Potato Surprise
Posted: 5/4/2009 1:32 AM
Generally, potatoes should be harvested a few weeks after the plant has finished flowering. However, my potatoes seem to have their own schedule. A couple of days ago, I noticed the soaker hose near the potatoes was bulging upward. When I tried to press it down, it wouldn't lay flat. That's when I realized that it was being pushed up by the potatoes. I carefully pulled out two of them, along with a small third potato by accident. The plants haven't even begun to flower and the potatoes shouldn't be ready for several weeks. But, some of them didn't know that and here they are.
Meanwhile, the string beans are taking longer to mature than I expected. I finally picked the first two today and ate them raw, while still in the garden. What a treat!
We harvested quite a few other things as well: beets, lettuce, spinach, arugula, rosemary, snow peas and carrots.
In late March, I had planted a few seeds in Styrofoam cups. Yesterday, I transplanted the Swiss chard and the zucchini to the left side of the garden. Those are both pretty large plants, so they'll fill up the left side once the rest of the lettuce has been harvested.
Swiss chard
Zucchini
The eggplant that I started from seed is still very small, so I'll wait another week or two before adding it to the garden. Besides, I'm not sure if I could fit it anywhere just yet. By the end of the month, the right side will be nearly empty again, after I harvest the rest of the potatoes, carrots, beets and radishes. Other than the tomatoes, the rear part of the garden will also need to be replaced soon. The beans and peas will continue to produce for a few more weeks, but it's time to start planning on what I'll grow next. So, once again I planted a few seeds in Styrofoam cups: cherry tomatoes and cucumbers for the rear garden bed and corn for the right side.
I have finally resigned myself to the fact that my kids don't like arugula, no matter how I prepare it. They don't like it raw in salads and they don't like it cooked in pasta sauce. However, we did make a couple of kid-friendly dishes that are always a hit. Oven-Baked Carrot Fries are delicious. (www.williams-sonoma.com). My daughter and I also baked a Chocolate Red Beet Cake (www.farmfreshtoyou.com.) . We make this cake every year and the kids love serving it to their unsuspecting friends. It looks like an ordinary chocolate cake and you can't really taste the beets. After everyone has eaten their piece, my kids will say "You just ate beets!" Their pals don't mind, because the cake always tastes so good. Besides these two favorites, I made three dishes from www.epicurious.com: Chinese Chicken Salad, Crisp Rosemary Potatoes, and Jasmine Rice with Garlic, Ginger and Cilantro. Last night we had company for dinner. I served a wonderful Beet Salad with Chevre and Walnuts (http://www.williams-sonoma.com).
Despite all the cooking I've been doing, we can't quite keep up with all that's growing in our Backyard Botanical garden. We have tons of lettuce. What was I thinking when I put in 9 lettuce plants? All of the lettuce on the left side of the garden is starting to bolt, so I'll need to harvest it now. There is no way our family can eat all of it, so I'll be giving some away to our friends and neighbors. I'm sure they'll enjoy our home-grown lettuce as much as we have.