Showing posts with label Belgian endive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belgian endive. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

today's garden work

It was a beautiful, bright and warm HALLOWEEN day! I was lucky to do garden work all day. There are not so many of these good outdoor days any more as the season moves on toward winter. Here's what I did:

- Finished up my seed list. (Last year I started a list of all the seed packets I have that includes the folder they are stored in and when I planted them. By going through my seeds again now I put misplaced ones back in correct folders and identified seed packets that were used up this year so I know what to buy for next year.)

- From my home garden I harvested some kale and bulb fennel, dug up 3 first year artichoke plants for overwintering in pots in the garage, and dug 4 or 5 Belgian endive plants and set them out to cure under several layers of row cover.

- I photographed 3 types of mushrooms growing in my home garden. One on untreated pine raised bed wood, and two on birch logs that edge my flower bed. I'll get these identified by an expert. I THINK two are edible, one possibly a turkey tail and another maybe an oyster mushroom. I have no idea what the third is.

- I unpacked 4 or 5 of the 10 or so micronutrients that I am collecting mail order to refurbish the soil of my small orchard (3 apple trees, a cherry and a peach).

- And finally, the task that wiped me out, I dug a bed of potatoes at my community garden. I recovered about 20 lbs of beautiful russets from the bed in soil that was REALLY heavy. I was thrilled to get such a good harvest and shouldn't complain, but it was a lot of work!! We have had an unusually rainy fall here and even though I dig potatoes only after a couple dry days, the soil is still heavy. I've dug two beds so far, one more to go, lots of rain in the forecast...

belgian escarole IMG_6401 garden IMG_6405
garden mushroom IMG_6406 garden mushrooms IMG_6409
potato digging IMG_6430 community plot IMG_6434

Monday, January 22, 2018

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

growing Belgian endive

I'm trying something new this year. Belgian endive! I grew it from seed starting mid summer. Last Friday I harvested the roots and now they are curing in the garden under leaves. They'll stay out there a few days or so, then the leaves get chopped off and the roots are stored like carrots - in plastic in the refrigerator. In a few weeks I'll take out one root and plant it. It should take 3 weeks for it to start producing chicons. What an odd thing to do. I can't wait to see how (if?) it works out.

Belgian endive IMG_0684 Belgian endive IMG_0691 Belgian endive IMG_0694 Belgian endive IMG_0698