Greens are of course still what I harvested all last week, but it was the week of the spinach. I got two nice harvests off my little spinach patch and then pulled up the bolting plants. I still have a large container of it in the fridge, but most of it went to freeze for the winter. I have four servings frozen. It isn't much, but it is a start.
Other greens that I got a nice harvest off of were: lettuce, komatsuna, tyfon, Fun Jen, mizuna, and tatsoi. Sadly all my tatsoi and Fun Jen have bolted. I pulled the plants. I'll stir fry the flower stalks. One of the komatsuna has bolted. It also got pulled. I've started another six soil blocks to replace them. I didn't start any Fun Jen, just tatsoi and komatsuna. I use my Fun Jen for the same things as Chinese cabbage. Since I think my Chinese cabbage has a month to go, I think the Fun Jen would be redundant.
The last of the greens I harvested is my chard. I'm growing Bright Lights this year. Last year it was Rhubarb Chard. I love the look, but honestly last year the chard tasted better. It was sweeter. This could be caused by the lack of rain around here, or it could be the variety. I often hear that the basic green variety tastes better. I think next year I'm going to go back to red, or maybe that and also green.
Herbs also played an important role in my harvest this week. I had lots of cilantro and some dill. Then I dried out some Greek oregano and English thyme. The last two will not be for me. My son came home and asked to be brought to Penzeys to get a basic set of spices. We did that, but he got oregano, thyme and sage from me. Last year was a bad parsley year so I didn't have any of that to give him and I used up all my rosemary already. I had to buy some which is really quite sad. The saddest thing though is that I'm using a made up number for the price of my herb harvest. I need to go the store and find out what it is worth. That or price the dried spices. Either would work. The dried spices are a bit easier since I can see how high up on the bottle it goes and I know about what the prices are. I can translate that to ounces harvested pretty easily.
So for totals, this week:
- Herbs: .37 lbs
- Greens: 3.69 lbs
- Onions: .02 lbs
Yearly total: 7.95 lbs
Yearly earned: -$201.87
This seems to be the high point of the greens harvest. I see lower totals coming next week. My radishes, spinach and some Asian greens were pulled out. My peas have not yet started to bloom. My summer vegetables are all in the ground, but they won't start producing for quite some time. The cabbages and carrots are about a month off. My broccoli is seriously unhappy and probably won't produce much if anything. So I have just a few Asian greens, lettuce, chard and some herbs coming up in the next couple of week.s
Hi Daphne, good deal with the spinach, ours bolted immediately with the tatsoi close behind. I left the latter because the yellow flowers were pretty and it provided shade for the next lettuce crop coming up. I agree about the chard, the red is better than the yellow and the plain old green tastes the best and is more vigorous. But I plant the other colors for ornament around the flower beds. There are always some green seeds in that seed mixture for me, maybe they revert? I would use the prices of fresh herbs for your stats, they are much more expensive. :-)
ReplyDeleteFrances
Wonderful Daphne, your Rhubarb chards are so pretty and the spinach looks great. I'm delighted to hear that you actually earned some money. I have too this weekend. Some people just drove by my garden, liked it and stopped. Thay asked if they could take some fashion photographs in my vegetable garden and greenhouse, so yes they made me an offer I just couldn't refuses. I was actually sitting doing nothing and earning money on my veggies. Funny isn't it?
ReplyDeleteHi Daphne. I think your $ tally is quite interesting! I look forward to seeing how your summer crops total up. Thanks for sharing. -Jackie
ReplyDeleteEvery one of my bok choi bolted on me. They are a baby variety and looked prefect for harvest about 20 days after transplant. A few days lately they were all flowers. I guess I will know better to harvest at the baby stage with this falls crop. Your chard & tatsoi have survived being ripped up and planted. They are now starting to grow again!
ReplyDeleteI am growing Fun Jen for the first time this year, and it has started flowering. Does this mean it has "bolted" and I should harvest the whole plant, or if I snip off the flower head, can I hold the plant for longer?
ReplyDeletemathmom, Yes it has bolted. Harvest the whole plant. It won't put out more leaves. It will just try to keep flowering and the leaves will get bitter if you don't harvest now.
ReplyDelete