Early April in the Kitchen Garden

Back on March 25th, we attended Plant Nerd Night at the Eugene Garden Club. As always, I was most excited to see what Alice Doyle from Log House Plants brought to sell. After a lot of mental comparisons and hard decision making, I came home with this "new-to-me" Kale. Kale "Fizz" is described on the Log House Plants website as "tender, finely lobed, light green leaves deepen to emerald green. Use baby greens in salads or full size leaves in steaming, stir-frying. OP."

Log House Plants had so many new and interesting kale varieties for sale that night. It was really difficult to pick only one to bring home. I was taken with this variety's lovely cut leaves and the promise of tender leaves to eat after the first frost.

After I was done planting the Kale, I took stock for the rest of the kitchen garden. The garlic has grown like gangbusters this last month. It is now taller than the hoops which use to support the remay cover.

Just like last year, the "Russian Red" garlic is attaining an immense size. Each plant stock looks like bamboo!

Next to it, the "Chesnook Red" plants look small but they are perfectly normal. Their stocks are now thicker then a finger and they too have outgrown the metal hoops.

It does look like one of the "Chesnook Red" plants had dwarfed, so I will have 14 plants to harvest this year instead of 15. I certainly don't want to save the cloves from a misshapen plant. Fortunately, all the other plants look great.

My real surprise this Spring are the potatoes. Last year I planted 4 grow bags with 2 varieties of Potatoes. Because of an incredibly busy Fall, I only ended up harvesting one of the bags. The other three bags remained outside in the kitchen garden all Winter, exposed to negative temperatures and two snow storms. So I was more than a little shocked when I noticed that the two bags containing "Nicola" potatoes started to grow a few weeks ago. And now, pictured below, the "Dark Red Norland" have just begun to sprout in the remaining bag. So I guess I will have potatoes this year after all!