Big day today, there was and input AND an output from my garden!
First, the output: a small head of cabbage, and a small head of broccoli.
A few months ago I spread out a whole bunch of cabbage seeds and about 30 seedlings came up. I thinned those out to about 12 plants. Now I am picking the cabbages at a minimal size to make room for the others to grow larger. Today’s cabbage was just about one pound. Later when there are only 4 or 5 plants, each head will grow to 5 pounds or so. But there is no reason to waste the space while waiting for them to get big! I’ll take a nice firm 1 pound head of cabbage any day.
The cabbage and carrots share a home with strawberries (upper far left of picture). This is the 3rd year for the strawberries, and supposedly that is about as long as they’ll last. Nothing better than having fresh strawberries in the garden for a little kid to pick and eat. (I have more strawberries in a different spot, and I’ll plant some again this year. )
I also harvested a small head of broccoli. Honestly, the broccoli was so small, that I hate to even mention it. This was the botanical equivalent of the ‘runt of the litter’. It was a leftover from last November’s harvest that I was hoping would get bigger- not such luck. I do have to admit though, that it was good and firm, with a nice dark green color when cooked. Small, but good.
Sautee’d cabbage and broccoli. A little bit of water in the pan with some butter, salt and pepper. With fresh veggies you really can’t go wrong, and you don’t need to overcook. (The red pot is full of pork ribs…)
So this is the benefit of being a gardener- Two very fresh vegetables, cooked just 5 minutes after being picked. Grocery store veggies would have been bigger, but not nearly as fresh. Score one for the home gardener.
The Input:
As I mentioned, I also had an input to the garden today. I bought a package of carrot seeds.
I plant small bunches of carrots every once in a while, to keep a supply going. I had run out of carrot seeds, and I saw that the grocery store already had their stock out (isn’t it a bit early? What kind of idiot would buy seeds now?) so I bought a package. I did pay the incredible(y expensive) price of $2.97 for a pack of seeds. As you can see in the picture below, I usually only pay $1.00 at Walmart, so this was quite an extravagant purchase for me.
Money in the bank!
What you see above is my entire supply of seeds. Most from last year, a few from the year before. I do not worry about the seeds being too old. Old seeds just mean they will have a lower rate of germination. In all practicality, this just means that I’ll do less thinning….which is a very good thing.
I am not a very organized gardener. I rarely plant seeds in anything that resembles rows. I rarely plant at the ‘right’ time of the year. I plant at the wrong depth, the wrong cycle of the moon, etc. etc. I don’t really worry about it. Plants are pretty smart, they’ll figure out the right time to grow despite my efforts to screw it up. I just close my eyes, let the Force take over, and hope for the best.
I don’t know the price for broccoli or cabbage right now. I’ll check at the store later, but I can’t imagine they are too expensive.
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