Consider how to deal with garden intruders once gardening season arrives. Microgreens at their best!
Greetings fellow gardeners,
The sky is pink this morning, which means there could be snow later; I enjoy the colour at this hour. Two days ago, as I stood in the kitchen looking into the backyard, I watched as clouds of snow blew gently between the big trees. I love the trees at the back of my property, flashy white birches, apple trees and a smattering of sugar maples. The colours in the fall are stunning. While enjoying this view, I noticed at the top of these trees there were a number of squirrels, tumbling and racing and chasing each other like acrobats in Cirque du Soleil.
I have found that squirrels and chipmunks have become an issue in my garden, and I have been reading various articles to see what I can do about them. They will dig up seeds and seedlings, so I know that I have to be aware of that. Chipmunks seem to be particularly fond of pea seeds. As I plant a lot of my vegetables in pots, many of the squirrels and chipmunks dig in the pots, and this displaces or destroys the seedlings. I found that bird netting prevented the chipmunks from digging and discouraged the squirrels. One day, I found my big toad wrapped up in the netting! I carefully cut away the netting and removed it from my pots. I don’t want anything hurting my toads. The main thing to do is to cover the soil surface to discourage digging. A friend of mine uses pinecones, sometimes I use smooth stones, and this year I want to try groundcovers. I think I have lots of experimenting to do. As I am an organic gardener, I won’t be using any chemical pest deterrents, and I am hoping to find a way that these rodents and 1 can live together, peacefully.
Today I am going to have my first microgreen tasting. I chose swiss chard microgreens. A large number of seeds arrived in a lovely package with clear instructions. I planted them in a recycled take-away tray and had excellent germination. The seeds I planted are the same as any swiss chard seed. If I were to continue with microgreens, I think I would grab several packets of regular seed from the dollar store and do a multiple seeding with them. I think that would be much less expensive as you need a lot of seeds for a good showing of microgreens.
Microgreen breakfast
So, as you can see, I boiled a couple of eggs, and using my scissors, I harvested a number of swiss chard microgreens. They are at the seed leaf stage, and I am being careful not to pull them out of the soil. I sprinkled the greens on my breakfast and took a picture. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. The greens added a depth of flavour to my breakfast and I am going to definitely continue to use them. They have a very intense chard flavour and I might try some other microgreens using some of my old leftover seeds.
Well, the snow did show up and it has made my view look like the inside of a snow globe. The sun is sparkling through the trees and it makes it impossible not to smile. Have a wonderful week. Judith.
(Email: lapisdragonarts@gmail.com) All Veggie Bites are available at the SGHS website: (https://sites.google.com/site/sghortsoc/)
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