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Showing posts with label kale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kale. Show all posts

Sunday, 9 June 2024

Early June

We’ve had another week close to home working in the garden. Between trips to the garden centre, when weeding filled the day, sore muscles made the next day a chore. The vegetable plants will go in the garden this week.


On lists of healthy dietary must haves these days, kale often makes the cut. I planted kale last June and left it in the garden late fall. Well, fall became winter and those six kale plants weathered the worst Prince Edward Island could throw at them. This spring, when I expected mush where the plants were located, healthy plants greeted me. I swear, kale will be the last plant on earth after the apocalypse.





Garlic, planted late October, will be ready next month 





and rhubarb is plentiful, enough to share with friends. Rhubarb contributed to a great birthday cake recently.





In the flower bed, the nine bunches of peonies we are tending are in bud, waiting for a wind storm to bloom, at least that’s what always happens. They are our favourite blooms though they only last a few days every year.





Under the patio deck, a new generation of robins learned the sad truth about crows raiding nests in the area. The robins abandoned this beautiful nest after the crows ate their eggs.





When we did walk the boardwalk this past week, Dame’s Rockets had popped up along the shoreline. 





Ferns are unfurled now and are a welcome addition to the greenery. Chokecherry trees are in bloom and the trail is lined with them.





Meanwhile, a mama Red Squirrel was in a feeder, taking time to eat before returning to her babies.




It was a busy week but a lovely one in June.




Monday, 13 July 2020

The vegetable patch

The raised garden plot in the backyard has brought us much enjoyment and nutrition in the past number of years. During that time, we have grown a variety of vegetables, some more successfully than others.


This year, we are growing cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, yellow beans, kale, onions, lettuce and herbs. We bought our starter plants at a nursery in the country this year and the plants were sturdier than those available in the city.





We have been eating kale and lettuce for weeks now and the other vegetables are growing nicely. I enjoy the Russian kale with a sprinkle of flavoured balsamic vinegar.





Presently I am using a blueberry variety. A few leaves are enough for my husband and I. In the fall, I will blanch and freeze what remains. We usually have enough kale until mid winter. 


There are savings with growing these vegetables even taking the cost of the starter plants into account. For example, a three pack of peppers here is $6 or $7 this time of year and doesn’t decrease much as the season progresses. 





In another month most of the other vegetables will be ready for harvesting. If we have a bumper crop of tomatoes again, I will can some as I have in the past, making tomato jam, marinade or pizza sauce or just bottles of tomatoes. Knowing what is in your food is a huge bonus.





Besides there is nothing better than produce which goes from the garden to the table in minutes. It doesn’t get any fresher or better than that!