Man o man they are going crazy in the garden. Today was my second picking. The first picking, I gave away because I was too busy to fool with them.
I actually got Collards, mustard's and turnips going. They have gone nuts. I finally had down time this afternoon and went to cutting and picking. When i got them in the house, and in the sink, both sides of the sink were full and stacked about 12" higher than the sink
Went to washing, de-stemmin, rinsing and tossing in the pot on the stove in some homemade chicken stock. Took about an hour to get them all cleaned up and in the pot. When they cooked down, I literally had about 5 pounds of cooked greens(may not sound like a lot, but it was a TON of fresh greens, as they cook down to nothing almost). I et me two big old bowls full with dinner. I broke the seal on a bottle of hot pepper vinegar I made from Tabasco peppers from this summers garden. Man that lit a fire!!!
After I freeze up these I got cooked, looks like I will be giving away a ton of them to friends and family. Actually planted another row of seeds today where I had something planted that didn't make it. That should take me all the way into my spring garden
I built a homemade earth box and planted 5 collard plants and a few mustard plants. Mine are doing well too! When we first planted the plants, I asked her if they were going to be enough. Well, we cut and cooked some 2 weeks ago. We had way more than we could eat. Now the plants are bigger than they first started out as. Didn't think about freezing them. Will do that for the next batch.
If you ever want an easy way to grow veggies without the hassle of weeding a garden, build yourself an earthbox out of some plastic totes. All you have to do is keep it watered and pick your vegatables. I had a pepper plant that was doing miserable in the sandy soil we had. I transferred it into the earthbox and it's doing better than ever. I bet I'll have peppers through the winter... I'm going to build a few more soon to get ready for my summer garden.
I attempted to start some individual seeds back in September in a little planter that we keep on our pool deck. When they didn't come up I got frustrated, dug about 6 holes in the garden and emptied the entire bag. Wouldn't you know it, every last d**m one of those things came out of the ground. About a month ago I took the time to separate all of them and replant. I am going to have a bumper crop too. We are already picking okra and hot peppers, should have some tomatoes in about a month as well.
