Monday, December 12, 2011

Harvest Monday Dec 12

I am posting this with my iPhone. It would be more exciting if I could figure out how to add pictures with it. Oh well. I finally got started on seeds for my fall/winter garden (perfect timing eh? Amazing how much time and energy you can lose to a divorce). I have some tiny kale seedlings along with some chard. I am excited because they are cool varieties (seeds are my pokemon - gotta cath them all). The kale is a genetic mix called 'extremist agreements' made by an adventurist seedman who allowed his hardiest kale plants to cross freely. I am in love with male and look forward to selecting some keepers out of this material. The chard is lolla rossa - an all purple variety. I love crazy colors.

So soon I'll have my garden back in production. For now I am 'scavenging'. I let some greens go to seed in spring, so I clipped some arugula, mustard, and chard from that. 3 oz worth. I had also planted some Jerusalem artichokes in spring. When catalogs say "drought tolerant, plant it and forget it", they are not thinking of the Valley. I fried those suckers by mid-August. I did not expect much, but I checked under one of the stalk stumps for kicks. Monster! I got 1 lb 9 oz of usable tubers from that single original tuber. It's more impressive with pictures.

New estimation of JA's: great. Which is good because I hear you can't get rid of them.