Penellype's 2015 Edible Garden Challenge

[Penellype]

Nearing the end of the year now, we've had some frost and the summer veg is all gone. I thought it might be interesting to list the crops that are still going towards the end of November, so here they are (crops marked * have not yet been eaten for the challenge):

Outdoors – ready or nearly ready to harvest
Beetroot Boltardy*
Brokali Endeavour*
Cabbage Pixie
Carrot Autumn King
Carrot Eskimo
Carrot Marion
Carrot Nantes Frubund Fastcrop
Chinese Celery Kin Tsai
Corn Salad*
Komatsuna Comred (protected from frost with fleece)
Komatsuna Torasan
Leek Oarsman
Mizuna Red Knight
Namenia (protected from frost with fleece)
Potato Charlotte (1 bucket to harvest, moved to the garage to avoid frost)
Spinach Amazon
Spring Onion Ramrod
Wild Strawberry (a few nearly ripe fruit left)

In the growhouse, attempting to extend the season
Lettuce Relic (nearly finished)
Lettuce Valmaine
Strawberry Everbearer (a few green fruit left, not hopeful!)

Outdoors for later in the winter/spring
Broccoli Early Purple
Cabbage Spring Hero
Carrot Marion
Kohlrabi Vienna Mix
Leek Albana
Leek Oarsman
Spinach Giant Winter*

In the house – ready or nearly ready to harvest
Lettuce Mix (nearly finished)
Lettuce Valmaine
Mibuna
Mitsuba Mashimori
Pea shoots (Onward)
Pepper Snackbite Orange (2 green fruit remain)

In the house – successional sowings or for later
Alfalfa sprouts
Amaranth Red Army microgreens
Cress Curled microgreens*
Lettuce Valmaine
Lettuce Winter Gem
Mustard Green Frills microgreens
Radish Red Stem Sangria microgreens

Stored fresh in the house or garage for winter use
Onion Sturon (garage)
Potato Charlotte, Desiree, Sarpo Axona, Sarpo Mira (garage)
Tomato Roma, Shirley, Sungold, Sweet Aperitif (picked green and ripening in the house)

[Penellype]

Variety 106 is cress (curled) grown as microgreens on the kitchen windowsill. Cress seems a bit like cheating somehow, but it grows and its edible, so I can count it

Had an egg and cress sandwich for lunch - can't remember the last time I had one of those!

[Penellype]

Variety 107 is Corn Salad in today's lunchtime salad:



Top to bottom: Namenia, mizuna, red komatsuna, baby pak choi, sungold tomatoes, pea shoots, corn salad, green komatsuna, lettuce valmaine and relic, and chinese celery. Not a bad plateful for December!

[Nicos]

REALLY good!

[Bigmallly]

Pene...................Have you got buck teef & big ears?.......................

[Penellype]

(I have lots of carrots too!)

Congrats on the MoM Bigmally - just noticed

[Penellype]

Variety 108 is beetroot boltardy, although I must admit to cheating here. The idea was to grow baby beets - it was an afterthought as I had an empty pot and some seed which I'd used at my friend's house earlier in the year. Although they are growing very slowly, they are only about marble sized at best, and I doubt if they wll be ready before new year, if at all. But I was making another salad for lunch (mainly to use up the lettuces in the growhouse which were rapidly succumbing to botrytis) so I decided to pick a couple of the small very red leaves to add some colour.

This salad has slightly different components from yesterday's - lettuce (valmaine, relic and mixed leaf), mizuna, namenia, mibuna, beet greens, pea shoots, sungold tomatoes, mustard and cress and a couple of small nasturtium leaves from a late seedling that had somehow survived the frost. Yesterday was tuna, today its egg mayo. I'm not entirely "rabbit"!

I must admit that having eaten the beet greens, I don't like them any more than the chard!

[Penellype]

Variety 109 is Brokali Endeavour (tenderstem broccoli) - I've not grown this before. Its a cross between broccoli and kale and is supposed to produce through the winter. Today I have harvested the central head at around the size of a golf ball, as instructed on the packet. Unfortunately the very middle has gone black for some reason, but I have about a dozen small florets from round the outside to eat for dinner. The good news is that there are loads of small sideshoots forming. I only have 1 plant, in a 30 litre pot.

[Chris11]

Terrific effort, Penellype, both the growing and the way you've documented it here

[Penellype]

Thanks Chris - I've tried to keep it interesting where I can. The question now is can I get to 110 in the next couple of weeks?

[veggiechicken]

I'm sure you can Pene!
What else is a possible?

[Penellype]

I have winter spinach which is growing at a snail's pace and mispoona which is at the seed leaf stage at the moment. Its possible either could be ready for a baby leaf salad before new year. Personally my money would be on the mispoona.

[Bigmallly]

Thanks Chris - I've tried to keep it interesting where I can. The question now is can I get to 110 in the next couple of weeks?

Grass?....................

[Penellype]

I have some primroses in flower so I could eat those, but I'd rather leave them where they are really!

[Chris11]

My growing space is similar to yours Penellype, and I appreciate what you've done.

I'm also trying to make the best of what space I have available, including the frustration of more of my garden in shade than I would like.

I've gradually increased the number of things I grow, both the range of different things and the number of varieties of each. Each year there are more things I want to grow, so I try and work out how to do it and how to fit things in.

Nowhere near your 100 in 2015, but I must have got to over 50, and it will probably be more in 2016