Year-old Onions

So I had some green onions that I never used last year, and I just left them in the garden to do their thing. They came back after winter, but I was too skeptical to try eating them... But scapes are another story!

A scape is what happens when an onion (or garlic!) "goes to seed." These huge ones you see in these photos probably aren't tender enough to eat, so I'll leave them and experiment with collecting their seeds.


There were several smaller scapes that seemed nice and tender, and a few more that should be perfect in a couple days.


You could cut them up for a stir-fry. I'll probably cut them into very small pieces and saute them to add to a rice dish.

It just goes to show that, in the right climate, nature keeps doing her thing. Volunteer tomatoes appear, plants survive harsh conditions, and a neglected onion offers forth new bounty past its prime.

Fall Gardening Update

The garden already has lettuce, radish, and sugar snap pea seedlings (plus the transplanted broccoli seedlings from indoors). Tiny things, but they're there!

The yellow pansies we added to the front porch are a welcome splash of color, and the mild weather is allowing our fuchsia plant to make a comeback with lovely, delicate new growth.

On Monday, I will plant two pots of lettuce and two pots of spinach on the front porch.  The Monday after that, I'll plant one or two of each in hanging pots that we can easily keep indoors in the winter (and I guess we'll just keep snipping them until they quit).  I'm getting better about doing successive plantings.  I used to get so excited that I'd just seed everything in one day.

My account was charged for my garlic yesterday, so I'm hoping that means it has shipped.  I will most certainly share photos!

Fall Gardening. Long Time, No Post!

It's been a while since I updated, because I've been preoccupied with other aspects of my life and thinking less about gardening. But today has been quite a gardening day for me.

You see, I'm far overdue for fall gardening. The only thing I really did on time was start broccoli seedlings indoors. But finally spotting tomatoes on one of my brandywine plants yesterday told me I needed to get busy for fall while I still can!

First, I attempted to get the overgrown brandywine on the side of the house to stand up. Very little success, here. I got a few tomato-bearing vines off the ground before the sun started beating down on me and will try to get a few more tomorrow morning. I also trimmed it up a bit, cutting back vines with no fruit or flowers. I probably should have done away with more, but I can't stand to sacrifice any flowers... though I did accidentally break off a vine with two green tomatoes. One is big enough for frying, so that's what I'll do tonight.

Next, I tackled the Square Foot Garden. First order of things was basic clean-up. I pulled weeds, the dead cucumber plants, and the radishes that were there for the sole purpose of fending off cucumber bugs. Then I started hacking away dead tomato limbs and shortening any too-long vines without green tomatoes or promising looking flowers. Both the cherry tomato plant and Genovese are still doing well, but neither brandywine in the garden has produced a single tomato. I am very disappointed. If I don't see any soon, I'll cut them out to let a little more light shine down onto the fall vegetables.

Then I transplanted my broccoli seedlings and covered them with soda pop cloches, and I put in the radish, sugar snap, Swiss chard, and lettuce seeds. I'll do a bit more once shade falls on the garden again, and finish in the morning.

I know I'm rather behind on a couple plants. Mainly, I should have seeded my carrots well before now. I might decide to replace those with something a little faster-growing.

Here is my current fall garden plan:

I have big plans for my pots, as well. I'll have two hanging Red Robins (one is already almost ready to start making tomatoes & the other has been seeded), both of which can be placed in a sunny window once the weather is too cold. There are also several pots, hanging and sitting, in which I'm going to seed lettuce and spinach. They'll be brought inside for a post-freeze harvest.

My garlic bulbs should arrive in the next couple of weeks. Again, a bit behind-schedule... but this is because the grower had a cool growing season rather than because I'm behind... for a change.

It's Been a While!

It's been a little while since I updated, but here I am now!

We've gotten two big cucumbers out of the garden lately, plus lots of cherry tomatoes!  In fact, I served a bowl of cherry tomatoes as a snack when we had friends over the other night.

Most exciting is our first full-sized red tomato of the season!  A Genovese, to be specific:We'll most likely pick and eat it tomorrow.

No more carrots in the garden until it's time to seed for the fall.  A few of the onion tops turned yellow, so those got pulled: They'll probably be drying outside for about another day, then I'll bring them inside for use/storage.  Most of the others will be picked quite soon as well.

It's also time to start thinking about fall crops, around the Oklahoma City area.  Broccoli should be started inside ASAP, if you haven't done it already.  Here's my broccoli seedling set up on the kitchen window sill: It's actually a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich container!!!  This, if nothing else, is a perfect excuse to eat ice cream!  Not only does it sit perfectly on our windowsill, but our repurposed toilet roll seedling pots fit into each sandwich slot perfectly: These little pots are extremely easy to make. Cut the rolls in half first if putting them in a short container like this, but otherwise follow these instructions over at You Grow Girl.  Just be careful not to over-water, because I find that these are more likely to grow mold than peat pellets.  But once the seedlings need more soil, you can transplant it, roll and all, into its next home.  It's totally biodegradable.

Anyone else prepping for fall gardening out there?!  Here's a fabulous fall gardening document for fellow Oklahomans, thanks to OSU.

Thinking of Fall...

Especially if you're going to order any fancy garlic, it's a good idea to start thinking about your fall gardening now.

Today, I'm ordering two cloves of Chesnok Red Garlic and DeCicco Broccoli.   The garlic, which I'm going to pair with a generic supermarket (softneck) variety as an experiment, won't be harvested until Spring.  But the broccoli will be a part of our fall harvest....  And maybe the winter, if we're lucky.  I've never grown broccoli, but I chose Decicco because it's supposed to have a good number of off-shoot broccolis after the large head is harvested.

I was also extremely tempted by German Extra Hardy Garlic, Russian Giant Garlic, Rainbow Swiss Chard, Dragon Carrots, Brussels Sprouts, and leeks... But I have to keep in mind that I have a limited amount of space and plenty of other stuff I already plan on growing.

Meanwhile, today is a nice, mild, overcast day.  It rained all morning, so the kitty and I slept in quite nicely.  And I'm developing clever ideas about creating my own bagged and frozen convenience stir fry for nights when I don't feel like doing much cooking, so I think it's time to make a trip to the store and browse the produce section for good, freezable veggies.

Winter Plans in July

Though it's time to focus on tending our summer vegetables, it's also time to think about fall and winter. You don't need a greenhouse for this, as long as you have a sunny room.

My own plans include two varieties of baby lettuce, a very small tomato plant (and probably a cutting from one of my current tomato plants), and Alexandria strawberry plants. We won't actually get to eat the strawberries over winter, but we'll have nice strong plants by next season. My hope is that this ever-bearing plant will start developing fruit early in the spring.

I went ahead and put the tomato and strawberry seeds in peat pellets I had lying around from two or three years ago. Probably not an organic option considering several internet sources refer to an added "minor fertilizer charge," but I think using them up instead of buying seed starter mix and trays is worth dealing with this "mild charge."

And tomorrow, I plant lettuce seeds! Squeeeee!

These will all be houseplants. Even the lettuce, which is going in plastic dish tubs (with holes drilled in the bottom) from the Dollar Tree. I'll probably leave them out in the sun until the nights start turning cold, but then they'll live in our south-facing laundry room.