Logan's Kitchen

Since I’ve been planting for a couple of week, I thought it was time I provided an update about what’s going on in the garden. I’ve planted the majority of the garden, only waiting for the beans, zucchini, and celeriac (which is growing really slowly inside). The radishes, half of which were planted at the beginning of April, and doing really well, especially considering we have had a handful of hard frosts over the last couple weeks, and a night of snow.

The red beets that were planted at the beginning of April are also starting to come up, with the red carrots seeming to follow slowly. The golden beets, yellow carrots, and orange carrots haven’t made an appearance quite yet.

I transplanted the parsley and tomato plants, and while the parsley is doing great and noticeably growing, the tomato plants have all died back. I realized that I was over-watering (which will flood and suffocate the roots), so I haven’t watered the garden in a week. The combination of mulch and the green-houses really do a great job of retaining moisture, so over-watering was a silly mistake. I did pull back the mulch around the tomatoes, and while the leaves all died, the stalks seem a little thicker, and I think I saw some new growth. I vaguely remember reading something about transplants dying back and regrowing, but I might be making that up in the hopes of them coming out OK. If not, I’ll just restart some seeds inside, and have a late tomato crop, which is alright, since most of it will be canned/frozen for sauces.

I also transplanted a bunch of leeks, which are doing really well, but transplanting them was a pain (although the leek harvest will make it worth the effort). Due to the long and wispy nature of the leeks, I had to be really, really careful when I replanted them. Fortunately, I only tore up a few of them, and I had extra.

I planted a couple square feet of lettuce mixes today, but not before pulling up a lot of weeds. I’m not sure what they are, but they all look identical, so I’m assuming the weeds came with the dirt, or blew in when I added fertilizer a few weeks ago. The fortunate thing was that they were very easy to pull, since the raised beds allow me to keep very loose soil (since I don’t have to walk on the dirt). Pretty soon, I’ll have many heads of lettuce growing in their place!

Once I have a greener garden, I’ll post more photos and updates. I’m expecting the radishes to be the first crop, so keep an eye out for those too!