Thursday, July 3, 2008

July 3, 2008

Well, it's the start of a 3 day Fourth of July Weekend here in Seattle, so yesterday we had thunderstorms, lightning and rain.  Today I woke to rain and then it dried up and was muggy and 65-70 all day.  Not much sun but the garden really responded.  Take a look at my prize cauliflower!



It's starting to turn a bit yellow, so I think that means it's getting too much sun.  By the size of it I think it may be ready to harvest.  Sorry I couldn't find a coin to show size, hehe.

The next several pictures are all of DIFFERENT cauliflower.  Yep, that's right, nearly all my cauliflower decided to grow heads at the same time.  Take a look...







Hehe I bet you think I took a picture of the same plant over and over, but nope, the're all golf-ball sized caulflower.  I am pretty sure when they are ready I'll be freezing some for later.  I'm pretty much the only one in the family that likes it so if I have three heads to eat all at once I'm going to get cauliflowered out.  Hehe even one head is more than I eat in an entire year.  I don't get it much since it's just for me.  I normally buy broccoli instead (I'm the only one there too).

Speaking of broccoli, look at how well it's growing...



Compare that to a few days ago...



Oh, did you notice in the first (later) photo, the tall stem on the right?  Well we forgot about the radishes planted around the broccoli and those ones grew foot tall stems to reach the sunlight. Seems the broccoli grew faster than the radishes did.  Oops.

Well, despite the holiday weekend, I still have a to-do list to share:

- Fluff compost bins, both of them.  I think the one is just about done but I can't be sure.

- Fertilize my corn with nitrogen.  I've got to call around to find urea or something similar.  It's pure nitrogen.  You have to water it in immediately but it's worth it.  One or two rows of my corn needs it.  Oh yeah, my first planting IS knee high by the fourth of July.  It's only my succession plantings that are smaller.  Exactly what I wanted.

- Plant more beans.  Sooner or later I'll get some more to grow.  Otherwise I will just interplant with radishes, hehe.

- Plant more spinach. Seems my last successions that just became edible are bolting too.  I hope it's still spinach season in Seattle? I got the slow to bolt kind.

Let's hope the weather turns for tomorrow. It's not supposed to be clear, but anything's possible.  Tomorrow is a parade that our preschool (that means us too) is in, in the morning, then a party at my brother's. Finally we'll go to the park where the city is shooting off fire works.  Hopefully the kids will last that long. Gonna be a late night.

Enjoy your garden!

2 comments:

  1. Bolted spinach can still be eaten! Just pick off the leaves and let the stalk stay to produce more.

    We had rain for two-three weeks - meaning that nothing bothered to grow with the lack of sun, and then suddenly really hot weather for two days, so my spinach has gone straight from first leaves to bolting...

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  2. If you want to keep your cauliflower head white you can tie up the inner leaves around the head to keep the sun off of it. I'm not sure if you planted these from seed or transplants but you can find cauliflower seed that will self blanch where as the leaves grow over the head and stay in place throughout the development.

    Your garden is looking wonderful. Hope you can find some time to just kick back this long weekend and enjoy it!

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