Disclaimer: I am in no way a professional gardener. In all honesty, I have basic knowledge at best and next zero practical experience. This is simply me chronicling my adventures in vegetable gardening!
Time Flies!
I can hardly believe it has been 25 days since my last garden update. What the actual heck?! Where did the time go? I can account for around two weeks, which you can read about here Crazy Two Weeks. As for the rest of the time, uuhhhh, something. Shame bell ringing off in the distance...
First Harvest!
At least with this entry, I can share something really exciting! I have in fact collected my very first harvest from my veggie garden! I had hoped that I would have gotten a lot more done by now, but sadly it wasn't to be I guess. Still, getting to eat something you grew yourself is pretty darn amazing! And it is a lot of motivation to keep at it! Even if I only expand the garden slowly, progress is progress.
Radish Time!
My very first harvest turned out to be the radishes I had planted. They grew with very little encouragement on my part. Some grew better than others, but overall most of them are doing great! I harvested five radishes out of the radish patch. There are still seven remaining in the ground in different stages of growth. This was done on purpose, in hopes that I would be able to harvest a supply of fresh radish on the regular.
Radish bursting from the ground!
It was pretty obvious just from a glance that these radishes were ready as they were literally popping out of the ground! So I selected these three and two others to harvest. I used a small garden fork and carefully dug them out of the ground.
First radish harvest!
Five radishes in total for the first harvest. I took a photo next to my small garden spade to give you a little bit of scale. If you are wondering, the biggest one was around 6 cm in length and 17 cm in circumference.
Freshly washed!
Here they are all washed off! Just look at the lovely colour! Now I know radish leaves are apparently edible but these have tiny spikes on the leaves that kept poking me, so I decided I would rather not try.
Ready to use radishes!
I removed the leaves and the roots and gave them another wash before popping them into the refrigerator. My husband loves radishes and the moment he got home immediately ate one. I had a tiny bite as well. I asked him how it was, and his response was "MORE!", so I think it is safe to assume they measure up to standard, haha.
Rocket Blues
I am starting to see that Rocket, or at least the seeds I have, do not have a very good germination rate. And the few I have managed to germinate appear to be struggling to really grow well. I am not entirely sure what I am doing wrong or what the problem might be. Any advice here is very welcome. I have at least two seedlings that look promising though. Crossing fingers.
Rocket seedlings in the early stages of growth.
The Rest of the Patch
As for the rest of the Veg Patch, I have managed to germinate some tomato seeds that were scooped out of a commercially bought slicing tomato I had for dinner one night. I honestly wasn't sure they would take at all and it did take them a while to pop up. But they are there! This means my next step is to start looking at a trellis of sorts to support the plant as it grows.
Tomato seedlings and lettuce plants.
In the second photo above you can also see my lettuce plants. I think they are just about at a point where I can begin to start harvesting the occasional lettuce leaf. The same applies to my spinach. I hope to get quite a few leaves off of these plants in the coming weeks. My curl-leaf parsley is doing really well too.
My spinach and parsley!
Thanks!
As always, thank you for stopping by and taking the time to read my ramblings. There you go @zakludick and @lex-zaiya, my veg patch update for the week!
Credits:
- Photos by me;
- Canva for helping me make the photos look pretty.
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Thank you!
Your radishes look amazing and your veggie patch is coming along so nicely. I am sure your tomatoes will do very well, they tend to like slightly sandy soil for some reason. I enjoyed this, thanks for sharing it.
Thank you for the tip! I am so glad you enjoyed the post!
Brilliant, those radishes it so nice and lovely
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I find this kind of radish cute... I wish to plant them this Decemebr.
It's looking good, I want to try permaculture. Planting complementary plants next to each other that help each other grow :)
Beautiful radishes!
Oooo, I would like to try that too! I should probably do some research 😂
It works and you actually grow alot more in a smaller space. So think tomato plants go tall, pepper can gown under it, beans trellis so carrots or lettuce can grown below.
I suppose its like layering
Brilliant! Who cares if you are an expert or not. I think very few of us are!!! I love radish, crisp and watery from garden. Hmmm .. I think @fermentedphil is the rocket guru.. or at least he loves it!!
Oh wow @pixelhuntersam this looks awesome! I cannot stop thinking about those radishes pickled and thinly sliced on some sourdough bread and rocket leaves!
Rocket should be one of the easiest things you can grow, but throughout the years I have come to realize they don't want to grow where you plant them! They mostly grow where they want to.
However, what are your growing conditions like? They love full sun, lots of space, and good watering but not too much (i.e., well-draining soil). And what time of year are you growing them? My summers are too hot for them to grow, so I grow them only in the winter months.
If you like rocket, try to get your hands on wild rocket! They are more intense in flavor, they grow easier, they are perennial (normal salad rocket is an annual), and they produce an unlimited amount of seeds.
So if I would have to guess why your rocket is not sprouting/growing: (i) might be a bad batch of seed, not all rocket seeds will germinate, (ii) wrong time of the year, i.e., too hot, (iii) they are just picky and want to grow next to your lovely radishes because rocket plants are just like that.
Jokes aside, I hope this helps a bit! Sorry for the essay-length reply!
No need to apologize @fermentedphil I appreciate your input! It is summer here and we have been through two heatwaves, so I am guessing that would be the reason. Dang it... I want fresh rocket! Guess I will have to be patient then. I'll see what these seedlings do. Otherwise I guess I am going to have to wait until it cool downs some in a few months time.
Thank you so much again!
No worries! That might be the problem yes. Or at least, it is what happened to me! Every summer there are a couple of rocket plants that sprout but the bolt immediately and do not produce leaves.
But as I mentioned, if you like the rocket flavour and as you clearly want some during the summer, try growing wild rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia). They grow year round and sprout anytime of the year. In fact, they are quite drought tolerant in contrast to normal salad rocket.
Best of luck!
I still want to try pickling them. Sounds delicious! And thank you for bringing the rocket guru around!
those look like so good radishes green thumb sam👍
Well, I don't know about that, but I am glad they came out nice!
Those radishes look amazing. As for the prickly leaves, you can roll them up and chew on them. I like them, and the rats absolutely adore them!
I don't know if I am brave enough to try, haha! But it's nice to know the ratties like them.
Eating the leaves while they're younger makes them less prickly and peppery.