Inge Leonora-den Ouden

What do you mean by 'earliest'? I have some vegetables I can harvest all winter long. So in January or February I can harvest them too. These are 'winter purslane' AKA miner's lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata) and lamb's lettuce (Valerianella locusta). And I don't even have to sow or plant them, they are self-seeding.
If sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes, Helianthus tuberosus) counts as a vegetable, I can harvest those tubers all winter long too (and in spring).

Tereza Okava wrote:We are not even in winter here (southern hem) and this year I've got it bad. To be fair, work is very slow and the world is a dumpster fire, so it's all piling up. I'm being very rigid with myself to make sure I exercise but everything else is really rough.
Supposedly there will be sun this week, but I'm concerned. There is a Super El Niño everyone's talking about that will bring more rain than usual this year, apparently. While it's not as serious as having a flood, when we go a few weeks with no sun, things get brutal.

Yes, the Super El Niño, I read about it. It influences the weather all over planet Earth. When one sea/ocean gets a little warmer, the water goes in a different direction than usual. It changes temperatures, winds, pressure in the air, clouds, etc. etc.
And those things (clouds, wind, rain, temperature) have their influence on us (and maybe on other animals too?).

It was 5 years ago I posted photos here! Isn't it about time to show some new pictures?!
Photos made this year, 2026.
First four photos of the allotment garden (that's where most of my vegetables and other edibles grow):

Apple tree in full bloom. 21st of April.

Apple blossoms close up.

View over some garden beds and the other apple tree. (sheds are in neighbouring gardens).

View in the other direction.

And two photos of the garden in front of the house (ground floor apartment):

'Rain garden'.

Flag iris (native plant here, growing along rivers and lakes) in the rain garden.

Ben Crowley wrote:Where I live in the southeastern piedmont in NC any variety of cowpea does really well, particularly the heirloom ones adapted to the heat like red ripper or more recent ones like pinkeye purple hull, but also planting store bought blackeyed peas. What also does fantastic in the climate but also terribly, if you seed save, is squash. So many people grow squash and gourds and pumpkins that you can get some odd hybrids from cross pollination. Last year what should have been yellow crookneck squash turned out to be some sort of large green pumpkin type thing.  

Yes, that's the problem with gourds/pumpkins/squash. And that's why for the Cucurbitaceae (I think that's the best name to use for them all together) now I buy seeds (from a good organic seeds company).  I don't use seeds anymore from home-grown pumpkins or from the ones I bought and ate.

Ellen Lewis wrote:

it reminds me of Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum)

I planted alexanders a number of years ago. It has naturalized like gangbusters, to the point where I fear I have introduced a new invasive species.
If only my native umbellifers were as prolific.
Alexanders has a very wierd taste. It's useful for about two weeks a year, when the stalks are tender. The leaves are way too bitter to use. Maybe the seeds would be a decent spice, but I haven't bothered to try.
The anise swallowtail is the main (and most desired) insect I have seen on umbelliferae around here, and I don't see any on alexanders. So even though I eat it every year, I have started to remove it, and continue to try to establish natives like biscut root and yampah, as well as learning to eat native cow parsnip and my local angelica (hendersonii).

Maybe it has to do with the local climate, or maybe it has to do with 'taste'. I like the taste of Alexanders, do not consider the leaves too bitter.  
I'll see if it becomes invasive. It's now the third year it's in my back garden, it's doing well, but hasn't spread to other parts of the garden. Here in the Netherlands it is a native plant, but not very common. It has a strange Dutch name 'Zwartmoeskervel' ;-)

Maybe it's the way I see my rhubarb. I consider it one plant, but in fact it's a bunch of plants together.
Only one flower stalk means: only one of those plants produces less edible stems. But in the total bunch or rhubarb it isn't obvious.

Photo: not the flowering large rhubarb, but a different rhubarb at the allotment.

Aren't those the leaves of knapweed?

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:When I visited Europe, people heckled me constantly. "Sure, that works great for you in the desert, but we have SLUGS!!!"

So I started interviewing every farmer that I visited about how to deal with slugs. In the end, they taught me that the more life a garden contains, the more biodiversity, the fewer problems with slugs.

No till farmers report that if their are tons of plants growing in the garden, that the slugs prefer the dead or less healthy plants. If a garden looks like a moonscape, with absolutely nothing to eat, and some seeds or transplants are added, the the poor starving slugs will devour whatever is offered.

Gardens with the fewest problems with slugs had the most other species living in them, of many different kinds: plants, animals, fungi, microbes. For example, one farmer showed me a "dead hedge" that was a pile in the center of the garden where branches were tossed, or old weeds, or garden refuse. It ended up teeming with life: beetles, fungi, creepy-crawlies, flies, molds, slimes, wasps, birds, hedgehogs, wildflowers, pollinators, fungi, etc., including many predators of slugs and snails.

That's my opinion too, and my way of dealing with slugs and snails.
There isn't much difference in climate between the UK and the Netherlands. So we have slugs and snails too. And there is a difference: the Netherlands are more densily populated and has less 'real nature'. So there are less predators around. I.m.o. it's the obligation of everyone with a garden (large or small) to help nature, to create as much biodiversity as possible in the garden.

Annual vegetables grown indoors and then planted in 'clean' soil ... that's inviting slugs!
Permaculture teaches us what are better ways to grow edible plants and have a 'yield' for yourself too.

Emirene Backues wrote:Not super common, but the easiest most versatile plant I grow is Seombadi/Korean Celery/Dystaenia takesimana.  This stuff is amazing.  Zone 6b temperate NE in the US- it is a perennial and overwinters without any difficulty, can brush snow aside and harvest lightly even in Feb or March.  It's now started to self seed and I'm happily giving seedlings away the my unsuspecting neighbors.  Mild flavor, depending of the age of the shoot and leaf it can be used in salads, stir fry, or soups.  Also while the groundhog and rabbits eat it, they don't decimate it like other plants (any brassicas, or squash varieties I try to grow that's not fully fenced).  Attached is a pic from early April this year after a very hard winter and not much else is green yet.

I did not know this plant. But it reminds me of Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum). It looks different, but it's in the same family and the taste is somewhat like cellery too. Also perennial (and not bi-annual like ordinary cellery).