Tuesday, June 23, 2009

June 23, 2009

Well, Father's Day is over, and boy was it a good meal, if I do say so myself (I made it, hehe).  Of course there were the steaks grilled to perfection and baked potato with all the fixin's, but I just had to include a broccoli, cauliflower and carrot mix from my garden.  They were lightly steamed and the talk of the meal.  Everyone agreed that they were so fresh and crunchy that it wasn't even fair to call the storebought veggies by the same name.



 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh my do I need to lose a few pounds, hehe.  Gotta get this leg fixed and stop eating like a pig when I am working on the house on the weekends.  More of those niche fresh veggies should help, hehe.

This pic is a bit better.  Action shot of me harvesting the entire cauliflower plant. 



Gotta give the cukes behind it some direct sunlight.  Bad idea to plant the broccoli and cauliflower as a wall in front of the cukes.  Poor timing really since I fully expected the cole crops to be out of there before the cukes were planted.  Oops.  Next year the cole crops go in Bed 4 where my potatoes are.  Speaking of bed #4, look at how well it's grown.



Hehe, sorry if I'm in all the shots. My niece asked for some shots of me gardening so I had tons taken of me over the weekend.  Those potatoes are 3 feet tall.  And those carrots, some of them are not far behind.  Funny huh?  Carrots with 3 foot stems?  They're thick too.  I just had to see what the carrots looked like, so I dug down and found to my surprise, that the carrots were the same thickness as the stem.  I harvested one.  Take a look!



Not only that, but the carrot was inedible!  At first I thought it was the Purple Haze since it didn't look like anything I'd grown before.  And it isn't an aboration since I've got tons of them in the garden.  The funny thing is that my wife pulled an 8 inch stem out and found an inch thick carrot that was 7 inches long.  In other words, beautiful. Sorry, no pic, my son devoured it saying it was the best carrot he'd ever eaten.  Another funny thing is that the next day we pulled a Purple Haze carrot that was actually purple and good sized.  It was sweet and excellent, so it wasn't these. 

Anyway, my wife yanked all these and they're now in the compost.  I doubt the carrots will compost anytime soon they're so hard.  Grrr.  Wonder what they are?  If they're not left over Mokums, they're either Danvers or Purple Haze?

Oh well, to end this post, I wanted to share my new favorite pic. I'm using it as my Facebook photo.



Enjoy your garden!

9 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness at that cauliflower!!! I've never seen anything like that. Do you think that carrot bolted? That's what happened to mine when a single stem got that thick.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Those carrots definitely have bolted to seed. The thick stem is a seed stalk. Was this a current year seeding? Typically bolted carrots are ones that overwintered in the patch and are in their second year (carrots are a biannual plant). If they were seeded this spring than that is strange that they bolted on you like that.

    I think the last picture is really nice too! The gardener framed by his hard work! The cauliflower looks beautiful. You should be particularly proud of that - as they are considered to be a bit of a fussy grower and it's hard to produce heads that are as sized up and pristine looking as those. Well done.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is a really big head you got there! (The cauliflower, not yours) Ha! That last photo of you is a really good shot, and is my favorite, as well. Too bad on the carrots.....carrots are just plain weird! Of course, granny grows them like crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice to see you with the pretty vegetables. I think we forget sometimes that folks want to see the faces behind the heads. Oh boy, something about bad jokes and gardening. . . Bolting definitely. It would be nice to figure out if it's one variety or just a few rogue carrots.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lovely cauliflower! Mine is about baseball sized right now.

    The white carrots in my "Rainbow" seeds turned out just like your skinny one. They are all hard as a rock, skinny and most have bolted to seed. The other varieties from the packet (yellow, purple and deep orange) are all good, normal carrots.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nice photo!
    At least you have some carrots. So far my root crops are all a bust. Not sure why.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wooooow everything in your garden looks MASSIVE!!!

    Haha, my radish ended up looking like that too! It all eventually bolted so I couldn't eat any :( So sad!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love the last pic! You look so happy. :)

    I have another garden disciple to report. My manager (yes THAT one) decided to start a small raised-bed garden after hearing me rhaphsodize about mine, and darn if she isn't loving it! She brought the whole team each a bag of lovely mixed greens and herbs today. She was so excited, it was so nice to see! A couple months ago, she was asking me if I was SURE those little seeds will actually grow anything, and now she has her husband building her more raised beds each weekend! She says she can't belive how even lettuce tastes so much better than its storebought cousin. I feel so darn proud. :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. You look like a very proud gardener and your produce looks great! Those potatoes are huge, they should have a bumper crop under them. I had a few carrots bolt on me last year, none have this year though.

    ReplyDelete