshells around the base of the plant (no, they don't smell like rotten eggs).
4) (I was actually too lazy for this one...) Put a cupful of beer half deep in the soil and let them clamour to the "bar" and get drunk and die. Poor suckers don't know when to say when.
5) Apply Sluggo to the soil. Now, Sluggo is not labeled as organic but every organic-friendly garden store sells it. Technically it's made from iron phosphate which "occurs naturally in the soil." When slugs eat it, they feel full and stop eating so they starve to death. (more information here)

Frankly, I think #5 was the one that did the trick. The others look nice and organic and are much more natural than the Sluggo option, but the darn stuff really seems to work. Next time maybe I'll try random assignment of slug control mechanism, but for now I'm happy to have a home-grown salad.

First taste

I ate a strawberry this morning - right from my garden! Unfortunately, so did some other animal, and they left half of it in the bed next to the plant it was stolen from. Who was that varmint? Neighbor kitty? Well, whomever it was, I hope they learned that they don't like strawberries and leave the rest for me. It was a darn good strawberry.

On broccoli

My broccoli fell over. I don't really get how a whole head of broccoli is going to grow on those skinny little stalks. It's growing great, big, tough leaves that I want to chop into some pad see eiw. But is it supposed to fall over or was that the fault of the robins who are constantly pecking in the beds (on account of my vigorous worm population - yay!)? So far the robins have done little damage except to one pea plant that's coming back. Or was the broccoli trampled by neighbor cat who, I hope, is no longer using the bed as a litter box?

Well, I didn't think the broccoli was supposed to fall over so I propped it up with a little mound of soil. I then looked online and found out that broccoli plants grow to be 2-2.5 feet tall! And it grows multiple heads. "Removing the central head stimulates the side shoots to develop for later picking." says the UofI extension website. Wow! 3 heads per plant, 4 plants = 12 heads of broccoli? Fingers crossed!