More Greens..and reds

Immature Spring Mix

Can't say enough about this lovely lettuce, speckled, red, green, delicious, hardy..but what variety is it? Not sure! I haven't saved the package as usual, but the tag in the soil says Lettuce 'Spring Mix'. Whatever ....the camera loves it as much as we do.

Late September 2011 this same unknown variety germinated in the bed we put the row cover over in winter. We didn't harvest any of it as it had barely begun to grow so the patch was covered with fleece, straw and the plastic, and forgotten about until spring. This below is last autumn's sowing, a bit ahead of this year's sowing and ready to pick.

Mature Spring Mix

The dwarf Pak Choi below, germinated very quickly this spring, so needs a bit of thinning soon. It will be yummy in salads, as will the thinnings of the French Breakfast radish.

You know, I find radish one of the hardest things to grow. Well, yes, they germinate but it's getting that lovely root to grow into anything substantial that seems to be the most difficult. Perhaps I don't thin as much so have been doing that this year. Still, I have seen other gardens where those red balls are just pushing themselves out of the ground, so closely grown, like bouquets for the table. Maybe our soil is too rich, or too acid...or?  This is my second year trying Heirloom Watermelon Radish, again, all germinated but...will the root form to an edible size?

I am pretty excited about something that is growing in the raised bed and it's new to our garden.

Do you remember I started pea and broad beans in the house in February, growing the shoots to add to salads. Well, after soaking quite a few of the Windsor broad beans, and seeing them sprout their little white root, I jammed as many as I could in the pot on the kitchen windowsill. However, there were six or seven I just couldn't get in there so, they went outside in the raised bed with the cold frame cover. At the time, I could barely get my finger tips in the frozen soil, but enough to cover the seeds and ...well it was a test, just to see. A few times, the frost below pushed them out of the soil but now, they are all growing. Amazing! You know, I have never grown or tasted fresh broad beans but my Italian friend Carla says they are delicious and are very popular in Italy. I wasn't too pleased with eating the shoots though especially as I read online they can be toxic if you have a low tolerance to something in them but they didn't seem to bother me. Nothing to write home about though; the pea shoots were much more to my taste.

Building on 'bean success', I ordered Sweet Lorane Fava from Annapolis Seeds which I had planned to try but didn't notice they can grow up to seven feet tall. Do I have room for them? After all, there are only so many beans one can eat, and with Blauhilde Pole, Fortex, Bush Pencil Pod and Ruckle from Salt Spring Island, the latter also from Annapolis Seeds, think this year's bean plate is full.