Harvest Monday: End of April

Once again I actually have a harvest (not bad for April gardening in Pennsylvania with no cold frame) but it's still just one veggie.   Better than nothing!  Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions and check out this week's Harvest Monday post to see what everyone else has been harvesting.

Our radish harvest for the week.

It seems that we are not the only things enjoying the radishes.  I did see several tiny millipedes  in the ground, but I don't know if they caused the radishes to split or just ate the holes into them.

The brassicas are coming along nicely, though I will have to thin them soon.  

The lettuce is also coming along nicely.

The peas growing in the back of the garlic bed finally have a trellis to climb.  I used two U posts and some plastic deer fencing.

Harvest Monday: First harvest of Spring 2012!

Ok, so it's just a bunch of spring onions but it's something!  Thanks to Daphne for hosting Harvest Monday (and giving me an excuse to get back on the garden blog horse).

I had decided to pull these and eat them instead of just pulling and replanting...the bed they were in needed about 6 more inches of compost so I could plant herbs.

Spring onions, cleaned and ready to slice.

These are a couple of the thinnings from my radish bed.  They are about dime-sized, and the one on the left is a watermelon radish.  Not much I can do with them though.

I sliced into one of these and they smell strongly of garlic.  Originally I thought it might be onions growing on my hillside, but now I think maybe garlic growing from composted store-garlic.

Spring Garden Cleaning and Planting

Wow, these last few days have been just beautiful and I've managed to get most of the spring garden totally planted.  A few things might be going in a tad early, but I think I can battle any small frosts with mulch and/or row covers.

This is the first time I've ever tried growing lettuce or chard, so it's a total unknown.  I was extra careful to pull out every inch of invasive root growing through my beds in the hopes that I won't have as bad of a weed problem this year.  It's mind-blowing that those roots were even growing into the clay level about 10 inches down...

Anyway, I'll put up the garden plan soon, but in the mean time here are some pictures of progress from the last few days:

Part of the cleaning was pulling up the remains of last year's brassica bed.

Mr. Smiley in front of the garlic bed.

Baby Nugget just sat around eating crackers while the rest of us worked.

Picking rocks out of beds was a popular task.

At one point we had some music in the garden.

The carrots will again be grown in buckets and were actually the first things we managed to plant.

Digging out weeds.

Watering carrots.

The triangle bed will have lettuce and chard this year.

Cabbage and brussel sprouts (a tad close since we will probably lose a few).

The best part about growing garlic.

I actually have green stuff in the garden!  In mid January!  In Pittsburgh!  This is the first year we've overwintered garlic (or grown garlic at all for that matter) so it's fun to see signs of life in my otherwise dead front yard.  In late fall I picked up several varieties of organic hard-neck garlic from Enon Valley Garlic and planted one of our 5.5" square beds with it.  I'm sure I could mulch a little deeper, but considering the weather has been unusually warm I think we're OK.  

My Fall-Planted Garlic

If you're in Western PA (or Eastern OH) and want to try a fantastically wide variety of hard and soft-neck garlic, stop by the Enon Valley Garlic booth at one of the farmers markets listed on their home page.  They're a family run organic garlic farm and will even give you pointers on growing your own gourmet garlic at home.  Check out their website for an excellent primer on how to grow garlic.  They also have a photo guide to the different types of garlic they grow.