I'm sorry guys but the elf won't be writing today, just your usual old Fen and his straightforward posts that you bear with only because there's a lot of forest and plant pictures but that you swear that they could do perfectly fine without all the tedious text in between 😂
However! The elf felt quite happy about how well-received the last post was and all those lovely comments about how his prose was enjoyed, so he is preparing more things for you!
Meanwhile, I want to share with you the progress of the mixed seed patch which is doing great, at least for the brassicas. The arugula and red mustard have thrived in this environment:
If you remember, I did a square shaped patch and a linear one. The square shape has done better and I believe it has to do with the surface being flat, while the linear patch is a slope. My theory is that these plants don't do so well on the slope format:
In between the arugula and mustards, there are a few other brassicas with darker leaves trying to make their way up though not doing so well due to being a favored meal by the insects that must be enjoying the appearance of a new food forest without any effort on their behalf.
I can't tell yet if these are kale or romanesco broccoli yet, but what I'm doing is munching on all the arugula and mustard around them so they have more air to breath and receive the energy of the sun. It's a very tasty work!
These popped up but I have no clue what they are. Their taste is first of anise and then goes to spicy, but I could not get them identified through plant apps. I also checked my list of seeds that went into the plot and there's nothing that matches. If anyone has a clue it would be appreciated to get some help.
Some chards can be spotted here and there as well:
They don't seem to be doing too great as they have been eaten by bugs as well. I'm ok with that, gotta share with the bugs as they lived here before me. A problem that is visible and could have been avoided is that apparently they didn't go deep enough into the soil. By throwing all seeds at the same depth it was expected that some would be cool with that and some wouldn't. If I was to repeat this, I would maybe layer the seeds to avoid this.
I also spotted some dill (the tiny hair-like leaves) in between which should be interesting to see how it develops in these conditions.
Something cool about these patches is that they have already allowed me several harvest in little more than a month. The first harvest was mainly to remove a bit of the plants that were growing on top of the kales/romanesco. I cut around them with a scissor and seeing how the plants grew right back I've been able to do this a couple more times.
For example, see how there's a few darker green leaves popping in between?
Now that I've cleared them up you can see there were actually many of these plants lost between the mini-jungle of arugula and mustards.
This is nice because it allows for a scaled work through time. You begin harvesting the quick growers as you open space for the slower ones. Once the slow growers are good for harvest, you can let the remaining quickies for seed bearing.
This is my third harvest from the patch and I've also eaten lots directly from it 😋
I did something similar with lettuces in the sense that I haven't thinned out, I just put a ton of seeds and harvested them as micro-greens. Along with these brassicas they make the perfect micro-green salad or to be used in sandwiches.
I have to admit I haven't taken as much care as I would like to these patches, I'm using a to do list everyday as it happens to me often that if I just do things freely, some basic things end up forgotten, such as washing my clothes or keeping a good supply of firewood for cooking. By doing this, some things that I would like to give more time to end up having to wait for their turn, but it's ok because I've learned I need to balance between the things I really like doing and those that need doing to live well.
That'll be all for today, thanks for joining me, till next time 🌿