I started some new seedlings for the Dirt to Dinner participants to plant in their home gardens, if they are doing them this Fall. I started a mix of three different varieties of Broccoli and had a heck of a time getting any Early Dell Celery or Snowball Cauliflower to come up. But we went through a heat wave right after I planted, so that may have been the problem. It’s worth trying agin.
Tonight I started:
A Japanese spinach called “Oriental Giant,”
“Bloomsdale” spinach,
“Orange Fantasia” chard, which came up beautifully in the Spring and was promptly devoured down to it’s last root by squirrels,
A specialty salad green called “Gala” mache (never tried this one, let me know if it does well for you),
Something the kids would call ‘Dinosaur’ kale that says “Covolo Laciniato Nero Di Toscana Precoce” which I think means “Curly black kale from Tuscany,” but that’s just a guess,
Some more standard looking kale called “True Siberian,”
More Snowball cauliflower,
And the rest of the seed I had for the “Early Dell” celery.
It was luxurious having fresh celery available all Winter long last year and I actually saved seed from the plants we grew. I tried starting some of that along with the Early Dell. I have no idea if it will do well. I found the plant label from last year and it just says “Celery” so no idea if it is a hybrid that might not breed true. Put that one under the category of Experiment! :-)
In the garden we have:
some carrots tucked here and there trying to hide from the creatures that come in the night and dig them up,
some peas just starting,
turnips that could really stand to be thinned,
drying beans for soups this Winter,
sunflowers waiting for us to dry and husk the heads,
onions that still need to be pulled,
blue potatoes that are about ready to come out,
melons, pumpkins and gourds that have been growing all summer
and still more tomatoes!
The “Dinosaur” kale is called Cavalo Nero where we live in South-eastern Tuscany. Precoce just means it’s a variety that grows quickly and I tihnk that’s a misspelling on the packet, because there is no Covolo in Italian. It gets SO much sweeter and better after the first frost or two. Yum! We had it all the way to February here in Tuscany, where it gets down into the low 20’s (Fahrenheit) for some of January. I’ll have to try growing Celery here, I didn’t realize it could overwinter. What zone is it hardy to? We’re zone 8b here.
Thanks, Keith! How fun to hear from someone eating their kale in Tuscany. I’m really looking forward to our Cavalo Nero now. It was the first thing that sprouted in my seed beds so it’s looking pretty precoce to me.
We’re in Zone 9b, but the celery was in a fairly protected spot and we didn’t have much frost to speak of last year anyway. I’d be happy to send you some of our seeds if you’d like to try them there.