Busy weekend of spring planting and transplanting

lettuce seedling + takeaway box …

= larger, healthier lettuce :)

We've just reached the first moon phase (half moon, a week after the new moon) and all the weeds are back! It's also the best time now to grow leafy vegetables and other annuals.

We visited our plot two times this weekend, on both Saturday and Sunday, which is more than usual. Below is a summary of the things we achieved... over probably 4 or 5 hours in total. It would be so much easier if our plot was in our backyard but right now it's about 25 mins drive to our home. That will change soon once we've moved to our new home, which is only 5 mins drive away. Can't wait!

So, on Saturday:

1. Pulled out most broad beans, leaving one row and the edges for harvesting in a few weeks time (Bed 2)
2. Dug out weeds (grasses) from around trellis area
3. Transplanted our large beans and many snow peas (looking forward to crunchy fresh stir frys in around November/December!)
4. Watered transplants with seasol water
5. Harvested kale (a birthday present for a friend) and lettuce (used for dinner party that night)
6. Harvested beetroot. Really looking forward to eating this again. It was so delicious last time we had it.

On Sunday (today):

1. Did more weeding: a never ending job! We should have done it about a week ago when it was the best time to do it according to the moon planting calendar)
2. Sowed seeds of various brassicas: bok choi, mibuna, komatsuna.
3. Also planted some mizuna (a lettuce family plant?), in the same patch.
4. We protected these seeds in about 10–12 take-away containers because we found that lettuce grew much better with it. Not only does it probably stop frost from killing the seedlings, but it keeps moisture in and acts like a greenhouse, increasing the temperature. See the photo of the lettuce plant that was grown under a container over winter, compared to the other plans that didn't get such treatment!
5. Scattered many handfuls of barley and green manure seeds into Bed 2 (the old pumpkin plot, and in the spaces where the broad beans were growing until yesterday). Barley is said to be a good green manure crop that's best planted and dug in just tomatoes.
6. Green manure mix went into Bed 4 (beside our brassicas) to put some nutrients back in and also prevent weeds from taking over again.
7. Forgot to plant our lettuce, endives, and coriander! Oh no. We'll have to do it at the wrong time (good chance to experiment and see whether moon planting really has a noticeable effect on the sprout rate).

Below are some photos of our plot from Saturday. I'm very happy with the progress of our garlic and artichokes in particular; both look very healthy and strong. They did so well over winter. Now it's spring and their growth is really accelerating.

broad beans before trimming

broad beans massacre! Making space for barley
(another green manure crop) before tomatoes

kale is getting lovely and big; we can't finish eating this

no signs of flowers but the 6 plants are all healthy and strong

garlics are nice and tall—I wonder how the bulbs are going …

alpine strawberry plant grew a lot of leaves but no fruit;
perhaps due to too much nitrogen leeching out from the
sheep manure bag that I stored right beside the plant! 

white polystyrene boxes used to reduce frosting of our
purple climbing beans and snow peas, on either side of trellis

purple climbing bean transplanted

Mini buncha on top of our lettuce

lettuce washed in our sink

washed and ripped lettuce pieces

We used our recently harvested kale and lettuce to make this buncha dish. The dish was for a potluck birthday dinner party that we got invited to with just one day's notice!

We didn't have enough time to cook this meal according to the original recipe so we took some shortcuts.
Main changes to the original recipe:

• no nuoc mam sauce but instead had lemon wedges (but the meat patty themselves have plenty of nuoc mam sauce mixed in so it's flavoured in that way already)
• smaller patties, to cook faster!
• buncha patties to be laid on a bed of lettuce (harvested from our plot) rather than on vermicelli noodles)

buncha meat patties cooked to perfection

the final dish: mini buncha on bed of organic lettuce

We cooked the rest of the mince meat the next day; my wife said it tasted better today because we learnt that cooking it on higher heat keeps the meat more moist and adds a harder crust. (Have to be careful not to burn it, though!) And this time we had it on vermicelli noodles with the nuoc mam sauce that she made. She did a great job with the sauce too.

fresh, light lunch

We have lots of baby coriander growing at the moment, but unfortunately not ready for harvesting and using in this dish. The most important herb, though, is the thai basil, which I hope to grow one day. I still don't know where to obtain the seeds. We also want to have one or two lemon trees. And garlic chives should be easy to grow too. For now, our only home-grown ingredient was the oak lettuce that grows all over our plot on its own, spreading almost like a weed.

My wife has been craving this dish for a while … and then for dinner we went to our favourite Vietnamese restaurant. She told me she was probably a Vietnamese in her past life, and I believe it's true :)

Spring 2012 begins! Onions, root veggies, herbs, and moon planting

Spring has arrived! It's 1st of April, and any time after noon today is the best time to plant root crops (according to the moon planting guide).

My wife and I did just that today, and more. At noon today, we went out into the warm spring day, with our wide-brim hats on, and started digging and moving soil around.

our beans arranged neatly on potting mix

We started with the root crops. Onions! They were supposed to be in by early winter, but we got busy and only managed the garlic. We have cream gold and red odourless varieties. We planted them really densely. The cream gold stores better, so we did probably around 125 seeds (give or take), but only around 75 seeds of red odourless. See the 'map' and photo.

map of our tray of beans and
onion seeds (Tray 1)

We also planted lots of beans: climbing purple (saved from a school garden we walked past back in March or April!), snake beans, and snow peas.

And for the first time, we're growing okra—specifically red okra. It's going to be interesting to grow this delicacy. It's expensive but very yummy. Apparently, like purple beans, though, once you cook it the colour fades and it just becomes normal green. So I'll have to eat it raw if I want to have red / burgundy chemicals travel inside my body.

To finish off,  we planted bunching onions and spring onions.

map of various herbs
in sandy soil mix
(Tray 2)

We did a second tray as well. For this second tray, we mixed soil with sand. I used up all my sand here … I should have kept some for my succulents and cacti. Oh well. It was about a 50/50 mix, with a topping of seedling mix on the top. Not sure if the seeds should go directly on the sand/seedling mix mixture?

Let's see what we planted here. Dill, thyme, sage, marjoram, and we were going to do basil but decided to wait until it was warmer and the right moon phase; that is, about 2 weeks from now. Instead we popped in some beetroot (in normal soil this time). Most of these herbs will also need transplanting, and because we sowed the seeds really densely (about 18-30 per pot) I expect we will have quite a lot more than in the past, when we used to only put in a few seeds.

How much seeds we planted:

• Tray 1 (# of seeds per seedling compartment)
• onion red odourless : 20–30
• onion cream gold : 20–30
• beans, climbing purple : 4 
• beans, snow peas : 5
• beans, snake : 4
• red okra : 4
• onions, bunching : 30
• onions, spring (supermarket) : 20
• Tray 2
• carrot Manchester Table : around 80
• carrot Chantenay Red core : around 100
• coriander : around 20-30 per container, 4 containers
• dill : around 30
• Thyme : lots!
• sage : 18
• marjoram : lots!
• beetroot : 12 in total (6 per container)

Speaking of beetroot, we harvested one today from our plot. Sorry, no photo of this plant yet. But just take a look at our garlic! They've done so well since we popped them into the ground in late April, which is just over four months ago. There are a few plants near the back of the row that need a bit more care … the hay seems to keep covering the leaves and this has stunted their growth a fair bit.

garlic is doing really well

Apart from planting out seeds, we also did some transplanting. Hokowase strawberries come from Japan, and are apparently low acid (or no acid). We're not sure if they send out runners, but just in case they do we gave this plant a huge amount of space. It's already started to flower (when we bought it a week ago) so we look forward to some delicious fruit in the next couple of weeks. Eventually, I want to have many varieties so that we can have jordgubbar throughout the whole summer period.

our second strawberry plant (hokowase)

Almost forgot that we also did some carrots and coriander. We're not sure how the carrots will do, but our attempts to grow them last year directly in the soil did not work at all. The weeds just completely took over the allocated, cleared-out space that we spent so long weeding. We didn't know which sprout was carrot and which was a weed. This time, because we're growing them at home on seedling mix, we should be at least able to see the seedlings pop out. We did two varieties: manchester table (about 80 seeds) and chantenay, which is a red-cored carrot. That will be interesting.

coriander, lots of them!

carrots, two varieties

All this planting took about 2.45 hours. I couldn't believe how fast time passed when we were out digging soil and moving pots around. It really flies. And I think that's why people who have little else to do (i.e., retired) spend so much time in the garden. It's just a fulfilling way to spend one's precious hours.