My french tarragon is still growing like crazy and overshadowing my still small swiss chard ... so I've chopped it again. It makes a nice indoor arrangement, don't you think? :)
I had some minor garden injuries this weekend - very minor, but a good reminder of wearing good garden gloves and proper footwear! I managed to give myself a "paper" cut on the edge of a plastic planter - not a big deal, but you never know about infections. Then Sunday morning, while mowing the grass around the garden, I had a nasty sudden pain around the ankle ... my guess is I was bitten by a spider. Minor, thank goodness, but did you know there are Black Widow spiders in Ontario!?! I watched the swelling and 3" diameter rash obsessively ... for two hours. Then it went away. OK, not a Black Widow bite. But seriously, it's good to always have protective gear when gardening. I usually wear rubber boots, but the weather is so warm ... ugh!
So on to my harvest of the past week. I've been tracking the weight of harvests, but just haven't shared any yet. Mostly it's been lightweight greens. This week, I had my first couple of pound or near-pound harvests.
First up is one harvest of broccoli (pictured here with another big batch of escarole being thinned out) - these two heads were 405 grams, with another head around 150 grams later in the week. These first two were used to make the recently posted soba noodles with ginger-peanut sauce. Yummy. I was pretty excited about these as I have a hard time growing most brassicas with the weather conditions in my area.
Another weighty harvest was the garlic. I've harvested about a third of the Red Russian garlic early due to the infestation of leek moth. I'm picking the larger ones for now, but I'm probably going to start with the smaller heads soon just to avoid further damage. Here they are drying out in the basement - 729 grams so far.
I've also pulled more garlic scapes and harvested bits of kale, spinach, more sugar snap peas and pulled the rest of the radish out of the greenhouse (with no pics).
And more garlic scapes. One of these days I will get around to pickling some .. they seem perfect for a good martini garnish!
And some rhubarb spears with I also didn't get a pic of but I used them to make these rhubarb & strawberry galettes.
Oh yeah, and these ... hmm, not much.
Check out Daphne's Dandelions to see what other gardening folks have going on this week.
Those are nice heads of broccoli. Mine are still just tiny buttons just starting to form. And the garlic looks to be respectable size despite the moths. From what I read, the leek moth doesn't affect the bulbs so hopefully they turn out fine
ReplyDeleteI sometimes garden without shoes at all. But I wouldn't mow like that. I like long pants when I mow. You never know when the mower will spit something out. It is just safer. I wish I would wear gloves more often. If only to pull the nightshade that is a common weed around here. I can't even touch it without reacting to it, so I need to be careful. Sometimes they grow too large before I get my gloves on. Usually I like to feel the dirt though. I did get punished for that one time. There was a ground dwelling wasp that I dug up when planting out. He was unhappy with me and stung my hand. It has only happened once though, so I don't worry about it.
ReplyDeleteI have so many ants and spiders in my soil that I can't imagine going bare-handed. And I'm more likely to squash a bug (the kinds I don't want) with gloved hands ...
DeleteI'm glad you are ok. I'm not much of a garden glove wearer either - usually only when I'm pulling out large or prickly weeds or when pruning shrubs. Oh yes, they are also a must when spreading mulch.
ReplyDeleteThat broccoli looks great! Mine doesn't even at the button stage yet. Hopefully that's a good sign that they are building up lots of energy to give me a good head.
Wow, I assumed everyone wore gardening gloves! I started those broccoli plants indoors in the winter so I got a good headstart. It's my first year doing two plantings - the seedlings for the fall harvest have just gone into the garden over the past week or two.
DeleteLove the tarragon forest and everything else. I would bet you were stung by a ground-nesting wasp like a Yellow Jacket...that's happened to me when mowing and it burns like fire.
ReplyDeleteIt really did hurt, maybe it was something like that. Too bad the tarragon won't make it through the harsh winter - it could make an interesting makeshift Christmas tree ...
DeleteGlad you're okayed.
ReplyDeleteLovely garlic harvest, I'm drooling over everyone's garlic scape harvest because I didn't grow any this year.
I don't have as many scapes as I normally would as I've had to toss a bunch due to damage from leek moth. I would be awfully disappointed if I didn't have any at all!
DeleteJealous of your broccoli, I will have zero this year thanks to the "cute" bunny that was in my garden. Nice looking garlic.
ReplyDeleteI've certainly got my fair share of gardening scars! The main critter that I'm really afraid of encountering around my garden is rattlesnakes. One time I went out to my garden and just as I was reaching to unlatch my garden gate I heard that distinctive rattle VERY close by and saw a rartlesnake entangled in some bird netting. Yikes! But it was well and truly stuck so I called the Humane Society and they sent a snake handler out to rescue it. So I know they are out there... Tarantula Hawks are given a wide berth also, they supposedly have one of the most painful stings of anything, like an 11 on a scale of 0 to 10.
ReplyDeleteGloves? I'm up to maybe 50% of the time, but there's some things that I just can't do with gloves on. And I'm better about wearing appropriate footwear since I sprained my ankle wearing garden clogs a few years ago.
Good lord ... I just googled tarantula hawks. I don't ever want to live in California.
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