Harvest Monday 6/28/10

This week was a week of firsts harvests.

The first two broccoli (9.5 oz),
The first (and only) cherries (4 oz),
The first kale (1lb 2oz),
The first shelling peas (2.5 oz) and the first broccoli rabe (6.24 oz).The broccoli rabe is the back of the colander. Standard broccoli is in the front.
And then there was still more lettuce. We were traveling to visit my mom in Maryland. Her lettuce has gone bitter so she requested I bring some. I brought her over 12 oz of thinnings. Earlier in the week I harvested lettuce too so that brings the lettuce for the week to 1 lb.

Total this week: 3.5 pounds
Total this year: 9.4 pounds

You can see other gardeners' harvests at Daphne's Dandelions.

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.

A Month of Harvests

I've been behind on posting my harvest photos for almost the past month. We've had about one harvest a week from the garden. Here they are, better late than never. You can see other gardener's harvests at Daphne's Dandelions.

10/22 Lacinato Kale and 1 carrot. I was curious how the carrots were developing so I pulled one of the larger ones. It seems like they could be harvested any time now.
10/31 Arugula and Mizuna for a salad with pears and goat cheese. Yum!
11/4 This was my first harvest in the dark after the time change. The sun sets around 4:30 now so if I want to harvest for dinner I have to don the headlamp and head out into the darkness. I picked all the Broccoli Rabe. It seems like it needed more sun. There wasn't much to each plant. It did better in the spring. I also picked some of the Italian Dandelion Chicory to round out the Broccoli Rabe pasta dish I was making.
11/11 Another night time harvest: Lacinato Kale. We roasted this in the oven and it was very good.

We still have winterbor kale, carrots, arugula, kolhrabi, swiss chard, mizuna ,sorrel, claytonia, & mache in the cold frame along with a few stray beets. The biggest problem right now is the slugs which are feasting on the kohlrabi. It seems that I'm picking off slugs every time I go out. Hopefully we'll be able to continue to harvest well into December and see how things survive once the snow falls. Here's a photo of the mache which is supposed to be the hardiest of all.

Warm Weather Crops

Today was a lovely warm, sunny day and we made the transition to a summer garden. The cold frame was put away. The row covers came off and the electric fence was turned on. We staked up our sad 4 pea plants. And we transplanted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and cucumbers into the garden. I planted 7 tomatoes: 2 Roma, 1 Yellow Brandywine, 1 Pink Tomato, 1 Green Zebra, 1 Sweet Chelsea Cherry, and 1 Mystery Heirloom. I planted peppers #1 and 4, which are the only two that sprouted. We put walls of water around all the peppers and tomatoes to help them with the cool climate. I put in 2 slicing cucumbers, and 9 pickling cucumbers. I covered these with row cover to protect them from cucumber beetles. We also seeded 18 of Blue Lake Bush Beans and 18 Romano Bush Beans.
We harvested a lot from the garden today. All the radishes came up and went into a salad for lunch with arugula that was going to seed and some spinach and freckles romaine.

For dinner we harvested the two squares of Broccoli Rabe.
Matt cooked it into Spaghetti with Broccoli Rabe which was the recipe that led us the plant it in the first place. I planted on 4/27 so it matured pretty quickly. I read that it goes quickly once it starts to flower and since some of the flowers were beginning to open we decided it was time to eat it. I only had about 4 plants in a square. Next time I'll put it closer together. The roots didn't expand that much and so I could have had a lot more. I'll probably re-seed it and see how another batch does in the summer temperatures.
The kale is looking great, and we plan to harvest some for dinner later this week. I'm not sure how long the leaves will keep their unspoiled appearance now that the row cover is off. I can't cover just the kale because they are too close to the electric fence. I'll have to use BT if the cabbage moth caterpillars start attacking.

Garden Update 5/25

It has been quite a while since I did a full garden update, so this will be a long post. Here is the south bed. It is pretty much filled. The garlic is doing well on the right side of the bed.
In the front of the bed are my two types of carrots: Purple Haze (left) Chantenay Red Core (right). Also in the front are two squares of golden beets (not pictured). In the middle I have one square of tatsoi,
and two squares of Broccoli Rabe. According to my seed starting chart, it should be ready to harvest as of 6/11. I think it is interesting how the seedlings are different sizes, though they were planted at the same time.One broccoli rabe is already show signs of flower buds.
There is also sorrel at a small seedling stage (not shown) and my Pot o' Gold Chard. In the back are my very sad peas. Only six plants after 3 times seeding! I've transplanted them so that they are in the same square. The good news is that then I will have room to move my basil to this bed and plant an additional tomato in the other bed. I also have 2 squares of rainbow chard (though I'm not seeing the colors yet). Two of these plants over-wintered and the red one looks like it will soon go to seed.
Finally, along the garlic is a row of spinach that is doing fairly well too.
Here is the north bed. The empty spots are for warm weather crops: tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers & peppers.
Here's the kale at the back of the bed. The very well developed radishes at the far left. These will make way for tomatoes soon. And the arugula and freckles romaine on the right side of the bed. Inside my tomatoes and peppers (2 on the left) have made wonderful progress from a week ago. I've been helping them along with 18 hours of light. They are on to their second and third sets of true leaves and their stems are becoming more stocky. Last year I had my tomato seedlings out in walls of water at this point, but this year I'm going to be patient and wait until June. In the meantime, the tomatoes can make up for lost time.
My cucumbers and zucchini have sprouted and are beginning to show signs of their first true leaves.
I'm very pleased with all the garden progress!