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Flower Power Update: The Cabbage Sprouted!

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Jan 07, 2010 at 22:00:25 PM PST


Allow me to introduce you to the newest member of Flower Power "Farm" (our family's garden):

It's purple cabbage! And visions of sauerkraut are dancing in my head!

Here's our updated graph of how long it has taken each plant to germinate:

A complete photo tour of our garden is below.

Jill Richardson :: Flower Power Update: The Cabbage Sprouted!
We've got exciting things happening in our yard. I've definitely caught gardening fever, big time. I think about it all day long. I go to bed wishing I could stay up and garden and I wake up eager to get outside and start work. I apologize in advance that my gardening skills are clearly better than my photography.

The carrots are starting to look much more carroty:

I realize it's blurry but instead of just little stems with two leaves each, some of the carrots are starting to grow leaves that look like carrot tops. Hooray! And I'm finally having an easier time telling the difference between the carrots and the weeds. Some of the weeds are easy to distinguish, but others have been able to fool me until now.

Then there's the lemon tree, which has flowers and lemons in various stages of formation:

The fava beans are thriving (which is good because I thought I nearly killed one of them!):

And the herbs...


Oregano


Thyme


Candy Mint (selected by our 3 yr old candy addict)

Last, there's my favorite to obsess over, the sugarsnap peas:

They are a lot of fun because they grow so quickly. They haven't even been out of the ground a week and already some of them are over 4" tall!

For the full story about "Flower Power Farm" (the name we chose for our garden):
Part 1: Preparing the soil and planting the carrot seeds
Part 2: Preparing the soil for peas and cruciferous veggies
Part 3: Enter the Pests
Part 4: The Carrots Sprouted!
Part 5: Gardening with the Kids
Part 6: The Peas Sprouted!

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I just want to boast (4.00 / 3)
that I had a little bit of success. I got our older daughter to measure the pea plant, record its height, record the germination of the cabbage, and then graph how many days it took the cabbage to sprout. Yay!

Of course, she also got some Baskin Robbins tonight. We offered her a treat and she was NOT interested in getting the locally made gelato at the non-chain ice cream parlor. So I've still got plenty of work to do here.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman


Has she ever tried it? (4.00 / 3)
They can get set in their ways, and hell... even my 25-year old sister didn't want to try the indie yogurt place on NW 23rd we went to while we were wandering around NW Portland when they were here last summer!

Once we got them (my then 9 and 2-year old nieces, hell and even my sister) into the store though, they couldn't get enough of it.  Maybe it even ruined them for the chain crap they certainly went right back to once they got back home!

I just realized right now - I've never had gelato.  There's a place down in Sellwood / Eastmoreland by the farmers' market there that I almost stopped in last summer for some, but I decided against it at the last minute.  Because I splurged ridiculously on blueberries and raspberries and was therefore broke, heh...

"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization." - Eugene V. Debs


[ Parent ]
she tried it tonight (4.00 / 2)
liked it, didn't like it as much as Baskin Robbins.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

[ Parent ]
Ah... (4.00 / 2)
I guess that's why the big chains have things like 'taste engineers' and such, eh?

Which is odd to me, though.  I mean, I realize everybody's palate is different and all...

But for me, geez.  I can taste the chemical soup when I eat chain food.  (Maybe I'm a "Super Taster"?  The Michelin Guide would never hire me, heh)

Last time for me that I can remember was October 2007, when I was passing through Wyoming and starving; and even though I absolutely, definitely did not want to stop there... I cracked and stopped in at a Wendy's for some fries.  Figured it was better than McDonald's.  Yuck, either way...

"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization." - Eugene V. Debs


[ Parent ]
Congratulations, Jill! (4.00 / 3)
oooooh, itty-bitty-baby leaves: they're so cute!  I forget what the baby leaves are called (I'm sure there's a name for them) but when those drop off, the next set is called "true leaves," which is where your carrots are now.

Almost makes me want to go back to greenhouse work -- almost.  I enjoyed it but my allergies were a royal pain.

Your garden seems to be thriving nicely: well done!

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. -- Calvin Trillin


[ Parent ]
Ah, too cool! (4.00 / 3)
Yer deffinately bit by the gardening bug!

Regarding locavores as elitists - explain to me how supporting local business is elitist....

awesome (4.00 / 3)
I love purple cabbage in stir-fries. Not a sauerkraut or cole slaw fan, though.

Sugar snap peas are so good. I hope everything keeps going smoothly for you in the garden.


but here's one thing you don't have (4.00 / 3)
Potatoes with a cross inside.

I had to laugh when I saw this story. A bunch of the potatoes I got from my CSA this year had these weird cavities with brown around them inside. The potatoes looked fine from the outside, so I don't think any bug got in there. Does anyone know what causes this phenomenon? Is it a fungus?


oh weird! (4.00 / 2)
I'd ask the CSA. And then tell us, please!!

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

[ Parent ]
I've heard... (4.00 / 3)
those potatoes go well in a hash with Jesus Toast...

"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization." - Eugene V. Debs

[ Parent ]
Oh... (4.00 / 2)
And sold out of the Perth Amboy, NJ restaurant where the Virgin Mary appeared in the window about eight years ago, bringing over a hundred thousand 'pilgrims' to the small city (population 45,000) from all over the East Coast for days on end.

I gotta go find that story again (2001-ish), it was really something.  I did some work in Perth Amboy during that time, and it was really a sight to behold.  Not the stained window that some nuts said was The Virgin Mary, but the blocks-long lines of people who drove up from Virginia or down from Connecticut to look at a window.

"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization." - Eugene V. Debs


[ Parent ]
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