These greens were targeted for Thanksgiving but my timing is a little off. Someone said Thanksgiving was late this year? In the harvest picture below, from bottom left, clockwise:
- Cilantro: Calypso, which takes cool weather, bolts slowly and can be grown as cut and come again.
- Shiso: Aka Perilla; this is a red variety that I pick small for its color. It does put out more leaves after being cut and has a very muted, almost-mint flavor.
- Mizuna: The common green variety. I like the results of growing it under lights as outside, it seems to attract every chewing insect known. Until growing it inside, I’ve always had to eat holey leaves.
- Purple Mizuna: See the single leaf in the middle of the board, with spoon for sizing. My latest trial and I dunno? I was thinking it was too little leaf surface to use up space under the lights and it’s skeletal shape is a bit off-putting, but it has the nicest peppery flavor. It made my last egg salad sandwich quite elegant.
- Spinner with Red Sails and Simpson’s Elite Lettuce
- Majoram: I got the nicest tasting marjoram plant at Lyman Estate’s herb sale this spring; normally I would let it die this winter but it’s SO good that I started cuttings under the light. They weren’t happy; I’ve lost all but one; it’s more stem than leaves and I keep cutting it back without improvement. But if I can just string this one plant along until next season, the genetics are there.
Total harvest this year so far has been about 12 oz. Very fresh and pretty; organic, too. The organic fertilizer that I’m using is based on fish pooh and kelp. Sundays, when I fertilize, are smelly. And I’ve learned from experience to only mix what I need. It gets truly abominable when it sits. It’s interesting that a few days after fertilizing, most of the smell is gone, well-metabolized by the fast growing plants.