After Work Workout

Before

You don't need to go to a gym when you have a garden. You can simply put the energy that you are willing to waste in a gym into good use by growing something or clearing something. One of my vegetable beds had been overgrown with radish, broccoli DeCicco, and various weeds. The flowers have been attracting a lot of bees, so I sort of just let them grow out of control. Now the flowers were welting, I decided it was time to clear out the bed for new plants. I cut back most of the vegetation before pulling them out from the roots.

After

After it was all cleared out. I dragged two 2-cubic-foot bags of Local Hero Veggie Blend over to the vegetable bed and slowly added them in as I turned and mixed the soil with Dusty's poop. It had been a very warm day, so I was covered in sweat as I worked as quickly as I could. Kelsey was waiting for me to take her out for a walk!  After I got the soil all mixed together, I planted some of the New Zealand spinach seedlings that have been sitting on my propagation table.  One last step was to water all the newly planted (including yesterday's) plants really well. In the next few days, I will fill up the new space with other edibles.

Ready for more planting

Planting New Seeds

Mizuna, shungiku, and New Zealand spinach

Recently I swapped some seeds with my new neighbor who's also a gardening enthusiast. I got seeds for 3 vegetables that I have never planted before - mizuna, shungiku, and New Zealand spinach. The only one I wasn't sure of is shungiku, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. It is also known as Garland chrysanthemum! Oh no!!!!! I had this before and didn't like it; however, I know my parents like it, so it will go to them. I was surprised by the size of New Zealand spinach seeds. They are a lot bigger than Bloomsdale spinach seeds, which I have planted many times. I looked up New Zealand spinach on Wikipedia, and it turned out to be a leafy ground cover that tastes like spinach.

 New Zealand spinach seeds

Spinach has always been one of my favorite vegetables, so I have no doubt that I'll like New Zealand spinach. I think I had it once. A guest at one of Master Ken's potlucks brought some leafy greens sauteed with garlic. I liked it a lot and asked her what vegetable it was. She explained it to me and told me that she picked the greens in a park near her house. She told me they were very common in the park. I was very intrigued by it; unfortunately, I haven't ran into that woman again. I believe the dish I had was sauteed New Zealand spinach. I wouldn't mind having the entire backyard covered by it.

I also planted a few kabocha, snow peas, and white Lisbon onions. I covered up all the planted seeds with bird netting because I know both birds and squirrels would come steal the seeds. The weather today in the 60's (F), so I will leave the newly planted cell packs outside. I may need to bring them into the green house if the temperature drops again.

Bird netting covering the cell packs.