Harvest Monday

This week we harvested komatsuna (Chinese mustard greens), Viroflay Giant and Giant Winter spinach and asparagus. We wrote our weight totals down, but haven't tallied them yet. I'm guessing the komatsuna and asparagus were around 8 ounces each, and the spinach was probably close to 2 pounds.

18 or 20 oz of Viroflay spinach from cold frame #3

Stop by Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday. With garden harvests picking up a little pace now, there's plenty to see and share!

Harvest Monday 2/6/12

Harvest Monday is a time for gardeners all over the world to share their harvests with one another. Link up with other gardeners at Daphne's Dandelions and share your bounty.

We harvested the last of our winter carrots. There was a mole or a mouse or some kind of critter eating the tops of them, so we pulled them up. They weighed 3 lb and 12 ounces.  Our annual yield is almost 12 pounds so far.

Q. James helping with the harvest. The kale plant is almost as tall as he is but not overwintering well.

Shouldn't our soil be frozen solid???

Some kind of critter chewed this one up.

Harvest Monday Oct. 24, 11

This week we harvested green tomatoes for a salsa batch Belle plans to make this week. Kale went into a quiche, and we harvested green beans, jalapenos and one leek. Belle also brought our lemon grass plant inside for the winter and harvested several stocks for an essential oil recipe she's working on.

Lemon grass

C. James in his Iron Man outfit. Halloween comes early around here.

Q. James loves raw kale. Watch out for cabbage worms!

Harvest totals:
green beans:      11 oz
Jalapenos            5 oz
Kale                    2 lb
1 Leek
Lemon Grass
Green Tomatoes   6 lb 7 oz
Total                                   
                            9 lb 7 oz

Be sure to stop by Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday to see what gardeners around the world are harvesting.

Harvest Monday

This week we harvested lots of squash! We have butternut, spaghetti and acorn.  We also harvested green peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, 2 cantaloupe, 1 honeydew melon, 4 large watermelons, jalapenos and habenero peppers.

Our tomatoes are coming in very slowly this year. We are so thankful for Apple Pie Gal's advice about freezing tomatoes for easy peeling and canning. We would be lost this year without it. Belle simply freezes each tomato individually as it ripens. Then when we have enough to do a batch, she'll thaw, peel and can. We've eaten a few tomatoes in dishes, but we're still waiting on our first batch of cans. How sad is that?

This week we (I mean my nephews) doubled the size of our mid-bed using composted yard waste. We laid a bed of composted yard waste directly over the existing grass. I think we should have killed the grass first and then turned the soil into the compost, but time was not permitting. We're going to plant our brocolli, cauliflower and cabbage directly into the compost.
I'm thinking next spring we'll turn the dirt underneath into the compost above. Over winter, the grass we covered will hopefully become mulch and fertilizer for our spring plants.

Our hard working nephews visiting from Auburn, WA. Thanks guys!

More space for our cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli seedlings.

Harvest Totals

Bell Peppers 3 lb 2 oz
Cantaloupe 23 lb 5 oz
Honeydew 10 lb 4 oz
Jabeneros 14 oz
Jalapenos 4 oz
Raspberries 1 lb
Tomatoes 25 lb 1 oz
Acorn Squash 1 lb 8 oz
Butternut Squash 14 lb 4 oz
Spaghetti Squash 29 lb 8 oz
Watermelon 77 lb 6 oz (4 melons averaging approximately 19 lb)

Total 186 lb 8 oz

Please stop by Daphne's Dandelions to see some of the wonderful harvests that gardeners throughout the world have had this week.

Harvest Monday

This week we've been busy having hardly anytime to post. So we'll mix this post for Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday with a some pictures of what's growing and of one thing that is not.


We harvested our regular bit of kale again this week. Believe it or not, it's still going strong.

This is two of about 8 plants we have. They're about 2 feet tall now. If things keep going this way through the summer we'll have tomato8 6 foot tomato stakes for next season!

We also harvested our first handful of potatoes. We only dug up 3 plants. We're waiting until later this week to finish the patch.

Russet Burbank

The last of our spring onions

This week we harvested:

kale 4 lb
potatoes 2lb
onions 3 lb
zucchini 1lb 4 oz
lettuce 1 lb
blackberries 1lb 12 oz
raspberries 1 lb

We also have several things growing.

Our melon patch, 2 watermelon, 2 cantaloupe and 1 honeydew plants

cantaloupe

honeydew

Spaghetti squash

Finally, there is one thing -an acorn tree- that has now stopped growing. 

This was very hard for us do do. We loved that tree.

Please take your hat off to this 30 year old acorn tree that we very reluctantly cut down this week. We've been debating this for years. The tree shades our garden until noon. Our tomatoes don't do so well. On the other hand, our early spring and late fall vegetables thrive. We finally decided to take it down.

I cut it to fall away from the garden, but as it began to crack and lean, it began to lean toward the garden. My heart fell. I stopped cutting, came down from the ladder then thought and stewed about it for while waiting for it to fall on the garden at any moment. Finally I came up with a plan and went back up the ladder. The tree finally came down it missed the garden. I was literally shouting for joy. I think the whole neighborhood heard me.  

Harvest Monday

You have to look closely, but a volunteer Vivian romaine plant is there between the kale and arugula.

The highlight of our Harvest Monday with Daphne's Dandelions is a single volunteer romaine plant. At the end of May we harvested what we thought was the last of the spring romaine. This little guy was a complete surprise! He'll make a nice salad for lunch today.

Last Tuesday we harvested more kale and radishes. On Wednesday it was our first carrot. On Thursday it was even more radishes and a bit of arugula. On Friday we gathered raspberries (we've been gathering raspberries all week). Then on Saturday we harvested our first peaches and a single zucchini. Finally, on Sunday we harvested green leaf lettuce. Sometime during the week we harvested a single jalapeno pepper.

Of the six trees we have, this one always ripens first. The fruit is very fragile and small. We usually get just a few peaches. Maybe it's a Georgia peach tree, not meant for Pennsylvania. Who knows? We inherited it. The rest of the trees won't ripen for several weeks.

Bel made an 8 foot bean trellis earlier this week. The vines are climbing quickly.

romaine 12 oz
green leaf lettuce 1 lb
arugula 4 oz
kale 3 lb 12 oz
Radishes 1 lb 14 oz
Raspberries 1 lb 4 oz
blackberries 6 oz
Carrots 1 lb
Zucchini 1 lb
peaches 1 lb 6 oz
1 jalapeno pepper

Harvest Monday & Sauerkraut

This week for Daphne's Dandelions we have several things to share. We started the week off with a few more radishes. On Tuesday we harvested the last of our cabbage. On Wednesday we ate up the last of our blueberries and pulled up a few more beets. On Saturday C. James pulled our first red onion.

Total Harvest
radishes 8 oz
beets 1 lb 12oz
Red Delicious red onions 2 lb 8 oz
cabbage 3 lb 8 oz
blueberries 8 oz


We made sauerkraut about 2 weeks ago, and I promised to post pictures with a recipe. So here it is. Finally!

C. James was a very helpful cabbage crusher.

Here's the finished cabbage, 4 cabbage for 8 pounds.

Cabbage leaves form the cover.

The baggy is full of water. We're using it to weigh down the shredded cabbage. A close look at this picture reveals the white scum forming around the edges of the baggy. This is a picture of the kraut after about 2 weeks into the process.

We were happily surprised by how simple the process was. It only took about an hour-and-a-half to make.

8 pounds of green cabbage (we used 9)
5 tablespoons kosher salt
4 teaspoons caraway (optional)

Makes about 8 pints

Quarter, core and thinly slice the cabbage. Then, working in batches (2 lb sliced cabbage per batch) work in the salt 1 teaspoon per batch. Squeeze and kneed the cabbage until its wilted and has released enough liquid to cover the cabbage.  Pack the cabbage into a large container and repeat until finished. Cover the cabbage with leaves and place weight on top to hold the cabbage under the liquid. Let sit for several weeks then water-bath can or freeze.

Harvest Monday

This week for Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday we have several things to share.

Our first try at kale chips. They are very light, crispy and incredibly rich.

We harvested lots of kale and made kale chips. We harvested 4 more heads of cabbage, then sowed carrots in the space they left behind. I'll post about pictures of the sauerkraut we made later this week.

Green onion will keep in the fridge for a couple weeks.

We harvested spring onions and we're expecting a huge harvest of summer onions, probably in mid to late July. We also harvested lots of blueberries and raspberries this week.

Tiny radishes we pruned from the row for space. Yummy!

Our very first beet. Bel ate it right up beet, stem and all the leaves. She loves them!

We also harvested lots of blueberries and raspberries.

Bel made delicious strawberry jam.

Weekly harvest totals:
Cabbage 10 lb
Kale 2.5 lb
Onions 1.5 lb
Beets 1 lb
Blueberries around 2 lb
raspberries around 1 lb (It's hard to weigh these because the kids eat them so quickly!)

Harvest Monday

This week for Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday we have a few things to share. We picked 8 pounds of June berries. We gathered 4 ounces spinach. Our peas have just begun to produce. We recorded 4 ounces (I think).

Hands down, the biggest harvest this week was kale. We cut 6 pounds. This is our first experience with kale. We don't know if it will bolt or what. Right now the plants keep producing new leaves and are showing no signs of slowing down.

4 of the 6 pounds of kale we harvested this week.

Harvest Monday

It's a bit late for Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday, but not too late! This weekend has been busy. On Saturday we prepared new beds and planted watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew melons and squash. Today we hosted a memorial day picnic for almost 30 people. It was a great day.  We also watered today, and that felt kind of strange. It was the first time this season that we had to do a thorough watering of everything. It looks like lots more water will be required this week. Until we get our watering system installed, we're drawing water from the creek that runs through our property.

We had our biggest haul in strawberries. We're getting more than 4 pounds a day right now for a total of almost 32 pounds this week.What the kids don't eat, Bel freezes.

Q. James loves fresh strawberries. He's been by my side picking every day this week.

We harvested about 8 ounces of spinach.

Tasty spinach ravioli with marinara.

We harvested another pound of cauliflower, which Bel promptly froze for another day. We have about 10 more plants that are finally beginning to grow heads. We're still getting broccoli shoots every couple of days. Bel made broccoli cream soup and froze it for the winter. We harvested several romaine heads this week and made salads. Our heaviest head was 1 pound 4 ounces. It was a giant.