This weekend I harvested the rest of my purple haze carrots (which were fantastic and gone very quickly) and yesterday I picked my first handful of empress beans (an stringless heirloom snap bean.)

I actually could have started picking my beans last week but I am saving the seeds from that plant in the hopes of having even earlier beans next year. Did you know that beans have perfect flowers? They self-pollinate so you can grow many varieties in your garden without worrying too much about them cross-pollinating. That said nothing is infallible and they do suggest you seperate varieties of white bean by the length of your garden.

I know I have said this many times but living in sync with seasons is very important to me on a spiritual level. That is the main reason I garden. A garden is very visible representation of the passage of time. Beyond that, who can seriously resist fresh garden produce? It just tastes so much better. I think that is why my spiritual self and mundane self are so inseparable.

I ran across a new ezine this morning called Living in Season and I love it so far because it really seems to mesh all those aspects together. I am always so happy to come across people with the same aspirations and dedication as I in those areas. Anyhow it looks really promising and I just wanted to share in case you too have the same dreams (or if you are already living the dream for that matter.)

Originally published at Michael and Jaspenelle. Please leave any comments there.

This morning I realized that I had not yet thinned my carrots when Damian yoinked out a a few and I noticed the drastic size differences. Not surprisingly when two carrots grow crammed next to each other one looses the battle of the biggest and the other never really reaches it’s full potential either. I don’t like thinning my plants, as is most obvious when you see my leaf lettuce patch. Plant abortions kill! Nom nom.

You don’t have to throw out those tiny carrots though, they are still deliciously edible. I washed them off and Michael and I snacked on them for breakfast. Also if they are cooked beyond a light stirfry they will revert to orange. In the thinning process I pulled out a couple larger ones, which I took a picture of. Not your typical carrots, but that is the joy of a home garden. I am growing purple haze carrots, which turn purple as they mature, though the core will remain orange. They are still a couple weeks from being fully developed but they are still going to be excellent in our lunch stirfry.

I want to do a successive sowing of carrots this year, after these are harvested. I am going to give making seed tape a try, that way thinning will not be necessary. If that works well I might do that for all my small seeds next year, a nice little winter project. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Originally published at Michael and Jaspenelle. Please leave any comments there.

This weekend my raised beds and I spent some quality time together.

I transplanted 3 black beauty zucchini because I am a sucker for punishment, 5 sugar pie pumpkins because I adore giant orange things, cilantro and red onions and yellow onions. I also have purple haze carrots and mammoth dill directly sown and hopefully working towards giving me an abundant crop.

On Friday we had some friends over, including the lovely Laurie and Ben. They brought us a couch and several transplants for us. I transplanted the chives, garlic chives, triple curled parsley and tarragon but am waiting another week before I transplant the tomatoes (Giant Valentine, Black Krim, Stupice) and ground cherries. Better safe then sorry, the lemon cucumbers and basil I started will be waiting another week before transplanting as well.

All the seeds I started this year were planted in cardboard egg cartons and so far it seems to have worked pretty well. The roots of the pumpkins were starting to grow through the cardboard, so I didn’t even both removing them from the cups when I transplanted them. I think that they will degraded just fine. If I wanted to grow larger transplants (like if I start my tomatoes indoors next year) they will need to move up to a larger container but for the small starts egg cartons seem to work great.

(Mmmmm tomatoes… Grow my pretties, grow!)

The hardest part about growing your own food is waiting for it to be ready I noticed a few flower buds on the ground cherry transplant this morning and I think that just heightens the anticipation. Come wild plant spirits of my garden, grow!

Originally published at Michael and Jaspenelle by Jaspenelle. Please leave any comments there.