Harvest Monday, May 20 2013 – Heirloom Goji Berry

This past Thursday I received, in the mail, a very special gift from Mac (High Dessert Garden) – 7 goji berry root stock plants.

Heirloom goji berry plants
Decided to plant them in containers (instead of directly into the ground), in potting mix, so I can nurse them until they have recovered from their trip and start to grow. Then I will transplant them into the garden. They are perennials.

These goji berry plants are heirlooms given to Mac by a 5th generation Chinese American friend whose family has been growing this variety of goji berries (from China) since the Gold Rush days.

These are indeed very special goji berry plants. Thank you Mac. I will treasure and am looking forward to harvesting the leaves as well as the berries to use in cooking.

Goji berries are also known as wolfberry

Mac has a fabulous vegetable garden. Check out her blog, High Dessert Garden, Her photos are beautiful. Besides the normal spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. she also grows a fantastic array of Asian vegetables and explains how to use them as well.

To date, there is still not much activities in my garden. Trying to catch up, slowly getting there. Hopefully this week I will go at a faster pace (I think I said that in previous posts). Many seedlings need to get into the ground.

New veggies harvested from the garden this past week (photo below) were all volunteers.

Red giant mustard, green mustard and a bok choy in there somewhere
Many more seedlings popping up in the garden, with the rain we had and are expecting, should get great harvest this week.

Washed all, cut into about 1½ inch length and stir-fried (everything together) briefly with ginger, garlic in a bit of oil, salt and pepper to taste. (Very boring, but this time of year this is how I prepare most of  my fresh-from-the-garden greens, especially when they are so young and tender.)

Also harvested the last of the garlic green and the last of the spinach from the window box. No more window box gardening until fall.

My fig tree suffered minor damage from the widespread frost and freezing nighttime temp on the 13th even though I covered the plant. It will recover, and hopefully produce a bountiful harvest.

Bloomerang lilacs, very fragrant
(click on photo to enlarge)

Blue iris

Bearded iris

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Copyright © by Norma Chang. All Rights Reserved. Do not use/repost any photos and/or articles without permission.

Visit Daphne’s Dandelions http://daphnesdandelions.blogspot.com/ for more Harvest Mondays

Harvest Monday, May 13, 2013 – Windowboxes Update + Spring Flowers

My Razzle Dazzle spinach continues to dazzle me.

Razzle Dazzle Spinach
Again, I harvested the outer leaves (n0 photo). Made a lovely spinach salad (used leaves as well as stems).

Razzle Dazzle Spinach after trimming
Will pull up all the plants this week and put the window box to bed until fall.

Had sown in a second window box (same time as the spinach) a Continental Salad Blend from Thompson Morgan.

Did not recognize what was taking over most of the window box until 2 days ago.
They were broccoli raab.

Pulled up all the broccoli raab plants (right photo).

Cleaned, cut into about 1½-inch lengths. Stir fried with sliced garlic green in a bit of oil, salt and ginger.

Garnished with toasted pistachio nuts and dried cranberries. Tender and delicious.

Left in the window box (were hidden under the broccoli raab) are arugula, Swiss chard, red rib dandelions, and (I think I see) lettuce and beets.

The arugula should grow quite a bit now that it has breathing space. Will harvest the outer leaves in a few days, transplant the remainder of the plants and the other plants into the garden and put the window box to bed also.

My experiment with growing pea shoots in a window box was a failure, but the above 2 window boxes more than made up and definitely gave me an early spring start.

Harvest more garlic green as needed but did not take photo (it would look the same as last Monday).

The row of garlic plants on the right of above photo are now properly spaced.
The row of garlic plants on the left are not.

Harvesting every other garlic plant during the next few days to give proper spacing.

This will be the last garlic green harvest as they are beginning to lose some of their tenderness.

Looking forward to harvesting garlic scape.

My first strawberry.

Wanted to leave it on the plant for another day, but I saw the birds eyeing it and decided not take any chances.

Was aromatic but could be sweeter.

Forget-me-nots

First tree peony bloom

Dogwood

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Copyright © by Norma Chang. All Rights Reserved. Do not use/repost any photos and/or articles without permission.

Visit Daphne’s Dandelions http://daphnesdandelions.blogspot.com/ for more Harvest Mondays

Harvest Monday, May 6, 2013 – Garlic Greens + Window Box Spinach

I am back. Still dragging my feet, but slowly getting back to normal schedule.

Took me longer to get over that nasty cold than I liked, hopefully I built up a good amount of immunity that should last a long, long time.

Lots of catching up (reply to comments to my posts, read 2 weeks of missed blogs, prepare garden beds, transplant seedlings, sow seeds, take down and put away temporary deer fence …, the list is long), will try to get up-to-date as quickly as possible.

Despite my neglect, garlic plants are looking gorgeous. As I mentioned in my 10/15/12 post (click here and scroll down), I planted my garlic cloves closer than recommended, now I am pulling every other plant as needed for cooking.

Garlic green

Garlic green is a really special spring treat. Unfortunately the season is short. Use the whole plant (white part as well as green part) like you would scallion. It is tender and has a mild garlic flavor.

I sliced the whole garlic green on the bias, stir-fried with sliced chicken (good with pork, beef, shrimp and tofu also) and sweet potato noodles.

My window box spinach (seeds sown 3/11/13) are doing very well. The first harvest was the thinning (pulled up the whole plant, forgot to take photo). The second harvest (photo below) I cut the outer leaves from each plant leaving the remainder of the plant to continue to grow.

Spinach
Burpee’s razzle dazzle hybrid

Made a soup with tofu, poached egg, thinly sliced garlic green and the above spinach. The spinach was tender and super delicious.

Spinach appears to be a good candidate for window box planting so will experiment with planting more in the fall for winter use.

Enjoy!

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Copyright © by Norma Chang. All Rights Reserved. Do not use/repost any photos and/or articles without permission.

Visit Daphne’s Dandelions http://daphnesdandelions.blogspot.com/ for more Harvest Mondays

Harvest Monday, April 22, 2013 – Ginger & Chayote Update

Zero harvest and zero gardening this past week. Forced to stay indoor the whole week.

All outdoor activities were at a standstill and all commitments and classes were cancelled or rescheduled due to a nasty spring cold compounded by seasonal allergies. By weekend was able to remain in a vertical position most of the day, so this week promises to be a better one. Not yet fully recovered, but should be a good week nonetheless, and by weekend I should be 100%.  Better be, company is coming.

Many of my indoor seedlings have suffered from this past week’s neglect and it is too late to restart. Fortunately there are local nurseries where I can go to purchase a number of the plants I need.

But even better, there is the Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County master gardener yearly plant sale where I know for sure they have the Ping Tung eggplant I grow and 21 variety of tomatoes (this is a dilemma, trying to decide which tomato varieties to grow, I have limited garden space and can grow only so many tomato plants).

Click here for more information about the  Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County master gardener’s plant sale, May 17 & 18, from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. and their list of annuals, vegetables, culinary herbs and perennials.

The “Comments” column of each plants’ list contains a wealth of information. You may want to peruse the lists even if you are not able to or have no interest in purchasing plants.

My ginger (started rooting on 1/14/13 posted an update on 2/18/13) all sprouted (100%).

The smaller ginger rhizomes are doing well

The thicker ginger rhizomes are not doing well

Don’t know what the problem is. Maybe due to the yo-yoing weather, maybe they need to be bumped up to larger pots. If the latter is the case, I have a big problem on my hand. Lacking a greenhouse, where am I going to house all those plants until early June when the soil is warm and I can plant them in the ground? Need to put on my thinking cap.

The chayote (started rooting on 4/1/13) is growing

This is so exciting, looking forward to following the chayote’s progress and wondering if I will be harvesting any chayote????? Am hoping I will. Shall keep you posted.

Daffodils

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Copyright © by Norma Chang. All Rights Reserved. Do not use/repost any photos and/or articles without permission.

Visit Daphne’s Dandelions http://daphnesdandelions.blogspot.com/ for more Harvest Mondays

Harvest Monday, April 15, 2013 – Garlic Storage Update

In my 6/8/12 post, I mentioned some gardeners believe the garlic bulbs will store better and longer if the scapes are not removed.

Decided to do an observation. Below is the result when I checked the garlic yesterday.

Left, garlic scape was not removed, instead, left to mature
Right, garlic scape was removed at the bud stage.
The above garlic (variety: music) were harvested on the same day last June and stored under identical conditions

The garlic where the scape was removed at bud stage did not store as well as the garlic where the scape was left to mature. However the differences were not that great so I think I will remove the scape at bud stage and enjoy them (garlic scapes are delicious but only available for a short time). Also the garlic cloves where the scape was removed at bud stage were larger.

Decided to experiment with freezing garlic.

Frozen peeled garlic
Left, uncooked. Right, cooked.

I like the frozen cooked garlic a lot, it blended easily into whatever dish I am cooking and I could use it frozen.

Did not care for the flavor of the frozen uncooked garlic (wasn’t bad, just seemed a bit stronger than fresh) and I must remember to thaw ahead of time if I want to slice or mince.

Conclusion: The frozen cooked garlic is convenient to use and I need not worry about spoilage.

I will cook and freeze most of my garlic this year leaving only a small amount for using raw.

Fig tree starting to leaf out

The weather forecast for most of last week was overcast and some rain but no frost. So even though it was a bit too early, decided to wheel my fig tree out of storage and onto the driveway (where it will remain) to harden off.

Because of the extended overcast weather I did not have to wheel the fig tree in and out of the garage while hardening it off, thus saving myself a lot of time and energy. But because there is still chance of frost, I will need to keep an eye on the weather forecast for the next few weeks and cover the tree if frost is in the forecast.

Remember the scilla I posted last Monday?

Deer came through and ate all the flowers, (every single one) for dinner or was it for breakfast?

This is what I found (left photo) when I went to get the newspaper Tuesday morning.

You guessed it, I was not a happy person

The only unprotected spring flowers the deer will leave alone are the daffodils and the helleboros (will post photos at a later date when they bloom).

Daffodils

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Copyright © by Norma Chang. All Rights Reserved. Do not use/repost any photos and/or articles without permission.

Visit Daphne’s Dandelions http://daphnesdandelions.blogspot.com/ for more Harvest Mondays