Sometime in early January I came up with the idea of Sprout Dispatch. Of course it wasn’t called that initially, it took the brainstorming of Chel, my brother Curtis and myself to get the name, but here we are, ready to start.

What is this about? Well, it’s a collaboration between the three of us on our gardening adventures. I wrote more about it in the post that is up today. There will be thrice weekly posts, one from each of us, for awhile. We’re starting with themes and interpreting them our own way, but I’m sure the blog will evolve as time goes on.

So, please, subscribe to the new adventure and pass along the blog link and join in the conversation!

We look forward to sharing our gardens with you! (I will still be writing garden ventures here as well.)

We pulled all of the Golden Ball Turnips last weekend in an effort to make room for a spring crop of cucumbers. Some of the turnips were gigantic, including some that I had thinned and transplanted in a spot that we’d just harvested radishes several months ago. We took the turnips home and made two batches of mashed turnips and froze them for future eating.

I love having all of this food, but I can’t wait to get a deep freezer and more storage space for keeping food for throughout the year.

One of our Christmas presents to each other with Christmas money we received from family was this beauty a 65mm macro lens. I had yet to play with it so I took it out in the backyard one day at lunch and shot some seedlings, garlic, and dill. It is pretty freakin’ amazing! I love using the reverse macro mounting technique and use it quite extensively, but this lens is crazy! The depth of field has a similar feeling to the reverse mounting, but it seems sometimes I can get more in focus in the whole frame with the macro lens.

It will definitely be a working experiment!

January has been unseasonably warm and I have nothing bad to say about that. Flip flops in January? Yes! The warmth has tinges of Florida in it and it makes me happy. December and part of November were so dark, dreary and rainy that it was really depressing for me. January has turned beautiful, with a few cold mornings here and there, the sun seems to shine its warmth and heat the day up.

The light is changing too. The sun is moving northward again. I know because it had hidden itself behind the curtain in front of my desk at work and has now worked itself into blinding me from 8-9am in the morning.

In the garden the sugar snap peas are coming up and sending their tiny tendrils upwards, grasping for the metal trellis.

One of the cabbages has bolted and is in full flower with the other cabbages following suit. Or at least trying to. I’ve been pinching them back in order to eat more cabbage before it is gone completely.

The tomatoes have sprouted but have not sent out their true leaves yet. I’m hoping they can pull through because I’m afraid with this January warmth, February is going to come back and bite us in the ass.

A tiny kitty has found its way to our community garden. Weak, food deprived and a bit scratched up, I’m hoping it can pull through and maybe I can get it to a no-kill shelter. I am afraid it will be hit by a car in the parking lot nearby. I bought a few packs of wet food and a bag of dry food to get it through the week.

I’m antsy to get out and do some hiking, taking some pictures…

My brother has been writing about some of his gardening activities…go and check his blog out and show him some love!

I pulled all of this out of our garden plots today. I could have harvested more but it is much easier and better to go every few days and get what you need. Tomorrow night I’m going to roast the beets and turnips with carrots, then cook up the turnip greens for dinner. The tops to the beets will be saved to be added into my green smoothies.

Some of the Chioggia beets were getting rather large. I am loving the striped pattern on the stalks!

Also, a few of the turnips were rather large and I will probably work my way through the larger ones this week in order for the smaller ones to get a little larger.

Most of the radishes were harvested several months ago but I found a straggler tucked away next to the turnips.

And it all fits nicely in my reusable bag. I’ve been trying to bring them with me lately, especially since I’ve been pulling a lot of cabbage. It becomes difficult to carry it all!

If only it were tomato season right now. We have our seedlings started and a few have come up and if all goes well we might have some tomatoes in late spring.

Are you growing anything right now?

Chris calls me in the middle of work today to tell me he’s picked a bunch of carrots. I’m expecting, you know, a smallish bundle that you might get at the store…not a counter full! He sent me the link to the photos he’d uploaded to Facebook and I exclaimed “Holy Crap” and luckily everyone else was still eating lunch and couldn’t hear me. And so these are some of the carrots we planted back at the very beginning of October. We still have some in the plot that weren’t ready. The varieties are: jaune du doubs (yellow) , little fingers (smaller ones), and red cored chantenay (fat ones).

He’s already got carrots blanched and frozen as well as a pot of chopped carrots to go into a carrot cake.

I love our garden!

We planted the carrot seeds on October 3rd and they are just beginning to come into harvest time. We picked a few of the larger ones to determine if the rest were ready but from the looks of it I think we need to wait another week or two for them to fatten up.

Any good ideas for carrots besides decorating them on a bed of lettuce?

Some plants are waning in the garden while others are waxing. The cucumbers, zucchini and corn are done. I pulled the cukes a week ago and got the zucchini a few days ago. The corn is still drying and will be ready to pick for seed soon. The rest…well, you will have to take a peek through…

The lettuce mix we started is doing wonderfully! I need to harvest some soon. I haven’t even tried it yet!

I’m excited for the beets. I’ve never had them and so this will be a great opportunity to try them out.

Most of the carrots are doing well. I had to thin them out finally…rather I finally got around to doing it. I felt bad pulling out little carrots but it’s all about getting the most out of your harvest I suppose.

This bed has collards (the small ones), kale and I think some sort of oriental cabbage. The cabbage is the biggest of all.

This is the turnip and radish bed. Most of the radishes are picked so all that is left are the turnips. I’m going to harvest some turnip greens and try them out while I let the roots continue growing.

We didn’t plant these purple hull beans, but they were in the community plot and the lady who runs the garden said some would be ready this last weekend so I went ahead and grabbed a few to try out.

The watermelon radishes were finally ready for harvest. They were gigantic!

+Watermelon radishes at Tiny Urban Kitchen.
+Watermelon radishes at Happy Healthy Life.

Love the radishes! The only thing I forgot to take a photo of were the Brussels sprouts…oh well.

I’m interested to see how our winter is here because I’m curious on winter tomatoes. Yes, I’m still on Florida mode on these. It seems Texas sucks for tomatoes, the growing season is narrow, with periods of spring and fall being the best. Summer is too hot. Winter too cold. But, maybe, just maybe, here in NW Houston we could get some winter tomatoes. I’ll have to see how this winter goes.

+More garlic are emerging and starting to grow taller. The dill on the other hand appears to be static. Grow already!
+Our 100mm macro lens was returned to us from Canon earlier this week. It had been sick and needed a part replaced. Now it is working magically!
+Enjoy your weekend!