Sunday, February 5, 2012

Unexpected Harvest

I admit it.  I grow vegetables just for something fresh to eat.  I really don't love them.  Roses, other the other hand, I love.  I look at them when they're dormant, I know when their leaves are just beginning to sprout out.  I know when their first blooms begin to form, and which rose has the first open bloom of the year.  I look at each one almost every day of the year.

Vegetables, on the other hand, just don't excite me.  My vegetable bed gets ignored.  A lot.

In fact, I've been ignoring the raised vegetable beds all winter.  The reason is simple.  It's a total eyesore.  Overgrown grass growing around the beds that I need to shovel out.  Dead tomato, eggplant, and bean plants that need to be pulled up.  Weeds galore.  General muck and yuck.



But spring is coming, and the spring vegetable garden will soon need planting.  So, instead of going out there to work, I decided to go out there and get discouraged, thinking of all the work that lay head of me.  

However, instead of discouragement, I got encouragement instead!  There was lettuce still growing!  Two kinds - so I pulled them up and had them for dinner.



And that wasn't all!   The broccoli is forming florets!

Now, I've tried growing broccoli in spring, and the weather here gets too hot, too fast.  So, I decided to try growing it in the fall.



No luck then, either - until now.  I don't know if I planted it too late, or if it waited for warm days to start forming heads.  But it doesn't matter to me.  George Bush may hate broccoli, but I love it!  And now I'll be able to eat some I've grown myself!

I can understand people loving their vegetable gardens.  There really isn't anything better tasting than fresh vegetables.  But, I still love roses best.

I'm joining The Gardening Blog for Garden Bloggers Harvest Day because I had vegetables to harvest and didn't even know it! 


57 comments:

  1. Hi There, Happy Super Bowl Sunday to you. May the best team win!!! I personally am for the Giants --but I truly just hope it is a good game. Anxious to see some great commercials also!!!

    I'm sure there are many people who get as excited about growing veggies as you and I do when growing Roses. I don't grow veggies --but I certainly love eating the fresh ones when I can get them.
    Hugs,
    Betsy

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    1. Happy Super Bowl Sunday to you, too, Betsy. I hope your teams wins, because I don't follow football at all. I'm not watching the game, nor eating junk food tonight! I think growing veggies is harder than roses. Roses you put in the ground and they bloom. Veggies - you have to start over every year, from a seed! I should be more up to the challenge, but I just can't seem to wax poetic over a cucumber!

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  2. I had success with broccoli for the first time this year -- planted in the fall. I am on a mission to become a better veggie gardener!! That fresh broccoli tasted like nothing I have ever gotten in a grocery store. Just amazing. Now that my new potting bench is over on the veggie garden side, maybe I'll spend more time over there. I am thinking about installing drip or soaker hoses on my veggie area, too, so that I can connect it to my rain barrel and soak it for hours in the summer. I think that's why I don't have great success in the spring/summer. I rely on my sprinklers and with veggies, just two days a week in the middle of summer isn't enough, and I'm not willing to go hand water. But if I could hook up a soaker and turn it on and go do something else while it runs, I might just do it. We shall see. I hope you get more veggie surprises :-)

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    1. I should make a concentrated effort to be a better veggie gardener, but like you say - here, the summer gets too hot for anything to grow, so fall gardens seem to do better. But by then, I'm ready to wind down a bit. Wow - I really need an attitude adjustment!

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  3. I didn't recognise your blog at first, seeing those veg. But just shows your versatility!

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    1. haha - I should have put a rose picture on the post first, just to let people know it's really me!

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  4. I’m with you Holley, so much so that I have many roses and absolutely no vegetables, I get my vegetables from the supermarket! I do have some strawberries and some herbs, that’s it. But I can’t justify taking a chunk out of my tiny garden just to grow vegetables (which I eat in abundance), when I can grow pretty roses and other plants instead!

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    1. I really want fresh, home grown vegetables. But they are a lot of work! More than I realized at first. I need to move them up on my priority list, though - I hate not knowing how my vegetables are grown.

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  5. Hooray for forgotten vegetables!

    That reminds me I should check on the ones that have wintered over in my garden. I can even think about planting peas and other spring crops soon.

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    1. It was a fun surprise! I even had a radish out there I didn't know about. But it was so big, it just got pulled up and thrown in the compost pile. I need to get that grass out of there. I thinking making the area prettier will make me want to go see it more often.

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  6. Your veggie gardening style sounds like mine :) I just don't get as excited about vegetables but I do quite like some herbs and enjoy being able to pick them for cooking. Thanks so much for joining our Harvest Day!!
    Regards, Christine

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    1. I've been thinking about growing some herbs in pots. Maybe if I get the vegetable garden looking pretty, I can put some pretty pots in there. Now I'm getting excited - maybe all my vegetable garden needs is redecorating and beautifying!

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  7. Your veggie gardening style sounds like mine :) I just don't get as excited about vegetables but I do quite like some herbs and enjoy being able to pick them for cooking. Thanks so much for joining our Harvest Day!!
    Regards, Christine

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  8. I am not a vegetable gardener, either, but this year we planted a fall/winter garden with lettuce, broccoli, chard, collards, and spinach. I am surprised at how much easier it is than trying to grow veggies through our brutal summer. So we are scaling back summer veggies to just tomatoes and peppers and will plant even more of the cooler season veggies in the fall. I also planted onion seeds for the first time a couple weeks ago. I usually plant onion sets, and they always produce tiny onions for me. I read that seeds do better. We shall see!

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    1. I agree with you that our fall garden is much easier than the summer one. I need to remember to put in spinach. I will definitely be planting broccoli again! Good luck with your onion seeds. I never did well with the onion sets, either. It will be interesting to find out how your seeds turn out.

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  9. How exciting! I am also much more into growing flowers than veggies, and my veggie garden last year was a disaster. I'm committed to growing a decent veggie garden this year though, as it would be great to buy less produce from the store!

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Yes, having fresh vegetables is a big motivator. I bought a lot from the farmers market last year, but I'd really like to be able to grow those vegetables myself. I guess I just need to buckle down and do it! Good luck to both of us!

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  10. You have found treasures in your veggie garden. Home-grown veggies are so much sweeter and better. Happy harvest day and Cheers!

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    1. I can't wait to try out that broccoli! I know it's going to taste like candy! ;)

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  11. I am the complete opposite! I am always investigating my little veggie plants, but my flowers on the other hand... well, let us just say that I bought two rose bushes last summer and they have not been put into the ground yet.

    Glad you had a surprise harvest!

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    1. We really are the complete opposite! :) I hope you get your rose bushes into the ground. And I hope I get my vegetable garden for spring started soon!

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  12. So, woiuld this be a Super Salad Bowl?? An amazing surprise. Enjoy!

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  13. Vegetables here are a long way off, but it is nice to get a surprise now and then. I too am not excited about vegetables, but my husband is, and that is the only reason I grow them, that and to eat them too.

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    1. I wonder if anyone really loves both - even though a lot of gardeners grow both ornamentals and vegetables, it seems like most people have a preference in growing one or the other.

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  14. I love living in the South and being able to garden all year. I do love my tomatoes in summer, but it is a real treat to eat brussel sprouts, carrots, radishes, lettuce, spinach, cabbage and broccoli in the winter time-especially when I look at what I would have to pay for all of this at the grocery!

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    1. Oh, I agree! I think I enjoyed the fall garden more, it's just that I need to clean it up a bit. Just being lazy! I should remember it's much nicer to have a cool garden than one burning up in our hot summers!

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  15. Hi Holley, Your fresh broccoli is going to be delicious. I harvested some in the little garden plot I have at the local Master Gardener's demonstration garden and it was so good. I planted it in Oct. There are still more florets on it. The brussels sprouts weren't quite ready. I tried square foot gardening in my small yard last year and was only marginally successful. Not enough sun and roaming cats!

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    1. I can't remember when I planted mine, but I'm always late in getting the vegetables in. This one looks like it's getting several florets. I'm so excited! I was just about to give up on broccoli forever!

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  16. The lettuce looks delicious! What a treat!

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    1. It is so fulfilling to eat dinner from your own garden!

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  17. Hi Holley, your salad looks super delicious! I am a lot like you. I get excited with growing roses, but not with vegetables, so I don't grow them at all. Even though I know it would be good, healthy even yummy. Maybe this year I will tuck some veggies in between my rose beds and just see if that works out. Unfortunately my garden is too small to have an extra vegetable garden patch :-(.
    Christina

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    1. My vegetable patch is small, which is a bit frustrating because I can't grow too much, but on the other hand, it's fairly easy to maintain - if I would just do it! :O

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  18. How funny that you don't love the veggie garden, mine sounds like it looks like yours!
    I enjoy some of the veggies more then others, I discovered raw beet salad last summer - YUM!
    Your lettuce looks wonderful, so much better then the stores.

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    1. I've never tried raw beet salad - I may have to give it a try. I know the lettuce is probably more nutritious than the stores - straight to the plate within 10 minutes or so!

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  19. Oh what a lovely surprise to find that your veggie bed was still working behind the scenes. I get such a kick out of bringing in a basket full of fresh fruit and veggies. I also love cooking them, so great fresh and tasty food.

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    1. Barbie - Your vegetable bed is gorgeous. I should try to make mine prettier. Maybe after another year or two, and I feel more confident growing vegetables, I'll have a love for them, too.

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  20. What a great surprise! I'm glad you've got some fresh home-grown veggies to enjoy. I'm excited to get my own veggies started soon.

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    1. I really need to work on mine - I've got to get that grass out first!

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  21. Your lettuce and broccoli look delicious! Like you, I love fresh veggies from my own garden. I am torn between liking having all the veggies in the garden because of the warmer winter and yearning for snow. We'll see how it all turns out...

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    1. I guess if you don't get snow, the trade off is vegetables! Maybe next year's weather will be a bit more predictable.

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  22. Ah! your harvest looks beautiful. Congratulations. My love for vegetable/fruit garden is like your love for your roses :-).

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    1. I wish I loved my vegetables more. Maybe one day I'll feel the same way about a tomato as I do a rose! :)

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  23. I grow a few veg occasionally, but I can't say I get very excited about them. Roses, on the other hand, I even appreciate the bare stems in winter, except this year they are still in leaf, but you know what I mean.

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    1. I know exactly what you mean! I feel the very same way!

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  24. I don't love my veggie gardens...they are educational and a challenge...but I love to eat the veggies...nothing better...how wonderful to find these veggies!!

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    1. I love to eat them, too. I feel sort of guilty not loving growing them!

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  25. I can understand your point. Tending vegetable garden is much more demanding.

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    1. They really are. Maybe I'll learn to love growing them as I get better at it.

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  26. I love growing vegetables for just that reason - something to eat, sometimes unexpectedly. Congratulations on the broccoli.

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    1. That was such a great surprise, since I was about to give up on broccoli forever. Now, instead, I'll plant it every fall!

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  27. Well THAT was a nice surprise!

    For me, low expectations are a good strategy to use. :)

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    1. I think I had non-existent expectations - that's why I hadn't even been around to check on these poor veggies in quite some time!

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  28. what this post makes me think of is what we call beauty and what we call work - and the joy of the unexpected. Words of wisdom from Wendy above re low expectations.

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    1. You're right - vegetables are work, and roses are beauty. For me, at least.

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  29. I readily admit to growing zero veggies... some herbs, so I guess those count? I always vote flowers. I justify this because, while it might not be politically correct, I can indeed always find corn, broccoli and beans at the grocers... I've never yet found the perfectly trained climbing rose in full bloom wafting heavenly scent in Aisle 6. When that happens I might rethink my strategy.

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    1. Good point. Wouldn't that be fun if that could really happen? I bet the stores would have a huge increase in sales!

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