Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Experiment Gone Right

 Yesterday I decided I needed to thin the parsnip bed. You know, the one that had been interplanted between my spring cauliflowers and cabbages. As you can see from the photo above, they have turned out pretty well and these are just the thinnings. They are quite a mix of large and small, short, stout, long, skinny. I got 2 and a half pounds of parsnips and if I weren't to get another parsnip out of this garden, I can still say they are the best and most I've ever grown. But my hope is that the ones remaining in the garden will get bigger still and sweeter with the cool weather coming. So I would say that my interplanting experiment was a success and I will plant parsnips that way again next year because parsnips take such a long time to grow and I just don't have the space to devote a bed to them alone. Now if only my carrots did as well! I have a long way to go to be able to say I've grown good carrots.
 On another front, two years ago we planted a little apple tree. We coddled it the first year, but this year a rogue blackberry patch engulfed it (and it's gotta go!), but above you see our very first McIntosh apples, all four of them. They are quite ugly and scabby looking because I didn't protect them in any way, but I ate two of them and they were delicious! I have dreams of future apple pies now.
And a number of people suggested I try salad with my abundance of kale. Since we no longer have any garden lettuce at the moment, it seemed like a good idea, so I went online and found a recipe for Massaged Kale Salad. The massaging softens the kale to a wilt which makes a nicer salad, since kale is not terribly tender. Well, jackpot! I really liked how it tasted and the health benefits are a bonus. So thanks for the suggestions!
Lastly, a little bit of blogger business. I have only had this blog for a little over a year, but I noticed recently that the photos on my older posts are gone. They simply show a blank screen with a little symbol of some sort on it. This is quite annoying because I have friends who go to read the old posts and they don't always make sense without the pictures. Does anyone know why this would be? I haven't seen this with other blogs I've read. Any helpful answers would be appreciated. Have a great week gardening friends!

15 comments:

  1. You're right. Your pictures have disappeared. Googling the problem didn't help much:

    All photos that you upload via blogger are stored in Picasa. <- This actually means Picasa Web Albums, not Picasa3 for windows.

    If you go to your Picasa Albums (https://picasaweb.google.com/home), up in the top right of the black bar, you should see your user name. Click on the user name and Sign out. Click on the Sign In button - Upper right, and sign in making sure it is the blogger account name and password. Click on the My photos tab at the top left. In the upper right there should be the words: "View My:" Then click the Unlisted link. See if that shows you anything more, otherwise click on the My Photos tab again. Click on the Blogger Album and see if there is anything shown when it opens.


    Of course, I couldn't find anything telling how to actually get them back. It looked as though, in most cases, the user's privacy setting was changed,but that would mean the more recent photos wouldn't show up, which wouldn't apply to you. :-( I've had my videos disappear, saying they are "private". I can't even view them myself!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, thanks for the input Granny. I am scratching my head over this, wish I had a techie nearby to work on the problem, lol. Computers and all that goes with them were never made for the faint of heart!

      Delete
    2. On the bright side, your parsnips are gorgeous!

      Delete
  2. Whoop whop for your parsnips - something I haven;t mastered yet.
    The kale salad looks yummy!
    Sorry no idea about your blog tech issues - what a hassle.
    Love Leanne

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aw thanks Leanne. Hey, is your new blog up and running? I'll have to check things out.

      Delete
  3. A very nice parsnip preview and congratulations on your first apples. I'm no help on the older photos. I hope you are able to figure it out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! The photos are a minor frustration in the greater scheme of life, but maybe if I sic my husband on it he'll figure it out.

      Delete
  4. Your parsnips look yummy. Makes me want to try to grow them again! Sorry about your pictures. No help here! Nancy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well I sure appreciate the sympathy Nancy! The parsnips make up for things, lol, I like to use them in stews and meat pies.

      Delete
  5. The apples are great! I have tried to grow apple trees here several times but have not succeeded yet. Love the parsnips, and like the idea of using the kale that way. I do love kale and just planted some for fall in the garden :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Becky! This is my first apple tree success. Years ago we planted a few and they did not survive. Hope you get lots of fall kale!

      Delete
  6. I was going to grow parsnips, but never got around to planting them this year. I wish I had. Yours look beautiful and I'm sure the later ones will be even nicer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I almost didn't do it either Daphne! It was an afterthought to interplant them since I didn't want to waste the seeds and I'm really glad I did.

      Delete
  7. Massaging kale, who woulda thunk. Sorry about the missing photos. Did you follow the advice in Granny's post? When I did that, I see my web albums with two folders/albums for LiveWriter, which I use to write my blog posts. All my photos are there. Did you see yours? If not they may have been deleted, ouch. Google+ did some kind of merge with Picassa about the time your pictures disappeared, maybe there was a glitch?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haven't tried checking on the photos yet and I have my husband working on it. You are right about the Google+ merge with Picassa and I remember having a hard time getting pictures up at that time so maybe that does have something to do with it!

      Delete