Thursday, July 16, 2009

Question about my Garden


I was out in the back garden doing some puttering. Things like making sure the tomatoes are in there cages, seeing if the ladybugs have done there job on the roses yet, weaving the peas through the web of string I made to help them climb. When low and behold guess what I found. Yes pea pods, I counted about 7 pea pods growing so far. There are lots of pretty little purple and pink flowers on the vines and they look gorgeous. I was all excited so I started taking pictures. I think I know when to harvest the peas, when they are easy to pick off the vine right?
When I planted the peas, I planted about 8 seeds at a time in two week intervals hoping that then we could have a longer season of fresh peas. I noticed that the last seeds I planted are just starting to break through the soil. Cool!




So my questions to the garden fans are I also have swiss chard growing. How do I know when that is ready to be picked and eaten. Cause some of the leaves are looking worn out and some of the others are being eaten by bugs. Do I pick it when the leaves are small, does that make it more tender or do I wait till they are larger? And by larger what do we mean, as big as rhubarb leaves or what? And my next question about swiss chard is do I pick from the stem at the base or just the leaf? Also will it just keep producing more leaves as I pick like basil does or once I harvest leaves for dinner that's it?







Now on to my Sage bush (it's huge) I wanted to chop it in half and take half to camp to plant there for the cook and cause it is pretty and requires no work. Any special trick I need to know before I hack the bush apart? Also does anyone have some good recipes for fresh sage. I have been using it on roasted potatoes lately with fresh thyme and oregano but what else could I use it on (besides turkey).

You know whats cool about my first year vegetable garden is everything growing in it, the little one and I started from seed. And now only half way through July the garden is huge.
I took this photo July 1st
This one was taken today July 16th

5 comments:

  1. Your garden is looking amazing however I don't know the answers to your questions. I'll ask my cooking hubby about the swiss char. I will ask my

    dad about the sage also.

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  2. What a great garden!
    You seem to have the magic touch. Maybe you were a farmer in your past life....ha ha
    I can't answer any of your ???'s because I can hardly get my grass to grow nicely, but I thought I would let you know that your plantings look healthy and happy.

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  3. Wow, when I first started reading I thought it was Cathy's post then somewhere because of the style of wrighting I realized that it was you Caoline. What a great job. I will ask my dad about the Swiss Chard this weekend. He should know the answer.

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  4. First of all Thank You Louise you remembered when we lived on the farm.
    Carolin your garden look amazing in the pictures Bet it looks even better in real life. HINT HINT.
    Sage is also great with any pork dishes.
    The thing that amazes me the most is that you can take a picture and put it on the blog. How do you do that? Please teach me. Love You Lots

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  5. You make me laugh mommie. Louise the only reason she brings up the farm is a number of years ago when she was going through some 'changes' (if you know what I mean) she tried to convince the family that she grew up on a farm and not downtown Toronto like the rest of her siblings.
    You are welcome anytime you can even come this coming week if you want. Mind you we wont be here but you can take care of duster and the fish.
    And the picture thing it is cool eh! I saw that Cathy did it and copied what she did. Blogger makes it pretty painless. Were is it you would like to post pictures?

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