Harvest Monday 10/18/10

On Monday I harvested all the peppers. In all it was a disappointing year for peppers. The high heat in mid July caused all the blossoms to drop and then the next set didn't have enough time to fully develop. I picked 5.5 oz of hot peppers and over 1 pound of green peppers. I cut and froze the green peppers. There were a few tiny eggplants as well. I strung the hot peppers to dry.

Also picked one pound of golden beets on Monday. I roasted these to make beet gnocchi.
With the garden clean up on Wednesday I picked all the beans on my pole beans. I didn't do well picking these as green beans. We found the ones I did pick to be tough. So they went to seed. You can see the container full on the left. I picked kohlrabi. And one brussels sprout plant had been broken mid way up and wasn't doing well so I harvested the whole thing along with other sprouts that were beginning to open for a total of 8 oz.
I shelled the beans in front of a movie on Friday night. They weighed 1 pound 6 oz, though they will weigh less when they dry.
In the wet rain on Friday I picked 2 oz of carrots and 6 oz of bok choy and a 3 oz of a chinese green that looks similar to chicory. They all went in a stir fry. I'm happy to have the success with bok choy now because in the spring it bolted and was so eaten by the slugs that I didn't get to enjoy any.
Tomatoes continue to slowly ripen in doors. They are in a cool closet. I brought 5 pounds down that had turned color and we had a large pot of fresh sauce made with them on Saturday night.
Total this week: 9.15 pounds
Total this year: 436.62 pounds
You can see what other gardeners harvested this week at Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday 10/4/10

This week was a clean up week in the garden. Earlier in the week I cleared the squash vines and harvested the remaining butternut squash, another 5 pounds. I also picked the remaining pie pumpkins. I pulled down the tomatillos to make room for an experimental hoop house (more on that in another post). I picked my one and only red cabbage. All the others didn't form heads so I pulled them. They'd been in the ground since early May.
This weekend brought the threat of frost so the last of the pumpkins came in. With the pie pumpkins from earlier in the week they totaled 52 pounds. The largest of the Jarradale's was 15 pounds.
The heavy rain had taken a toll on the tomato supports and the tomatoes, and with the threat of frost, I picked the remaining viable fruit. The ones with any color went into my harvest total. (9 pounds) The green ones will get added as they ripen.
Other harvests this week include one eggplant, pepper, and bok choy for a stir-fry.
Also arugula, beets, and chard.
Total this week: 70.25 pounds
Total this year: 422.44 pounds
You can see what other gardeners harvested this week at Daphne's Dandelions.

This week's garden work

On Tuesday I spent a pleasant and full day in the garden. I spent a lot of time with my potatoes. I was concerned about their foliage, and they have been falling over for weeks.
I did some research to try to figure out if it was late blight, early blight, or something else. I decided it was either early blight or fusarium wilt.
Either way I surely didn't want it to spread to my tomatoes. So I cut back all the foliage and bagged it. I had been filching potatoes from my short row of Iris Cobbler potatoes, so I went ahead and dug the whole row. I also dug up a few of the All Blue and Yukon Gold to see what they potatoes look like. They are a fair size. Here are a few of the All Blue, straight out of the ground.
However, I've read that leaving them in the ground for a few weeks will help them harden up the skin to store better. So I'll be leaving the rest of them in the ground for a bit more.

I went on to check on the tomatoes and found a bit of leaf spot which I cut out, and some possible early blight on the lower inner leaves.
I trimmed out a bunch of the lower foliage to open up the plants some. Next year I'll plant them a bit farther apart. However, all in all they seem to be doing well. I'll continue to keep an eye on them.

I decided it was time to pull my onions. The bed looked like this. They were all flopped over, starting to brown on some of the leaves and I wanted to clear the space to put in some fall crops.
About one fourth of the onions were white and three quarters were yellow.
I lay them out on a tarp in the sun. At night I folded the tarp over them so the dew wouldn't get them wet. I turned them occasionally and left them in the sun for two days. Then we had threat of rain on Wednesday night so my husband and I brought them in and spread them on a sheet in our very warm attic. I'll let them dry there a week or so before bringing them down to trim, weigh, and string before hanging in a cooler place.

Now, the bed looks like this with only leeks left. The far end also has the All Blue potatoes still in the ground where the fork is sticking out. What's green in the front is grass I need to pull :)
I also pulled all my peas, the old broccoli and the asian greens that the slugs prevented me from enjoying.I pulled the lettuce that was bolting, and weeded out the cold frame where I have some more cabbage starting. My early cabbage seems to not be forming heads because of the heat we had. You can see a lot more bare earth in the garden.
Today I planted fall peas and tomorrow I want to put in fall carrots where the onions were. I also want to put in fall greens. I have some kale, tyfon, bok choy, asian green, broccoli (a long shot), and kolhrabi started in cell packs to transplant later too. Its hard to believe I need to be planning for fall when I'm still waiting on all those tomatoes.

June Update: Brassica Crops

My brassica crops are in beds 5 and 8.
In bed 5 I have lacinato and winterbor kale, which survived transplant at a fairly medium size from another bed recently. There are about 6-8 plants of each variety and we just took our first harvest from them this week.

Also in this bed is Red Russian Kale going to seed. This kale survived the winter in the bed from the previous owners and so I'm saving seed. It also was transplanted from Bed 1 recently which helped stress it enough to stop blooming and focus on the seeds. I'll be hanging them up to dry soon and will have plenty to share. At the other end of the bed I have just seeded Tyfon, Italian Chicory, and Sorrel. The middle of the bed is empty and waiting for fall cabbage and broccoli which I am starting in the cold frame, to transplant later.

In bed 8 I have six Broccoli (Oliver) at one end. I am close to harvesting the first head.
I have 5 heads of Red Acre Cabbage.
I also have greens which the slugs are loving. These are my Asian mustard greens.
Here is a bok choy just starting to develop.
In the middle of the bed I have some badly eaten broccoli rabe.
At the other end I have my 12 Brussels Sprouts plants which are getting huge. Interspersed are volunteer sunflower plants.
Here is the view of the whole bed 8 looking back from the Brussels sprouts.

New Seeds from China

This year is the year of international seeds in my garden. First Miss M sent me some from Canada (OK, so it's not that far away). Today I got a package in the mail from my sister. I'd asked her if she could find me any Chinese vegetables seeds while she teaches in the northern part of China.

From all I can tell, she sent two types of possibly mustard greens (top), bok choy and a red leaf lettuce.These appear to be a bunching onion, a yellow tomatillo, and a purple cherry tomato ( the large word Melon seems to be the brand, tomato is there much smaller).A few of the packets have this interesting note in English. I guess I better consider myself a professional grower to open the package.

I'm excited to try these seeds out. I'm starting the cherry tomatoes tonight since they'll have to catch up with my other seedlings. The tomatillos may wait until next year since they look similar to some I got from Daphne and already started. The greens will come in due time once things warm up a bit.