Harvest Monday 10/11/10

This week shows the slow down in the fall garden. Last week was 70 pounds, this week I only harvested 4. That includes 2 pounds of tomatoes that were picked green last week. These began to shown color this week and were added to the harvest total.
I harvested our first Brussels Sprouts this week, over one pound. They were good but should be even better now that we've had a few frosts this weekend.
We enjoyed a soup this week with leek, kale, beans and tomatoes from the garden.
The scarlet runner beans came in before the frost. They yielded 8 oz. They were planted experimentally amongst the tomatoes and grew up along the frame the tomatoes hung from. They did fine there.
I picked the last of the basil on Saturday night before the first full frost. It weighed 7 oz. I froze some and the rest we made into the last pesto of the year. Also picked 7.5 oz of carrots that night for another soup which also used kale and pumpkin from the garden.
The only frost-tender plants left in the garden are the peppers and eggplants. I've been covering them when the frost has threatened. However the forecast for this week is frost every night for the next 4 nights. So I'll be harvesting the last of the peppers and eggplants later today. You'll see them in next week's harvest totals.

Total this week: 4.48 pounds
Total this year: 427.47 pounds
You can see what other gardeners harvested this week at Daphne's Dandelions.

Seed Bouquet

Encouraged by Ottawa Gardener, I made a seed bouquet. She's challenging people to post a photo of a seed-saving bouquet on blogs. It was just the motivation I needed to clip some seeds that I've been meaning to harvest.In my bouquet are cilantro/coriander seeds,
Carrot seeds (look like queen anne's lace), and winterbor kale seeds (gray and spiky seed pods).
I won't get many seeds from the kale as I left them in the garden too long. Many fell apart as I picked them. That's not such a bad thing as I may get volunteer plants. I still have plenty of seeds from the original seed packet and since these were only saved from one plant I may just use them for making sprouts to eat this winter.

Since the seeds were so fragile, I put each variety in it's own paper bag to hang to dry in my attic. You can find out the contest details here.

Harvest Monday 8/9/10

This week I weighed my onions after I strung them. Here are my four strings of yellow onions. I have one string of white onions too. All together my storage onions weigh 25 pounds and 4 oz. I've hung the strings in a cooler storage room in the back of the house.
Following the onions in weight this week were cucumbers with over 6 pounds. They just keep on coming. I need to make another batch of pickles.
The zucchini keep coming too with over five pounds of them this week. I had to spray some milk/water solution on the leaves to counteract some powdery mildew but they continue to produce.
The cherry tomato production has picked up with over 1 pound 6 oz of them this week. It has been a daily routine to pick cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and zucchini.
There were two 'firsts' this week. The first non-cherry tomato, was a green zebra at 2.5 oz. This was one of my early started tomatoes. Next year I'll start a red tomato early because while the green zebra is good, I still want a large red tomato.
The other 'first' was the first pepper. It is a Hungarian Wax with a medium level of heat. There are a few more of these on the plants. These seemed to be the only peppers that flowered and set fruit during the high heat last month. Now the other peppers are recovering and flowering again so we should have more variety in a month or so.
Other things harvested this week include kale (3 oz),
carrots(3 oz), basil, and pineapple tomatillos (1 oz).
Total this week: 32.9 pounds
Total this year: 97.4 pounds

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

Harvest Monday 8/2/10

This week cucumbers took the prize for the most weight in the harvest totals. I picked over seven pounds of cucumbers. I made one batch of bread and butter pickles, and started a crock of cured dill pickles. This is my first time crock-curing pickles so I'm excited to see how it goes. The recipe called for grape leaves to help aid in crisping and I was thankful for my grapevine on the front fence. I harvested about 3 oz of grape leaves.
Also in the photo above you can see my first raspberry. It made it in the photo but didn't last long enough to get weighed. This is the first year for my ever-bearing raspberries and I don't expect much but I was pleased by the large size and flavor of the berry.

The cucumbers took the prize in weight this week, but can't sit securely on that pedestal because I did not weigh my harvest of onions. I picked all my yellow and white onions and they are in the process of drying. I'll weigh them in the coming weeks and add them to my totals then. Behind the cucumbers in terms of weight were potatoes, with 5 1/2 pounds. I harvested all my Irish Cobblers that were left and sampled some Yukon Gold and All Blues as I cut back their foliage this week.
Other harvests this week include zucchini, but I have stopped photographing all the zucchini I pick. They only make it into group shots like below. It was just over one and half pounds this week as I'm trying to stay on top of them and pick them when they are small.

Other harvests this week include chard, cilantro, basil, arugula, romano beans and cherry tomatoes. I'm still waiting for my green zebra to fully ripen, and then I'll still be waiting for the first large red tomato. I probably have another 2 weeks to go.
Total this week: 15.7 pounds
Total this year: 58.1pounds

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

Harvest Monday 7/5/10

I returned from a few days away at the end of June to find four remaining heads of broccoli ready to pick. They weighed 1 lb. 12 oz. We made beef with broccoli stir fry for dinner with 2 of the heads.
I also picked the last of my shelling peas (6.5 oz) and the beginning of my snap peas (2.25 oz) for the stir fry. There is a little bit of thai basil in the bowl too.
We harvested garlic scapes (2 oz ) lemon balm (1 oz) and cilantro (1.25 oz) for a pesto to go on top of fish.
I harvested 3.5 oz of onions and 2.5 oz of green onions.
I also picked 5.25 oz of chard.
The chard leaves were blanched and the chard stems and onions were grilled and then put on a pizza that we grilled.
I seem to have forgotten to harvest any lettuce this week. We'll remedy that today.

Total this week: 3.25 pounds
Total this year: 12.67 pounds

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

First Seeds Started

Spring is on its way. Each day we can feel the sun getting warmer. Our temperatures have been unseasonably warm (above freezing!). Today I cleaned my seed starting trays with a mild bleach solution and started my first seeds.

I started my herbs because I found last year they were not big enough nearly soon enough. I started Rosemary, Oregano, Summer Savory & Sage. I have overwintered two thyme plants , one rosemary and two sages but the aphids are starting to attack those and so I'm hedging my bets by starting new seeds. These overwintered plants have been babied under the seed starting lamp but now they have been relegated to a sunny window so I can start other plants.

I also started three Winterbor and three Lacinato Kale, and six oak leaf lettuce. When we move I want to be able to move the cold frame in the new garden and place these inside.

Finally, I started my hot peppers. Last year I struggled with germination, and it took over a month for one. This year I'm finding a warmer spot and starting a month earlier. I planted 4 Habanero seeds from some peppers my mom gave me this summer. And I seeded 8 peppers from a Burpee Hot Pepper mix.

Here's the list so far:
2/21/10
Rosemary
Oregano
Summer Savory
Sage
Lacinato Kale (3)
Winterbor Kale (3)
Oak Leaf Lettuce (6)
Habanero Peppers (4)
Mixed Hot Peppers (8)

Indoor Garden

Last year I brought in two Swiss chard plants for the winter to experiment with continuing the growing season indoors. Since I have the cold frame I decided I'd leave the chard outside this winter. However, when the first threat of frost came a few weeks ago, I decided to move my peppers, basil, and herbs indoors. Here they are in their pots on Sept 19th.
Three basil plants,
One red cayenne pepper plant that had already fruited but looked like it would being to bloom again.
One poblano pepper plant that had just set its first few peppers.
I know that the light I get at my windows isn't nearly strong enough so I decided to put the pots under the seed starting light set up.
These peppers have come full circle, starting under the lights and finishing under the lights. They have been doing well under the lights, though the poblano pepper only gets light on the lower leaves because it is too tall. The red cayenne has some buds developing. The pepper below on the poblano continues to grow. Both the poblano and the red cayenne also recently bloomed. I'll have to make sure it they get pollinated.
I also moved in the herbs from the front porch. In the picture below you can see the ginger (left back) sage (left front), rosemary (back) & thyme, (front). The rosemary and thyme in the center were purchased and the ones on the right were started from seed. I hope they overwinter so I don't have to purchase new plants next year, and since the rosemary is especially slow growing from seed.
As I look back at the other parts of my indoor garden last year, I realized that I brought lettuce in as well. Currently my outdoor lettuce is mostly going to seed. I think I can probably fit a window box sized pot or two along the back here and start lettuce indoors. Wouldn't it be great if I didn't have to buy lettuce this winter!

Yogurt Chive Cheese

I read this article on the NY Times about making your own yogurt last week. I'd read about it in the past on other blogs (The Frugal Girl has a more detailed set of directions) and decided that this week's break was a good time to give it a try.

I used one quart of milk and heated it over medium heat until it reached 180-190 *F.
Then I put the pan in the sink with cold water and stirred until the temperature lowered to 120 -115* F. I stirred in two tbsp of store-bought yogurt with live cultures.
I wrapped the quart jar in kitchen towels and placed it in the oven for 5 hours. The yogurt was still thin, but tasted like mild yogurt. After refrigerating it thickened up some. It is still on the thin side compare to store bought products. Since I had yogurt, we decided to make some recipes that used it. We already had planned to use some of it for Chicken Tikka Masala later this week. I had some over granola for breakfast. The NY Times linked to a topic list where you could browse recipes with yogurt and I came across a few for yogurt cheese.

I started with just 2 cups of yogurt because I was just experimenting with the yogurt cheese for the first time and I didn't want to use all of my newly made yogurt. Next time I'll use 4 cups because the cheese disappeared fast.

I lined a strainer with about 8 layers of cheese cloth and put the strainer over a bowl. I poured in the two cups of yogurt. I put it all in refrigerator overnight. In the morning, the solids remained in the cheese cloth and the whey was in the bowl. (This photo is the morning after. When I first put the yogurt in, it almost filled the strainer).
I turned the cheese out into a small bowl.
I added chives, salt, and black pepper. After mixing, I spread out a sheet of plastic wrap. I ground pepper on to a central area and then piled the cheese mix on top.
Then it was rolled up into a log shape.
We ate it on stone wheat crackers and thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't wait until we have other fresh herbs growing in the garden so we can experiment with other variations. Now that we made cheese with the yogurt, I decided to go ahead and make another batch of yogurt to have on hand.