What's in your Herb / Vegetable garden?

[Ciel]

Since the bulbils have scapes on their tails, I may snip some off and see which Ricardo recipe suggests a best use (article from past English language issue).

[Ciel]

Was not a huge fan of chewing the scapes. Tasted like natural plastic straws (had texture of flower stalks), though the softer tops of scapes were easier. Think I'd reserve scapes for flavouring rice or quinoa cooking water unless I chopped or blended the scapes into smaller pieces or mush. Still holding onto the bulbs from the scapes for flavouring something.

[TrueNorthTreasures]

We chop garlic scapes into small pieces and freeze them in sandwich baggies to add to soups and casseroles later. The smaller/thinner scapes are nice cut into 1-inch pieces and pan-fried in oil with salt and pepper!

[TrueNorthTreasures]

The first Dwarf Purple Heart tomato!





Cour di Bue cabbage






Springtime Cassis Pansies

[Lavender Lady]

@TrueNorthTreasures --thank you for sharing the beauty of your gardens!!! You must be delighted to wander through every morning to see what has grown from the previous day--what a joy!

[TrueNorthTreasures]

Oh, boy. July and August have been so wet and cool this summer. I am worried that things aren't going to reach maturity before hard frosts hit (which usually happens in early September, but can happen in late August). We have the old bedsheets ready to cover things at night, though I wasn't expecting it to get as low as it did last night. It was 2 degrees at 6:00am this morning.

Please cross your fingers that September will be unusually warm and sunny for us!

One of the garden plots



That's frost on the woolly thyme!



Romanesco cauliflower, Mitla Black beans, and Coastal Orange Pride tomatoes

[redhdlois]

A little late to the show.......
I took over another community garden plot this year, so I now have two. The second one is a work in progress as the previous gardeners didn’t clean it up after last season, so it’s been a lot of work. I am going to make it into a low maintenance garden with perennials such as succulents, etc and make a rock design from rocks I have collected at the beach. I did plant sweet peas along one side of it as it was a chain link fence to climb up.
anyway, onto my veggie garden. This year I planted kale (again...way too much) from seed, two varieties of potatoes that I have already harvested and re-planted some russets for hopefully a fall crop, romaine which did very well, red and yellow onions, green bush beans 3x which have produced tons. I planted the same variety the past few years; Westcoast Seeds Maxibel....they are so good! The pics were taken awhile ago. The first one from my new garden....I planted a buddha that was on my balcony and broke so I moved it down to the garden...the sedum has grown a lot since then, and the bush beans behind.

[redhdlois]

I have a question for those that have had experience in getting rids of weeds. I am currently dealing with purslane infestation. I inquired at my local nursery and they suggested using black ground cover to solarize it. So, I did that and it worked, removed the black material, but it has now grown back with revenge. Because I grow veggies in that garden, I don’t want to use anything in the way of weed killer that will alter the chemistry of the soil, but as the season winds down, I am wondering if anyone can suggest something I can do to get rid of it? TIA

[TrueNorthTreasures]

I don't have much experience with purslane, but I do recall reading that the most effective way to eliminate it is to pull it out by hand (I know...groan...) and that it should be put straight into a garbage can, NOT a compost bin/pile. I gather it's seeds and roots are very hardy.

[redhdlois]

I don't have much experience with purslane, but I do recall reading that the most effective way to eliminate it is to pull it out by hand (I know...groan...) and that it should be put straight into a garbage can, NOT a compost bin/pile. I gather it's seeds and roots are very hardy.

Thanks....that’s what I have been doing. Most of my gardening time lately has been spent weeding 😟
and yes, they are very hardy!

[Ciel]

@redhdlois You gave me an idea-I should stick a couple of potatoes in the garden (my half, version 2.0, as I just finished removing the very long/tall grass and other plants Mother Nature went to town with) to see if anything happens! We have another hot day with rain? tomorrow then we get the happy middle 20sC again (my fave temperature range).

I put my potted organic basil plant (purchased-love the smell of fresh basil) into the garden. Mom had put it out on the front steps (I noticed my plant was MIA today) and there are at least 4 partially browned leaves already on the plant. I had watered my plant on Sunday (leaves were drooping) but since more rain is due, I watered the ground and the roots when planting. Seemed to perk up the leaves.

Mom's purchased tomato plants (cherry and regular) are providing just ripened tomatoes daily but not in massive quantities. I never know when her two cuke plants have large enough cukes (several small ones of late, after the weekend rains) unless I check under most leaves (found 4 today-about 4-5 inches long). Two days ago, I found an odd 6 inch cuke that look like two smaller ones that failed to divide lengthwise. Must have been a quirk of two flowers sticking together. The poor pepper plants only have a couple of tiny peppers that failed to thrive as the cuke leaves have been crowding out the sunshine around the other plants.

[TrueNorthTreasures]

edit

[Ciel]

This is likely the cucumber plants' last prosperous week. I still see many yellow flowers but I've been harvesting about 5-8 cukes at a time about two days between pickings. Tomatoes are more green than red. I counted about three noticeable radish plants by the size of leaves (one is about the same size as I had in June) but I know that the root veg is still quite small. Argula-might snip some of the tender short leaves today for a small salad.

[TrueNorthTreasures]

Well, they're not in the garden any more, but here are some Work Release paste tomatoes. They have finally ripened in their boxes!

[redhdlois]

I threw in some seeds very late in the summer to see what would happen (my third round of green beans)........haven’t harvested the potatoes yet either...they still seem to be growing