Our garden has faired well this summer, and because we aren’t seasoned gardeners, it has yielded surprises as abundantly as vegetables!
My favorite surprise was the radishes! Apparently the red radish variety we planted is one that barely develops any root, but is grown for the pods!
The pods have a lovely delicate texture, just like a young pea pod, but with characteristic radish zest! They are fabulous in tossed salads, and because our lettuce shot up and gave a great yield, tossed salads have been much enjoyed recently! These tender pods are so much better than the woody root!
Being garden novices, we were also fascinated to discover that one of our lettuce varieties is a stalk-like plant with leaves that fan out from a tall stalks--stalks that tower above Kieran!
I hope that the tomatoes and peppers will be ripe before frost. Winter comes early here on the windswept plane. I'm usually eager for snow and snuggly sweaters; This year, however, I hope to see a ripe tomato first.
Maybe this autumn girl will learn to love summer yet!
Here's the garden in leafy abundance!: A little redefining of "concrete jungle" right in the back yard.
And a blast from the past when we first planted in May (you can read my May garden post here):
We hope to expand the garden next year, adding several more "blocks" to our grid.
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Thursday, August 13, 2009 - Lettuce
Your lettuce bolted :) When it gets too hot for a variety of lettuce it bolts. It shoots up into a tall stem, with leaves along it and eventually will flower at the top. If heirloom seeds, they'll turn to seed pods and you can save seeds for next year. MILLIONS of seeds in on top of a lettuce plant! Enough for all of next year on that one plant if you let it!! A lot of people find bolted lettuce bitter. I don't mind it too much myself though.