june update

Plant growth/progress:
June was very fickle, extremely hot (30 C is hot for us!), followed by storms (including one with golfball sized hail, that did considerable damage) and then clouds.  Aside from the hail damage, which mostly affected the curcubits, the weather caused the fennel to prematurely bolt.  I harvested it as soon as I noticed and salvaged some small still edible bulbs.  The lettuce also had enough of the heat and sadly bolted before i could save it, so it all got composted.  The new seedlings are still small, but will get planted soon. The peas that got pulled (they were mostly on the ground after the storm) will be replaced by bush beans.

bolting fennel

The carrots don't seem to have grown at all in the last month, i don't think the shade from the peas helped.

bolting onions

The celery hasn't put on much growth either and i wonder if it will be ready by fall at all.  I can always make stock with the greens, and next year i think i need to fertilize more.

The kohlrabi was planted too close and is taking forever to size up. 

currants ripening

view from walkway: brassica and pea beds

view from top of curcubits and nightshades

Harvests:
Broccoli- main heads and side shoots, although i was really disappointed in one variety (calabrese- small heads and shoots, tendency to flower very soon).  It will get one more shot in the fall before i pass final judgement on it's performance.  Premium crop put out good main heads but the side shoots were small.  Still on the lookout for the perfect broccoli, or perhaps they just need more space/fertilizer.  The plants had worms at the end of the month, as i never covered them, so they got pulled and will be replaced by a fall crop in 2-3 weeks.

Cauliflower- one of the more exciting harvests!  all 6 plants headed up, and would have been perfect had we not gone on vacation.  The first 2 I managed to harvest at the perfect stage.  the next 2 were on their way to bolting but still edible and the last 2 were sadly worm infested and had to be composted (wormy cauliflower smells awful!)  note to self, skipping row cover on brasicas is not an option!  i saw no noticeable difference in the 2 varieties planted, and i'll do another test with the fall crop.

savoy cabbage- had started to head up nicely with the worms hit.  I quickly harvested and removed the outer damage portions, which left very very small heads.  Also the plant was huge, compared to the size of the head.  Many of our neighbors seem to have a variety with large heads and small surrounding foilage (which is better suited to a small garden)  I wonder if they are removing outer leaves or it has something to do with nutrients.  I'll have to ask

Beets- had only planted 12 and they were delicious.  Such a satisfying crop to grow and i will definitely have to grow more next year.  the direct seeded varieties were a bust, so transplanting it is next year

Fennel-  bolted, but still was eaten.  I will only plant after the summer solstice next year (or really early under cover) 

Peas- both snap and shelling.  The amount of shelling peas was perfect, and planting 3 varieties really extended the harvest for us.  we had enough for a serving for 2 each week for about 5 weeks.  The snap peas were also great, but i think we should plant fewer next year or pickle the excess because were pretty sick of them at the end of the month.  Won't be growing the purple flowering Gigante again, becasue like the name says it grows tall and unwieldy and makes finding the pods difficult. 

Lettuce- salads galore, can't complain at all.  would love to have more varities to spice up our salad bowl next year and have to keep in mind to plant replacements sooner, because even the cut and come again varities bolted sooner than anticipated.

Currants-  We harvest over 4 kilos of currants and the were eaten fresh, in cake and mousse and the rest were processed into syrup to add to drinks.  The processing was a pain, but I am sure we will enjoy the bounty in the winter months. 

Flowers:
I don't think I will ever buy mixed bulbs again.  I previously stated that all the daffodils ended up being standard yellow and the Asiatic lilies turned out to be all yellow too.  The gladiolus ended up being pink and yellow.  I mean I like yellow, but i was hoping for more of a cheerful colorful mix and not a monotone view.

there were also all kinds of beetles eating away and procreating on the flowers.  I let them be.
marigolds are lovely and carefree....need many more next year.

Plenty of self seeded weeds/flowers.  (love the sunflowers and poppy, the others not so much)

Diseases/pests:
tiny strange beetles on brassicas.  Bit annoying to wash off but not particularly damaging.  spider web like residue on kohlrabi.  black aphids on fava beans.  Cabbage worms

Thankfully not too much slug or vole damage (knock on wood)  Although the wild foxes seem to like using and freshly dug beds as toilets...

Green Harvests

 It is salad, broccoli and pea sesaon!  We have been eating these 3 things at almost every meal, with some of the bolting onions thrown in.  I just started a second round of salad seedlings and also got a second sowing of beets, fennel and kholrabi in.  Hope the harvests continue!

 It is amazing how fast the plants are growing!

peas at the beginning of june

peas in mid/late june

premium crop broccoli is the first to head up

lettuce at beginning of june

lettuce at end of june (after multiple pickings)

may update

Wow, I am a bad blogger.  It seems I have time for any 3 of the following things and not more: work, garden, cook/bake, bike/hike or blog.  Needless to say, blogging got put on the back burner, especially because I forget to lug my camera around.  We had really good weather in May!  Warm, sunny and a every so often rain, so I didn't have to hand water too much.

Planting:
Our last official frost date is May 15th, but the tomatoes were getting enormous and leggy, and the weather forecast on May 10th showed warm days for the next two weeks, so I went ahead and planted them.  Of course a week later on May 18-19th it got down to 0.2 degrees Celsius.  Close call, but the row cover seemed to help.  The nights were cold in the first half of the month and have just started staying around 10 Celsius.  Daytime highs are around 15-20 Celsius.  A week after the tomatoes, on May 20th the eggplants and peppers got planted, but they haven't put on any growth, probably because of the temperatures.  I will get a row cover on them to hopefully speed things along.  And on May 29th all the curcubits got planted (zucchini, cucumber, and winter squash).  I still need to assemble some type of cucumber trellis that stores well in the winter. One blueberry bush (bluecrop) was replaced because it didn't put on any new growth after an Easter freeze killed the young leaves.  I went ahead and 'splurged' on a slightly older plant this time from a local nursery and bought a miniature variety( top hat) to plant as well. 

Growth:
Some heavy rains followed by sun made the brassicas take off.  Around May 15th I watered all the plants with our homemade nettle tea, which I am sure helped.   The beets and fennel have started to bulb up.  The radishes bolted and had to be composted and the carrots are very very slowly coming along.  The peas started blooming around May 10th, but I have just got a few odd ones here and there.  I am hoping next week will be the 1st big pea harvest.  The favas are overwhelmed by aphids, and don't seem to be setting many pods (this could be because of the spacing or because of the aphids).  The onions have bulbed up, but unfortunately are infested with onion maggot, I'll have to use row cover or a net next year.  Also the drastic swings in temperature caused quite a few to bolt.  The rather small strawberry plants are slowly growing, and have even given us a couple of strawberries every few days.  They are a day neutral variety, so I hope they continue into fall.  The red currents have started ripening (starting May 28th)  and I hope in a few weeks at least some will be ready to eat.  The flavor is supposed to improve as they stay on the bush, but then I will have to share with the birds!  The broccoli has started to head (on May 25th) I hope to harvest the first next week and many side shoots thereafter.  The herbs have taken off and oh yeah....so have the weeds!

beets and fennel, lettuce and radishes

baby brassicas, lettuce and favas

carrots FINALLY have first set of leaves

Harvesting:
I have harvested rhubarb 4 times since April 15th, and about 800 grams each time.  The plants still look strong and are putting on lots of new growth (and surprisingly haven't sent up a flower stalk like the neighbors) so I think I can get in another 1 or 2 harvests before the summer solstice, the date where you are traditionally told to stop harvesting because of the oxalic acid amount and to help the plant store energy for next year.

We haven't purchased salad since May 1st!  the plants were slow to start off but seem to be doing really well in the sunny weather.  Hopefully they wont bolt anytime soon, but I got more seeds of all the salad varieties planted this week as replacements (especially of the heading varieties that have to be pulled after harvest)

A few snap peas and strawberries as well as onions when we need them.
We had to pull lots of mint that was taking over other herbs and tried an entire jar full for tea etc.
Elder flowers are in bloom, we are just going to make a little syrup this year as we don't use very much.

rhubarb and radishes

Cooking:
Other than our daily salads, I have had fun experimenting with the rhubarb, so far I have made
Rhubarb streusel cake
Rhubarb crumble
Rhubarb custard tart
Rhubarb mousse

Still on the list: a small batch of refrigerator jam from the last harvest to use immediately thereafter and possibly a souffle, pie and classic compote.


 Whew, that was a busy month, but now that all my seedlings are in the ground i am somewhat relieved!  On to the weeding, harvesting and processing phase!

Flowers:  the last of the daffodils and tulips are fading, and being replaced by borage, azalea and poppy

borage, a bee magnet

a wonderfully scented rhododendron(i think)

bee swarm

This was actually taken from our Apartment balcony when I noticed a swarm of bees on a tree in the courtyard.  We live on the 4th floor, so they were VERY high up.  I later was informed by my mother in law (she is a hobby bee keeper) that I should have called the fire department, as bee hives that swarm usually are looking for a safe place to live and rarely find one and die.  The fire department apparently can catch them and has a list of bee keepers that will take them.  Hope these guys made it somewhere safe!  I spotted them in the morning and they were still there went i went to bed at night.  They were gone the next morning, so were there for 15-25 hours.

Pentecost

Monday was a national holiday because of Pentecost, so we took advantage of the fantastic weather to do a bike tour from Zurich to Zug and back.  The first half of the tour was riding upstream along the Sihl river from Zurich to Sihlbrugg and then after a short stretch on a main road, we went uphill to catch a great view of the Zugersee.  Heading toward Zug we stopped at a lovely Kloster with a fabulous kitchen garden.  It was enourmous, and they had over 30 tomato varieties growing (under glass roofed tomato houses, of course, to prevent blight).  Along with using glass covered cold frames for seedlings, they had plastic foil high tunnels where they had finished harvesting the first round on florence fennel!  Amazing how early they were able to get a harvest.  It looked like they were selling transplants as well, and I probably would have bought one had we not been on bike with still a ways to go.  Then we passed through the town of Baar before arriving in Zug.  I promptly demanded a Zugerkirschtorte.  The first one we got was from cafe Meier, which was eaten on the steps next to the Train station and the second one we tried was from Confiserie Speck, which was eaten next to the lake.  I think I prefered the first one, as it was a bit less boozy and had a bit more icing to take away from the bite of the alcohol. (can you tell I am not a big drinker?)  Then we headed back to Zurich, which was considerably easier as the last half was downstream.  Definitely a moderate bike tour to do in the area!

planting grapes

One of the things I wanted in our garden was grapes.  They are hard to find organically AND locally, it is typically one or the other and the varieties sold these days tend to be selected for size and seedlessness not flavor.  Both me and my partner love the flavor (and the heavenly smell!) of muscat grapes and we researched a bit to find the best variety to grow organically.  We decided on Muscat Bleu (a red/blue variety) and Birntaler Muskat (a white/green variety).   Both were bare root plants that were mail ordered.  We ended up adding a terraced area along a retaining wall for them.  Hopefully this bed will continue to the walkway when we have time to prep it.  I would love to under plant the grapes with tulips or some other early flowering bulb.  Will this be a good pairing?

soon to be filled with grapes at which point supporting wires will be added and the 'wilderness' on the retaining wall will be scaled back.

why I love Zurich.  A lovely view of the alps from our Garden at dusk.

april update

We just got back from 2 wonderful, warm and sunny weeks in Sicily.  I guess we picked a good time to leave town because we were informed that the weather had been cold and rainy, even below freezing all of Easter weekend.  The peas, radishes and other plants accordingly stalled and look about the same.   Our transplants on the other hand really grew!  Thankfully our neighbor watered while we were gone, and the first thing I did after returning was pot up the tomatoes.  They did get a bit leggy as the lights were further that a few inches away, but I didn't want to ask our neighbor to deal with that too!  Sadly, the eggplants and some of the peppers have a green aphid problem.  They don't seem to be suffering yet, and the organic insecticide oil I sprayed on them seemed to do more damage than the actual aphids, so I will just let them be for another month and hopefully they will make great food for the ladybugs once planted outside.  The beets and fennel under row cover seem to be doing well, but the other brassicas and salad seem to have not grown much.

overwintered mache harvest right before we went on vacation as our last meal

April 15th was my other half's birthday, and of course it was a great excuse to harvest rhubarb from the garden to make a cake (mixed with store bought strawberries).  It was delicious.

first rhubarb harvest and random herbs

 On April 16th, I seeded the pumpkins, cucumber and squashes in newspaper pots and planted a flat of basil and thai basil seed.

mixed daffodils????

We have the loveliest purple tulips and old fashioned daffodils (white) blooming right now, but alas, I forgot to get a picture.  The lilacs are starting to form buds and the daffodils are fading.  By the way the dandelions are growing and blooming, I know busier times are just around the corner.