Wow, what a Saturday, beautiful, sunny, healthy and different….
The garlic plants finally got over the reoccurring blows of cold and hail and are looking good, strong and ready for our plates! Still just sprouting are the asparagus and artichoke…. Very hard to predict their progress….
Before the big rain (lots of water fell on us last Wednesday/Thursday) we managed to plant parsley, fennel and romaine lettuce. They got their first “rain flush” and seem to be coping well. Since they are winter crops, like the remaining lettuces and cabbages waiting to be planted, I hope the weather will be stable with no heavy heat that will cause them to skip the developmental phase that we want.
Even one day that is too hot and dry can cause a winter plant to feel that it’s end is near and that it should start working to produce the next generation by developing seeds – the most important task in its life – and therefore end its growth stage, which is typically the stage we want. For example: in the broccoli plant we want to eat the head before the buds open and develop seeds. We want the “head” to be as big and beautiful as possible. Each broccoli plant also wants its head to be big and beautiful because this means that it will have more flower buds, which means more seeds and that, of course, is the purpose of the broccoli plant – to provide for the next generation.
Each plant has its favorite season, giving it the conditions that suit it best to maintain an optimal life cycle. The transitional season, with its varying weather conditions, often plays tricks on the plants
In general, the transitional season is usually characterized by a wider range of products. You must be noticing it now:
There is an abundance of winter leafy greens: Kale, spinach, Swiss chard. There is plenty of winter roots: different radishes, different carrots, beets and more variety of the cabbage family (the queen of winter): broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage. And also plenty of juicy summer fruits from the hotter areas: peppers, different tomatoes, melons, watermelons.
So what happens in the transition season, when in our region the weather is fickle and characterized by an extreme hot and sunny day, and then a gray and rainy day? For us the transition season is characterized by surprises. Two cold days cause a shortage in cucumbers (members of the summery gourds family, now grown in greenhouses) – they simply did not grow and there is nothing to pick…
In our garden we feel the end of the winter, but the temperature and humidity differences from day to day can be H-U-G-E !!!!
Try to understand this as if you are a broccoli, a member of the cruciferae/cabbage family, which is certainly a winter family 🙂
A broccoli seed is sown in early winter or when it's cold. It will grow and invest in the development of buds and head until it detects signs that suggest the season is changing to a season that does not suit it and so must go to the next level. This could be the end of the winter season or a single hot day that came as a surprise. When the broccoli senses that conditions are changing (the days getting longer, the heat rising, the radiation of the sun beginning to be difficult for it, too much dryness – and probably many more indicators that we humans have yet to understand or learn to measure) it quickly “raises” his head and blooms the buds to allow pollination of seeds so that they can grow as new broccoli plants next winter. These seeds can wait in the ground for a long period until they feel the humidity rising, the nights getting longer, temperatures lowering and all sorts of things that only they know. These seeds will then germinate and act like their parents before them….
Another current example is the red lettuce. The red lettuces from 3 weeks ago were huge. I could barely get them inside the bags. The lettuces from last week and this week (a later planting) are not yet so large but I am hurrying to pick them because I see them getting ready to “bolt” or raise their flower column. We want to eat the lettuce before this stage :).
Wishing everyone a successful week with suitable conditions for whatever it is you want or need.
Yours,
Maggie and the garden staff
We expect in our weekly baskets (draft only 🙂
Green garlic
Lettuce
New Zealand spinach
Kale
Sweet Potato
Cucumber
Tomato
Onion
Potato
And carrots
Larger ones also:
Celery
Mangold
Parsley
Peppers
Fruit baskets :
Sweeties
Oranges
And bananas
And larger ones also:
Strawberries
Clementines
And red grapefruit
