St. Patty's Day Weekend

So this weekend Tony and I are staying home. It's 82 degrees and too hot for the potato and cabbage soup I had planned, and since I haven't come across any grass fed beef or even lamb recently I won't be cooking anything Irish today. This is the first time in several years I won't be making corned beef and cabbage with Irish soda bread.

We did work on the garden some today though. I pulled up the "cabbage" plant which did indeed turn out to be Brussels sprouts, just a VERY compact and broad plant with a head bigger than my fist. In the compost pile that I haven't turned recently, there is another Brussels sprouts plant that I pulled up earlier in the season that looks like a proper plant, but the sprouts are miniscule. The big broad plant had sprouts the size of my fingertips, so I picked those all off and Tony and I ate them raw. They were very good! The plant was bolting, so that's why I didn't leave it in the bed. It was interesting to see it bolt, the head split in half and flower heads popped out. Literally overnight I've had oat grass that I'm growing for my cat sprout an inch high where there was no grass before, the hickory trees and red buds have leaves they didn't have yesterday, and the Brussels sprouts bolted (the plant in the compost pile bolted as well). Observing the compost pile as well, we found half a purple cabbage head that started sprouting a new plant from it's center. I really should go out and take photos.

I worked some of my mother-in-law's horse manure into the bed and decided to go ahead and direct plant seeds into the bed since I'm fairly confident we won't be getting another freeze. I'm trying the 4 sisters in the western half of the bed and planted 2 corn, 2 cream peas, 2 sunflower, 1 zucchini and 1 yellow squash. We also used some bamboo stakes to make tipi supports for the peas, zucchini and squash. The English peas also got supports, however they are supposed to stop growing above 85 degrees, so I may not get anything out of them this year. I'm hoping I do. I also think they may be something to try in the fall garden.