March 22, 2015

Still no rain and none to come, temperatures still averaging 5-10 degrees above normal. There was a little spritz this morning and maybe a little more tonight but should total up to no more than .1" at best.

I'm starting to pull a fair amount out of the boxes now, mostly to eat but some to clear space and get rid of boltings. I'll probably turn Box3 over next weekend to prepare for tomatoes, turning the soil, replenishing with manure, and reconfigure the irrigation for the tomato plants. Although the cauliflower plants grew tremendously, it's only now one of them is showing any signs of a bloom. I finally thinned half of them out this week to see if the crowding had been affecting the lack of flowering. Regardless, it was just an experiment as I had a box I wasn't really planning to use until April, which is in 10 days.

Box 1

lettuce, radishes, lettuce, radicchio

Lettuce, radicchio, arugula, mesclun

I've pulled almost all of the radishes now as the remaining ones were getting close to a growth surge. Best to eat them before then as they can get quite hot and bitter. Some of the mesclun is starting to bolt so they won't be long either. And I need to give the arugula some room to grow as it's been pretty much buried and now is getting to the point of being useful. 

Overall I pretty much grew things a bit too close but this year is the time for evaluating how to grow things in these boxes. More spacing next time.

Box 2

Lacinato kale

Rainbow chard

Beet seedlings

I've pulled the remaining chicory. Very tasty leaves but I only know have learned about the hearts. There were some forming when I picked the last ones but they weren't really large enough to use - next time I'll know and plan to leave them in to a good size.

Pulled a bit more chard. The peas are flowering and making some pods. These (Progress #9) were labeled as shelling peas but the pods are early enough to be edible on their own. I'll see how these progress.

The first seeding of beets are starting to form below so will be thinning these out now.

Box 3

The first cauliflower head forming.

The experiments with the celery, broccolini, cauliflower, and chicories were very interesting but now time to get ready for the tomatoes. I pulled half of the cauliflower as it wasn't close to forming any heads and had gotten quite crowded. We had enough of a broccolini harvest this week for a side dish for dinner - very nice and definitely will be growing this again in Autumn.

Box 4

Not much change from last week other than both the dill and cilantro seedings have grown quite a bit. First seeding was Jan 15, the second Feb 15. Since the first seeding will be useable for a while yet, I'm holding off on a subsequent one for now as I figure out what the schedule should be to have them consistently available.

Box 5

peas with cheap support

I re-purposed the lattice that came with the camellia for the snap peas seedlings. Otherwise everything has just progressed a bit. The celery doesn't seem to be growing as quickly or as well as the plants in Box 3. As with those, I bought these at Berkeley Horticultural but obviously were from the same batch. It may be that this second set had sit in their small pots just a tad too long so haven't thrived quite as well.