This week’s Small Share (week five) has asparagus kale, salad leaves, pea shoots, mustard greens, mixed herbs and…..some Spring onions, hurray!
I was in a quandary again this week about exactly what to harvest, the sun has caused quite a lot of veg to be pick-able all at once. I was thinking of picking Spring greens again but they will just slowly turn into a cabbage whereas the mustard greens will bolt if left. Once harvested they regrow very nicely a couple of times.
Last week the salad bags had some lettuce leaves in them, this was the first harvest from the Polycrub – planted at the start of April.
The first four week’s of this year’s veg scheme flew by. I’ve done more planting than ever before in my life..and it’s not over yet. I’ve planted the first lot of broad beans, the sprouts and some broccoli. Potato planting was a team effort. This year’s big bed is much better than last year, I can actually see how a windy field with clay soil can be improved over time.
I think the person who developed asparagus kale should win a prize, what a good vegetable it is for Spring on the Isle of Skye.
The mustard greens are called Green Wave. They are very spicy raw but cooking calms the heat! Really good in a Thai style coconut curry, in a stir fry or in noodle soup. There is no need to remove the stalks.
New for this year I’m doing parsnips and shelling peas. Parsnips are always very patchy in their germination so I’m going to pre-sprout them on some kitchen roll. Someone gave me a lot of paper tubes so I may faff about and let the parsnips grow a bit in tubes of compost and then plant them. Or I may decide I’ve got far too much to do and not do any of that!
For those following the kohlrabi saga – some kohlrabi have resisted the slug onslaught and are growing! As they are showing a will to survive I think I’ll mulch round them with some nice sieved compost and see what happens next. Experiments are always a bit annoying – I do a few rows of something and if it’s brilliant I wish I’d done more, if it’s rubbish I resent the waste of good growing space!