Zone 5b Garden Update For July 2021
This month in my urban garden I told myself to romaine calm and harvest!
In July 2021, my garden came to life! After what feels like a long summer, the garden is starting to produce and I couldn’t be happier!
What The Kale
My kale is growing so fast, I can barely keep up. I’ve been able to make a few 100% homegrown salads. Salads included micro greens, beans, lettuce, spinach, kale & sprouts. I also tossed in a few snap peas, I’ve harvested maybe 30 snap peas this year.
I peaked at my potatoes this month – found at least 1 potato and recovered it. I’m hoping there are more potatoes under all this dirt, fingers crossed! One of my urban garden friends has so many potatoes, and he can just reach in and pull out potatoes from his hay. Next year, I’ll be using hay to backfill my potatoes for ease of harvesting.
Bolting In The Urban Garden
If you had asked me 3 months ago what bolting meant I would have given you a strange look. I likely would have guessed bolting had something to do with fabric or lightening. Turns out, bolting is something that happens to lettuce. Bolting means the lettuce is done producing, and you should remove it from your garden. Bolting occurs when the lettuce gets too “hot” from the sun.
Bolted lettuce will have a very bitter taste, and you may see flowers shooting up from your lettuce, You can try to cut back the bolted part, but I found I still had bitter lettuce growing. It’s best to just remove the bolted lettuce and re-plant something else. To help prevent bolting in lettuce, plant lettuce in a partial shade area – try to limit the amount of heat the lettuce gets during the heat of the day.
Not So Scary Scarecrow
It’s getting later in the season for corn and I need to get to work on my scarecrow. I’m patiently waiting for my husband to help me nail the wood stakes together as I’m not very good with tools. While I waited, I decided to buy staples for the staple gun I would also need to use. The staples will be used to hold the clothes on the wood stakes. Of course, I can’t do anything until the stakes are nailed together. My corn is growing so I’m hoping to get the scarecrow in the ground shortly!
If you are interested in making your scarecrow, here’s an article on how to build a simple scarecrow for the garden.
100% Edible Urban Garden
This month I tried the leaves of one of my edible flowers in the urban garden. I was truly excited for an edible flower to have bloomed! I wasn’t sure what the taste would be of the flowers, I thought maybe they would be bland. The leaves of my flower were surprisingly peppery! The flower itself was pretty bland but looked beautiful.
My first edible flower that bloomed is named nasturtium (nuh·stur·shm). Nasturtium are very easy to grow, and can grow to be very large (I’ve seen leaves as big as hands), but generally are small and bushy. The flowers range from yellow to orange and pop against their dark green leaves. I plan on using nasturtium as a pepper replacement in the kitchen.
Why I Chose a 100% Edible Urban Garden
One reason I chose to have a 100% edible garden is because of the above – I was working in the garden, and I could grab a leaf and eat it. I didn’t have to think twice about “Is this edible?”. Having a 100% edible garden isn’t hard to do, and pays off as you see beautiful flowers bloom and you know they are all edible.
While the edible flowers I planted are easy to manage, harvesting the flowers for eating sometimes is a challenge. The borage in particular is difficult – these have a bunch of tiny “hairs” on them that you wouldn’t want to eat. Removing the hairs is a challenge and involves shaving the hairs off. The flowers are just too small for me to do this, so I’ve decided to grow these for the pollinators. At least I have something pretty to look at in the urban garden.
Zucchini’s, Beet & General Updates
This month I harvested zucchini every week – almost 1 zucchini every other day! In addition, I decided to harvest beets this month. I learned that all parts of the beet are edible – not just the red bulb, but the green leaves & stalks are also edible. I sautéed the leaves like spinach and tossed the stalks into my freezer bag for vegetable scrap broth later.
Because it’s been so hot here (multiple 100+ degree days in a row!) I bought some hay for my garden. I hope the hay will help protect my plants from the heat and prevent bolting on my lettuce and Brussels sprouts. The garden center only had the large bales left, which was quite a bit of hay. My garden didn’t need all of the hay, so I placed what I didn’t use in plastic totes for later use.
After bringing the hay home, I had a mess to clean up in my vehicle, and I learned that hay is like glitter – it gets everywhere!
Why You Need Pollinators In The Garden
I learned that my zucchini were turning brown before becoming full zucchini because they weren’t getting pollinated. My edible flowers aren’t attracting enough bees & butterflies to the garden, so I bought some flowers that will attract them to my garden. Hoping the bees & butterflies come to my garden and pollinate my zucchini. If you have a similar issue, you can hand pollinate, but I didn’t want to take the time.
It’s Hard To Be-leaf The Month Is Over
Can’t get enough of Angie’s garden updates? Check out all of her updates here. I have to get back to gardening, always lots to tend to!
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