Oh great and curly scape! Your pointy end and bulbous middle indicate and amuse!
Scape is the great indicator. The allium cellular conflagration that says “if I had a flower, I’d be flowering because my cycle is nearly over”. It shoots out of the leaves of your hardneck garlic plants and curls, curls, curls in a wormy display of bursting resource. So why do we cut it (aside from the fact that it tastes like garlic and can be used in tons of recipes)?
Actually, you don’t need a better reason.
But okay, okay. It helps to remove the scape so that the final burst of energy from the plant can go into the bulb formation happening beneath the soil.
So, when do you remove the scape?
Whenever you are hungry for garlic flavor!
Okay, okay. Remove the scape when it is curly and has wound around itself to form a couple of coils. Or do it before. Or, really.. later when it is a little straighter. Whatever. Just remove it!
Or don’t.
But seriously, remove it because it’s delicious.
Check out this awesome Scape Humus that my friend Chris made. (On a crunchy homemade pita slice too.)
Filed under: Uncategorized
For me, 90 pea plants is a lot. A ton. With a 400 square foot garden, 90 pea plants means… well it means that I’ve got a lot of peas packed in there.
This year I planted three varities:
- Cascadia. A very reliable, crisp snap pea. This variety follows what is emerging as the Compostings Law of Favored Vegetables – it produces a lot. This variety represents about half of the pea plant population in my proximity.
- Carouby de Maussane. A beautiful pea plant with gorgeous flowers. It’s a snow pea and has been Mr. and Mrs. Reliable for me. But this year.. hmmm… something has struck the de Maussane and withered them. The plants look sickly and there are very few peas. The peas that are growing are gnarly. I’m going to do a bit of research to figure out what hit them to determine if I can plant these guys again next year or if I should wait.
- Mr. Big. In addition to being a horrific 80’s/90’s band, Mr. Big is a fairly popular shelling pea. The peas are incredibly delicious. But, shelling peas tend to violate Compostings Law of Favored Vegetables in that, while they produce a lot, you need TONS to make even a bag or two of frozen peas. (Jim Gaffigan has a comedy routine about blueberry picking. Work, work, work, and by the time you are done you’ve got enough to make a muffin.)
The peas, especially the Cascadia, are in full effect. The whole family, including Sean our two year old, loves them. Oh yeah, Sean loves the broccoli too.
Next year I will lose the shelling peas, heal the Carouby peas, and devote even more space to Cascadia.
Filed under: Uncategorized
The peas went in at the end of march and now… I’ve got peas!
The carouby are carousing first, but I expect the cascadia soon. I will post more when I eat them!
Filed under: Uncategorized , Peas
Oh sweet stranger danger! I have not forgotten you. I am still operating under your prime directives:
- Avoid unneccessary social interaction
- Never EVER make eye contact
- Seriously, stop looking me in the eye!
However, I am compelled to understand other people’s gardens. But don’t fret! I have not yet truly approached strangers and their gardens. I’ve started with friends.
My good friend Bryan T (last name removed to protect his innocence) used to work at my company. Somewhere out there is a movie of the two of us frollicking in the waves of Hawaii. But I choose to remember him in more manly times. (I therefore barely remember him at all.)
Tucked away as he is in the obscurist of obscure Connecticut obscurities (truly he probably belongs more to Rhode Island) I have not gotten to his house, but if his fine cooking and fine family can’t lure me, perhaps his first garden can!
Bryan is far, far, far more fastidious than I. He is well coifed almost always. Clothes are generally on and generally well branded. He has an actual sense for aesthetic. He is clean. So, yeah.. he’s annoying.
His sense of order and design comes through I think in his garden. For a first-time gardener, he has done a great job here. Since he loves to cook he has stocked a working kitchen garden that will likely provide an abundance of greens, squash, peas, beans and herbs. I’m not sure where he got the idea to build the compost bin right in the structure of the garden, but I think it’s a great plan. He’ll be able to recycle plenty there and very easily work it into his soil next year.
Filed under: Uncategorized
June, June, June!
Things truly begin taking off about now.
The beans are up, the peas are WAY up and even flowering here and there. The greens are growing in succession. Broccoli? A few.
Everything is getting taller, wider, greener. Buggier. Boltier. Chanticleer.
I’ve gone loony on the legumes this year with beans and peas as far as the eye can see (assuming the eye can only see about 20 x 20). I’m hopeful that a staggered planting of bush beans will prevent me getting overrun all at once, but heck.. that’s what the freezer is for!
Beans, peas.. Am I crazy?
Romaine lettuce ready to go
Flowering incoming! Pick quick.
Cascadia pea flower
Spicy!
Go beans go!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Composting Commentors