More Leafy Greens to Eat & the First Bug Problem

We have more good leafy greens to eat. We have made the first harvest on the spinach, mustard greens, and turnip greens. They were all needing a hair cut. To pick these we cut off the largest leaves, leaving the smaller leaves to grow more for a future harvest. Here is the results of each plant:

Spinach 1/4 Pound

Before

After

Turnip (1/4 lb) and Mustard (5/8 lb) Greens

Before

After

Turnip Greens

Mustard Greens

Something is Eating the Mustard Greens

While we were picking the mustard greens we noticed holes in the leaves. Something is getting to them before us. We looked thought the plants and did not see anything, except a snail, which we removed. I don't think one small snail can do all that damage so we will have to keep an eye out for the other culprit.

Weeding

It is getting warm and weeds are growing great too. A great benefit of a small raised bed is that you can easily pull them without having to bend all the way over to the ground. Between hand pulling and a little work with a hoe these weeds are no more.

The weeds are starting to grow thick, but they are small and easy to get rid of.

After the hoe. Because there are no weed seeds involved, we will leave them to decompose.

A Garden Visitor

While we were pulling some lemon balm that was growing by the greens in the walkway around the bed we found a toad. Maybe he can take care of the mustard green problem... or maybe he already has.