Little more gardening

We looked at starting some transplants, such as tomatoes and peppers and cabbage, last week. Since then I've started my yellow, red, orange and green peppers. Most of the seed was saved last summer. Hopefully it will come right up.

One that I like to plant directly in the garden is Swiss Chard and more specifically Rainbow Swiss Chard. Marge doesn't care for it, but I do. Probably half a dozen plants would be plenty for me but I usually end up with a dozen or so. Where it's frost-tolerant, you can probably plant it six weeks or so before our average last frost date which is around April 20 here. Chard, if you consistently keep the big leaves pulled off, will be there this fall.

One plant we have come to like is eggplant. Several years ago, we bought some white eggplant, and they were amazing. Last year, the white ones weren't available, so we bought some purple ones, and they were good but not as good as the white ones. I ordered some small 2- to 3-inch white eggplant seed this year. The directions say to start indoors eight to 12 weeks before transplanting. With eggplant not being frost-tolerant, I'm figuring transplanting mid-May so mid-March would be a good time to start them. We'll buy a couple or three purple eggplant as well. Last year when our zucchini died from the bugs, the eggplant kept producing.

Mary a friend of ours really likes kale, but Marge and I are not fans of it. There are lots of varieties of kale. We tried a curly leaf kale and one other. I must admit we didn't really know how to prepare it so that might have been the problem. Most of what we eat we cook in one form or another and it seems many eat kale raw. Kale is frost-tolerant so it can probably be planted several weeks before the last frost. The rule of thumb is six weeks for most cole crops before the last frost.

We have tried Brussels sprouts for gosh knows how many years and have yet to harvest one Brussels sprout, so we gave up. There are a couple stores in Cape that sell them by the pound, which works good for us. Our biggest hindrance has been bugs. We really try not to spray any of our garden produce, so the bugs seem to just have a smorgasbord. We do buy our broccoli plants down at Acquila. Usually around 24 to 48 transplants. They seem to do good. We may grow some cauliflower this year. We have raised it, but not real successfully.

One thing I'm anxious to try is collards both in the spring and fall. Collards are frost-tolerant so one can plant six weeks before last frost. A good Facebook friend from down in North Carolina send me some seed that he really likes, and I'm anxious to grow it. He must have a truck garden with as much produce as he grows. If it wasn't so far and I wasn't so old, I'd go visit. May go anyway. Map out a route through the backwoods missing all the big towns. Growing up in Arthur with 150 people, it was easy to drive. Then driving in Ogallala, Nebraska, was a little more difficult. It had 2,000 to 3,000 or so. Towns like St. Louis or Omaha, Nebraska, are downright awful.

We usually grow about a dozen cabbages as well. These we buy in Acquila as well. Cabbage is pretty easy to grow where it's frost-tolerant, and about the only bugs that bother cabbage are worms. Bacillus Thuringiensis, or Bt, only kills worms, and it won't harm the bees or your pets or even yourself. Totally safe. I buy it in the form of Dipel Dust and simply dust the cabbage plants every couple three days and no worms. Oh you may have a straggler or two, but the Bt will handle them. If it rains, you have to reapply. Remember that the cabbage grows from the inside, so the Bt dust will only be on the outer one or two leaves.

Happy gardening!