Too Little Spring for Little Pak Choi

 

Several years ago, we discovered toy choy, a small variety of pak choi that grows quickly and can be harvested in 30 days. This was very important because our garden has cabbage worms. Yuck! I hate cabbage worms. I hate them so much that I have been known to stomp on the pretty little butterflies that make the worms like a Blue Meanie with a vendetta. We don't use poison on things we're going to eat, hand picking off the gross little creatures was tedious on kale and impossible between the layers of growing cabbage, and even row covers couldn't keep them at bay. 

 

The grand solution was toy choy, a member of the cabbage family that we could harvest before the wormage set in. One year I didn't harvest in time and was thoroughly disgusted as the bright green worms floated to the surface as I rinsed the toy choy, but otherwise we've had really good luck growing lovely crops of the tasty greens. In years past, I've had enough to freeze and pickle on top of cooking it right away. This year, unfortunately, was not one of those years. There were no worms, but not much pak choi either.

This year's toy choy (powdered with diatomaceous earth)

I'm pretty certain it was the lack of real springtime weather here that was the problem. Before the seedlings could put on any nice leaves, most of them bolted. With so much energy going into making flowers, there wasn't much left for producing the parts we actually want to eat. 

So spindly!

So, I gave in this evening and just harvested the whole lot of them. 

Yes sir, yes sir, one basket full.

I did my usual multiple rinsings, sorted and trimmed them, then spun them out in the salad spinner (one of my favorite kitchen tools ever). 

Salad spinner!

I ended up with just one gallon bread bag full of little pak choi leaves. 

Sad trombone sounds

Oh well. We'll enjoy them over the next couple of days - probably in a stir fry or cooked up with some beans - and we'll try again next year. Or maybe in the fall if it actually cools down gently enough before going right into winter.

They're small but still pretty.

And now, in backyard wildlife news, one of the new neighborhood fawns likes to rest just outside our garden gate next to the transplanted rhubarb.

Awwwwwww!

Going to Seed

I was finally able to get out into the garden this evening during a very brief break in the rain. It has been very wet over the last several days. We got more than an inch and a half of rain just over the weekend and it has only slowed since.

Proof that the sun actually exists

I was glad that the rains paused so I could get a little work done. The garden does not look any worse for the recent soaking. I think the raised beds have allowed for decent drainage. The spinach and arugula have needed to be dealt with for some time now. The spinach bolted fairly quickly with the early arrival of hot weather. The arugula has since gone to seed too. I didn’t realize that it would get prickly as it got older. The flowers are lovely though.

Spinach gone to seed

Lovely little arugula flowers

I pulled out all the spinach and most of the arugula. Under the larger plants there were a half-dozen or so seedlings just starting out so I left them. Over the weekend I got a packet of mixed lettuce seeds. It certainly was not an ideal time to plant with the ground being so wet but at least I didn’t have to water the seeds in. It started raining again maybe half an hour after I went inside to wash the greens. I only planted about half the packet so if the seeds end up rotting instead of growing, I’ll have another shot at it.

After pulling the spinach and arugula and planting more seeds

In other garden news, the beets and turnips are growing very well. We’ll be eating some of them soon. All four varieties of tomatoes have set fruit with the Early Girls looking particularly nice. My sugar snap peas blew over in high winds we had a couple weeks ago. I did not realize they were going to grow five or six feet tall or I would have built better support. They’ve bounced back, though, and we should be eating peas by this weekend. And the corn is already knee-high days before the Fourth of July.

Early Girl tomatoes

Bent but not broken pea plants

The corn seems to be enjoying the weather

Oh, and guess who had babies…

Munchkin in the back yard

Yeah, and her too….

Twins!