VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

voicy1stef

This is really one for the gardening fans. We grew our first crop of bok choy (pok choy). Hooray. Won the battle of the slugs. Got a nice leafy crop and it tastes sooooo good! Stir fried it one night, then boiled it the next time. Actually we have so much I have to think of what else to do with it. Bok choy milkshake anybody?

However, something's been eating little [and big] holes in the leaves, so now it's a race to finish it before the mystery critters do [we grew it in the greenhouse, so it can't be birds].

We harvested some of the potatoes as well. Yummm!

Now, here's a gardening question. Does anybody know how to tell if carrots are ready for plucking from the ground, without just giving it a go and pulling them out prematurely??? I don't know how to tell if they're "done" or not! Shocked

Cheers...have a fabbo day!
Wink

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Lee Gordon · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:50 am Post subject:

Not sure about the carrots, but bok choy is quite tasty just sliced raw into a salad.
I like to toss it with some red and green pepper, maybe some bean sprouts, mushrooms, snow peas, scallions, pineapple chunks and/or mandarin orange segments, perhaps some chicken or shrimp, and dressed with mixture of orange juice, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, rice wine vinegar, and a little bit of sesame oil.
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KaraEdwards · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:39 am Post subject:

Mmmm bok choy sounds fantastic! The one thing I miss the most about NC is my beautiful raised vegetable garden. We haven't been able to create one since, and won't be able to at this house (strict HOA). Instead, we've been growing vegetables and herbs in pots- which is a whole new experience for me! Only moderate success so far, as the FL heat makes growing anything difficult.

Anyway- on to carrots. They are one of the hardest vegetables to grow. Unlike onions, where the tops just fall over to say they are ready, the only real way to know a carrot is done is to guess. I don't think a carrot can become too ripe though- so that's good! If you can see the tops of them, look to see if the size seems about right, then pull one out to double check. If that one is ready, chances are they all are.

Still- I never did have success with carrots, so you may want a second opinion Smile

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Lizden · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 7:06 am Post subject:

Oh Stef! I LOVE Bok Choy!
Love it stir fried!....I'll have to try it in a salad, Lee!
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John Bigl · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:22 am Post subject:

mmmmmmmm, you've got the makings of a good kimchi
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voicy1stef · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am Post subject:

What a brilliant idea Lee. I'll have to try that.

and thanks for the tips about the carrots. maybe i'll wait a little bit longer and see if I can see the tops of the carrots before plucking them.

We're growing peppers too, but they're nowhere near ready. Just little leaves now.

Kimchi...sounds interesting. That stuff is hot! But i could probably google it and find a recipe.

Eating your own home grown food is really fun! And if we're well fed and healthy must be good for the voice! Kiss

_________________
Intuit and do it!

British-American voice artist based in England for the past umpteen years. I say, has it really been that long!

http://www.stefsvoice4u.co.uk
Podcast: Positive Affirmations and Audio Stories, on iTunes, Spotify etc.

Diane Maggipinto · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:57 am Post subject:

Stef--One sure sign carrots are ready to be pulled is when you see the tops bulging above the dirt.. But then, they may be huge and if you want smaller, sweeter ones, probably doing a test yank is a good thing.

Oh if only my dog Mika were alive and could talk! He would shove his nose under a small horizontal fence in my friend's garden, put there to prevent bunnies like my dog! from getting the carrots. He'd tug and tug on carrot tops until he pulled one full out, then munch on it, one of his favorite foods.

Incidentally, my friend's carrots spread like crazy each year, with the green tops sprouting up hither and yon so she seems to have little trouble growing them! I think of carrot harvest time as autumn.

Here's Mika just before he passed, loooooking for carrrrrrotzz:

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CarynClark · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 2:01 pm Post subject:

So cool Stef!!! Congratulations on your garden... sound dee-lish!!

I love your story Diane. This past spring, I noticed my dog Winston hanging out in my garden an awful lot; I didn't think too much about it really. Then, one day, my husband called me to say that he found Winston in the garden eating my tomatoes off the vine!!!! He LOVED them!!!
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mcm · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 2:13 pm Post subject:

Love those dog stories.

Major is very fond indeed of vegetables - broccoli, avocado, carrots - pretty much anything. Fruits don't interest him. He'll accept a frozen blueberry from time to time but only to be polite.

Stef - enjoy!

KaraEdwards · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:14 pm Post subject:

Oh yeah- my Macy LOVES carrots, squash- and apples too! In fact, if she even hears me pull out the cutting board- she comes running! Thankfully, she never took to pulling veggies out of the garden, she was too small to reach over the border Smile

And now that everything is in pots- she really can't do anything! We do have to fill all of our pots with rocks though- so that the cats don't mistake our plants for litter boxes. Shocked

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Chrissy · Guest

I miss having a garden, although I don't miss the work in the hot sun. Fresh veggies straight from the garden taste so much better than ones that have been sitting around even for a day. My former in-laws had a hugh garden. They had an asparagus bed which takes about four years to grow before you get any crops. I remember how sweet fresh asparagus tastes.

It's amazing that for every fruit and vegetable there is a critter that wants to share it with you. There are various flowers and herbs you can plant next to the veggies that will ward off the critters.

bobbinbeamo · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 8:08 pm Post subject:

Stef-
Gardening is the path to serenity, for sure. When I grow carrots, I look for a nice size diameter just crowning the soil. Nice bushy tops indicate a robust carrot. Some times I'll dig down carefully along the sides to peek for width and length and pull the longest ones, and cover the shorter ones up trying not to disturb them too much.
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voicy1stef · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:30 am Post subject:

Thanks Bobbin and all! I got another tip to just lightly brush the soil and see if I could see the top of the carrot., But I'll wait a bit more thanks to your 'autumn' tip, and see what happens!

this is such fun!!! Laugh

p.s. what a cute little dog Mikka was!
_________________
Intuit and do it!

British-American voice artist based in England for the past umpteen years. I say, has it really been that long!

http://www.stefsvoice4u.co.uk
Podcast: Positive Affirmations and Audio Stories, on iTunes, Spotify etc.

Bruce · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:00 am Post subject:

When you go to most supermarkets here, if they have bok choy they have just one kind, but we have a very large Chinese supermarket here where 90% of the goods are Asian in origin or style, and they have at least 12 different kinds of bok choy in the produce section. Small, tall, chubby, skinny, light green, dark green...amazing. That's the great thing about growing your own veggies; you can find and grow wonderfully different varieties that you'd never find in the markets.

In fact if you want to try something amazing try Armenian cucumbers. Technically they're closer to the melon side of the cucurbit family, but they look just like a furrowed cucumber:

They slice and dice like a cucumber with no seeds to speak of, they taste quite a bit like artichoke heart to me, take dressings and marinades really well, and they stay crisp for 5 days or even longer after being sliced and put in the fridge. But watch 'em! Be sure to pick them when they're 12 to 18 inches long, because if you're a day late you'll have a fat 24" torpedo hanging on your vine. They grow very fast and aren't as nice when they're huge.

B
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tackerman · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:19 am Post subject:

We had an extremely wet and cool July so my tomato plants are looking rough. I'm usually pulling handfuls of cherries and romas by now. Nothing better than a big, sweet yellow tomato plucked from the vine and still warm from the sun... eat it like an apple right there in the backyard.
My greyhound Daisy likes to pick green peppers and play with them like a ball. She tosses them up in the air and catches them, then the chomp and they're gone.