Harvest Monday - May 30 2011

The harvests keep growing.The first harvest of last week was on Monday. My neighbors have a maple sapling growing up in exactly the south corner of my yard. If allowed to grow it would shade my whole back yard in 20 years as it is a 60-70 foot tree at maturity. I would watch the steady death of my garden. I wrote them a letter and put it in a basket of goodies. I told them I would be happy to buy them another tree that was shorter and farther from the garden. Today they said yes. You don't know how relieved I am. Well maybe you do. You are all gardeners too. You just never know how neighbors will react. And living in the city you have to live with what your neighbors do, one way or the other.

So in each of the baskets (there are two units on that lot) I put one Yakatta-na, one Shanghai bok choy, one head of Deer Tongue lettuce, one head of Little Gem lettuce, some spinach.

And some Swiss chard. I'm guessing I'll bring them other baskets on occasion too, because you just know I'll have too much of something.

Tuesday's harvest was all about the weather. The heat was coming in. A lot of my beautiful Asian greens would bolt in 90F weather. So instead, I picked them. I found a couple of turnips that had sized up too. I still didn't pick them all, hoping they would live through the heat.

Thursday I ran out of lettuce in the fridge so picked some more. I also picked some herbs that I forgot to weigh or photograph. They became ranch dressing before I even thought about it. I've decided that French is really my favorite. I can live without ranch.

Friday I noticed that the chive blossoms had opened up all the way, so harvested them. I did however forget to weigh them. Not everything gets in the tally.

Saturday's Harvest was huge. After all the heat I noticed signs of bolting in the spinach bed. It was time to pull all the plants and put in some warm weather crops.

In addition I had some radishes in that bed. I didn't weigh the tops this time as I didn't keep them. I have more than enough greens. And it is just too hot to make radish top soup for the winter.

Then I checked out the brassica/Asian greens bed. I saw flowers forming on the Fun Jen and tatsoi. They got picked along with some turnips that had sized up.

I've been asked if I can eat all of the crops that come out of the garden. Nope. I can't. I do eat a lot of it, but I also give some away. By the end of the summer, I'll give a lot away. I also preserve some for winter. So far I have nine half cups of frozen spinach already. And two servings of radish top soup.

• Greens 12.56 lbs
• Radishes and Turnips 0.99 lbs
• Weekly Total 13.56 lbs
• Yearly Total 36.13 lbs
• Weekly spent $20.57
  
• Still in the hole $-376.19
  

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

A Tour of the Spring Garden

I know. I know. It isn't really a spring vegetable. But really. It's my first tomato blossom and I just had to show it off. Isn't she pretty? It is on my Cherokee Purple. The one nearest to the walkway which adds to the heat. All the other CP tomatoes have buds on them too along with all the Heinz. Market Miracle is being slow as is one of the two Amish Paste tomatoes that survived.

OK back to our regularly scheduled spring tour. I've got way too many photos, but the light was really pretty last evening. I'll start with yesterday morning however and spinach in Bed 5. I tore out the spinach patch. With the 90F weather we have had (and will still have), the spinach was ready to be pulled. It was an OK year for spinach. It was late to get into the ground so late to be harvested. I lost about a third to a half of the plants to damping off. But I grew it in a full 4'x16' bed along with the radishes. So I still harvested quite a bit of spinach. And when I was done harvesting I made yet another trellis and planted it up in a three sisters garden just like Bed 8.

Above is what a spinach root looks like. This is why all the experts say not to transplant spinach. If that tap root can't get deep into the ground, the plant just won't be as strong. Though I know a lot of people do transplant it as it is the only way they can get the dang thing to germinate.

My onions are getting larger finally. Earlier in the spring I was worried that they might all die off. I was losing them one at a time. The outer leaves would get brown and slowly die off. It would work its way to the center. It seemed like something was rotting the roots and the leaves just couldn't be supported anymore. I lost some leeks too to the same thing. This soil is filled with nasty fungi. I hope over the years the balance goes more to the good ones. I gave it a couple doses of fish emulsion and that seemed to perk them up a bit. At least now the onions seem much stronger.

At the corners of the onion bed are some beets. I hate beets. Not a little, but a lot. Blech! So I never grew them before. But my townhouse mates love them. This little patch is for them. It is in a really bad section. Those corners dry out very fast. I should water them more.

You have seen a lot of Bed 6 since it houses my Asian greens and chard. But have you seen the above monstrosity? That bed is four feet wide. The chard in front of it is tall. The michihili cabbage from Mac is taking over the world. It has started to head up. What will I do with it when it is picked? I can't eat that much of anything. I think next year I'm going to find a nice miniature Chinese cabbage to grow. I do have a nice Napa cabbage next to it that is also heading up. At least that plant doesn't have world domination on its mind.

Also at the other end of Bed 6 are my 11 broccoli plants. I have three different kinds. Two of them are starting to head up. Above is the earliest, Packman. It is almost ready to be picked. With the heat, I'll have to watch them closely.

Then there is Windsor which is just starting to form nice heads. The Piracicaba broccoli hasn't started yet. I'm glad to have planted so many types as it will give me more of a spread out harvest at least for the first harvest from each.

In Bed 5 my potatoes are all coming up. Very late since I can't seem to get local seed early in the season. I have a neighbor whose plants are almost knee high. I need to get some bamboo fencing up to keep these guys in their beds. Or I won't be able to walk down the path to pick my broccoli. Potatoes like to flop over the edge too much.

Moving on to Bed 3, we have peas, both snow peas and snap peas. The tall ones in the front are Golden Sweet snow peas. I'm not a big fan of the really tall peas. They tend to get in the way. When I was harvesting the spinach I broke off some branches, because it just won't stay where it belongs. I wanted to try it though as I really want a golden podded pea.

And the snow peas, both Golden Sweet (above) and Blizzard are blooming. It won't be long until my first pea harvest. I can't wait.

In front of the peas are some other plants. I'll work my way to the fence. The first up is my favas which are blooming. I haven't a clue how long it will take before I can harvest them. But they look really pretty.

Next are my carrots. I love how they are all lined up in rows. Something inside me really likes rows better than scattering seed randomly.

Then comes a nice row of bunching onions, some parsley, my dead cumin, an empty spot that needs more cilantro to be sown, and my cilantro. Behind the cilantro are a couple of rows of leeks, one row of celery, and some dill.

The herb gardens are growing well. My chamomile is in bud. I'll be able to pick the first buds soon. The other day I as talking about volunteers. After the first year I should never have to plant these. They will come up every year by themselves. I just have to be lazy and let a few of them go to seed. I'm sure I will. By the middle to end of summer, I'll be bored to tears picking little blossoms and just let them go.

And The Winner Is . . .

Number five. Emily from Greens and Jeans. Congrats. I'll send you an email so you can send me your mailing address.

Back to the Roots, the maker of the mushroom growing kit, is trying to support education and sustainability. So if you have a kit and want to help out, post a photo of the grown kit on their Facebook page. For each photo they receive they will donate a free kit and sustainability curriculum to a school classroom of your choice.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program. I've been behind in telling you what has been happening in the garden. With the hot weather, I wanted to make sure everything was planted up in the garden.

Earlier this week the trellis net came in so I put it up. I really want one that is 6' tall, but they make them 5' tall. So a foot at the top or bottom is always untrellised except with twine that holds the trellis on. The nylon mesh is for the cucumbers and melons to climb. Yesterday the melons went in. I also went by Pemberton Farms (which so sounds like a farm but isn't, its a nursery with a specialty grocery store) and picked up some sweet pepper plants. As I walked home the wind was whipping the poor babies around. I probably looked silly sheltering them in my hands.

Today I planted those peppers. Very, very early in the morning I planted them as I didn't want to brave the heat like I did yesterday. The humidity is supposed to be oppressive today. I went through my plant leftovers and planted some in little corners of the garden. Others got tossed. Tomorrow I want to pick the last of the spinach before it bolts as I'm sure it will soon from all this heat. Then I can plant up the last of the three sisters beds. I probably should have done it this morning, but I wanted to give them one more day. Silly since it will be so hot and spinach doesn't like to grow in the heat. Really what was I thinking?

So by tomorrow afternoon the whole garden will officially be planted up for the summer. I'll still have successions coming along in the greens beds, but the six summer beds will be finished. Maybe this weekend I can show off how the spring plants are doing. I haven't shown off my pea plants since my overhead views in mid March. And the onions are feeling left out too. The Asian greens bed and the lettuce bed have just gotten all the glory so far this year. But soon the peas will start to flower. I can't wait.

Chive Blossoms

Last week I watched my chive blossoms slowly open in the rain. They just didn't seem to want to come out.

This week with the heat, they have opened all the way up.

Earlier in the year I didn't think there would be enough of them. This plant was put in late in the fall. But it has grown quickly and put forth a lot of blossoms. Next year will be better.

But at least it was enough to make a tiny bit of chive blossom vinegar. I went out early this morning to pick them. I wanted to make some last year but with the move (which in a week will be a year ago), life was too hectic to think about it. This year I have plenty of time.

Later today I'll post the winner of the mushroom growing kit. And we can have the craziness of "OMG I WON! I WON!" But this morning is just too peaceful for that. Things are quiet and calm. The birds are singing. The heat hasn't hit yet. Time to sit back and drink some tea. Maybe reflect on how happy I am to be make some chive blossom vinegar and how sad I am that the flowers are gone from the garden.

Volunteers

In my old garden I had self sown volunteers that I relied on to come up every year. And they did like clockwork. Most of them were in the umbellifera family. I had cilantro, parsley, and dill. My three stalworts of the garden. I keep thinking of not doing parsley that way anymore because it is always last to germinate and the ones I start inside are always better. But the other two are prefect for both production and ease. They always germinate early in the spring before I can get them to come up.

Cilantro is a slow starter. It can take weeks to germinate, but if self sown, it just comes up easily and early in the spring. This is not self sown. When I moved gardens the cilantro did not come with me. I'm trying a slow bolting variety this year. I need to start some more seed soon. I hope to let some of this batch go to seed. I want to sprinkle it about the herb garden so it can come up every year. I'll have bits of it all over the garden too. I think it is my favorite volunteer because when it flowers, it brings every kind of beneficial to the garden. It just swarms with them.

I seeded some dill in the early spring, but this is self seeded dill from my last garden. It turns out the compost that I brought with me still had viable seeds even though it was two years old. It is coming up anywhere I put compost from the old yard. Which means mostly in my garlic bed as I mulched with compost last fall. I'll pick some of the plants for eating, but some I'll let go to seed amidst the garlic. I'll scatter the seed heads around so it will come up all over. It really is a weed, but if I let it grow big enough it is an edible one. Its flowers also bring in the beneficials, but mostly the lacewings love them. It brings one "pest" into the garden too. But it is a much loved pest - the swallowtail butterfly. At my last house I would always have the larvae of the black swallowtail on my dill, chomping away. Most caterpillars I consider pests, but I love the butterflies. They are just so pretty that I'm happy to share with them. It also gives me a place to put the ones that hatch on my carrots, where I don't want them. I'll share my dill, but not my carrots.

One of the self seeded plants that I loved the most, I figured would never make the trip with me. But oh I was wrong. I've got three johnny-jump-ups growing in the garlic bed and two in the rock wall garden. They are edible, but I rarely eat them as they make me smile too much. I don't know why some flowers make me happier than others, but this is one of my favorites.

I even have another kind of viola in the herb bed. This was not planted by me, but the soil must have had seeds. Most of the weeds I pull, but these I let pop up anywhere. Sometimes I even transplant them to places where they have a better growing space. This one is hiding between and a bit behind the mint pots. Maybe it will keep blooming all summer long in the shade. I hope I'll get even more of them and my jump-ups next year. I might even pull out some saved seed from my jump-ups that I have and sow it around the garden in the fall to add to the genetic pool.

So you encourage volunteers in your garden? If so which ones are your favorite?

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

First the ugly. Blogger is messing up again. Blogger won't let me log in when I'm signed into Firefox and even in IE it won't let me comment on other people's blogs (or my own so I can't answer comments). I'm so unhappy. I want to comment. So for now I'm reading silently. And I can't even use Firefox to create new posts. I have to use IE and it is messing up so I have to edit html instead of doing it in plain text. Blech.

I've had so much happening in the garden recently. Monday got up over 80F and the heat is going to continue through the middle of next week. We have sun in the forecast. So we have hit summer weather. Wow. All at once. One week we have highs in the 50s (one day in the 40s), then this week is mostly in the 80s. My summer crops would grow but many of them were killed off by the cold weather.

Potatoes sprouting

I'll review what lived and died. First the good news. My potatoes are up! My potatoes are up! After planting them so deep, I was wondering how long they would take. It took about 20 days.

Tomaotes on the sides and carrots in the middle

My tomatoes are doing fabulously. Even the ones that weren't covered. I'm worried about disease with all the rain they got though so I sprayed them today with an asprin and worm tea. The eggplants that were already planted survived just fine. There is a bit of yellowing on the lower leaves, but not much. This heat ought to perk them up. I planted a fifth one in the bed on Tuesday from a later seeding. The basil all lived through it and looks fine. It is small but looks happy enough. The peppers mostly are doing OK. They didn't grow at all but none of them succumbed. The scotch bonnets are the worst off with some yellowing of the lower leaves. But a lot are doing great.

Zucchini with huges leaves, gardener with dirty fingers

The zucchini looks great and with the heat has started to grow. I see the first leaves forming. The corn is mostly up. Some has rotted and been reseed.

And the bad. All my already planted cucumbers died off. So no Diamant cucmbers for me this year. I used the last of my seed up. It really isn't much of an issue. I had some Little Leaf cucumber seedlings waiting in the wings. I've planted those and also some more Little Leaf seed as I had room for five more. The squash seed mostly rotted in the ground. I had one butternut come up and die in the cold. And I had one come up and live. Losing the squash wasn't much of an issue. It was a try at an early planting. If it dies, I replant. I replanted. You never know what the weather will be like in May. Sometimes it can get into the 80s and sometimes it throws you highs in the 40s.

Then we get to the beans. As you probably know I'm doing a big bean trial this year. I planted a lot of early beans. But they just can't handle weather like last week when we were 15 degrees below normal. I planted them in a warm week. So they started to come up and then died off. Pretty sad. Things I don't have replacements for and won't be able to reseed - all my yard long beans (no biggie, I'll try again next year), Fortex (no biggie, I tried it for three other years and liked Kentucky Wonder better), Soissons Vert (I'm more of a dried bean person than a shelling bean person anyway), Ga Ga Hut (ACK my pinto trial, I do have seed somewhere of these, but couldn't find the packet, but bad bad bad, two did live and I'll let them grow). I reseeded Turkey Craw, Tarbais, and Norridgewock. And seeded more Mexican Pinto and Kentucky Wonder to fill in the gaps left by things I don't have. I also seeded some Rattlesnake beans to replace the Ga Ga Hut. If I find my packet then I can put that into the late seeded bed.

Of all the beans the Apache Red did the best. It is almost all filled out and growing. I'm hoping it grows and produces well as it will be my kidney substitute then. A bean that can survive last week has got to be good here. I have my fingers crossed. The second best of the beans was the Mexican Pinto. There is almost a full stand of those up. I had to fill in a couple of gaps but not many.

All in all the summer crops are off to a decent start considering the spring weather we had. Soon the melons will go in. After today they will be hardened off enough and with 80s in the forecast it is a good time to get them in the ground.

As for the spring crops a lot have been harvested. I harvested a lot of Asian greens that were ready to be picked so there was a huge gap in the Asian green section. I planted some more Asian greens transplants to fill in. I put in tatsoi, choy sum, yakatta-na, kohlrabi, and some komatsuna. I'm thinking the lettuce needs to be harvested soon. Not that I haven't been, but if the hot weather keeps up they will all bolt and get bitter. I have some babies in the wings growing. They have a couple true leave right now. They will be ready to go out in two weeks I think. Then I'll need to sow some more successions. It never stops does it? Once one thing comes out, I've got to have the next ready to go in.

Harvest Monday - 23 May 2011

This week featured purple. On Thursday I pulled a whole mizuna plant (middle) to make more room for the others to grow. I love the purple mizuna since it is so pretty. I also pulled the first purple kohlrabi (left). I hadn't had this vegetable since I as a kid. I don't remember it then, but I do remember the funny looking plant. I ended up liking it as it tastes like a cross between a radish and cabbage. On the right side was a Fun Jen that was starting to get shaded out by the Michilli Chinese cabbage (seeds from Mac). Also picked in this batch was a Shanghai bok choy (top), a head of Yakatta-na, Komatsuna, choy sum, Chinese broccoli. The last four items were buried in the bottom of the basket. The basket was way overfilled.

Also buried in the basket was the first turnip. I had to take a photo of just it as I love salad turnips. Like radishes they come early in the spring and are something I can add to my salad besides greens.

Saturday's harvest was lettuce. I was out and needed my huge salads. I picked two heads that were getting crowded. One of Paris Island and one of Red Sails. I should have taken the time to pick some Deer Tongue too, but that is leaf lettuce that I pick the outside of and I was just too lazy to do it this week. I'll get to it. Really I will.

Sunday's Harvest was spinach. The winter spinach (no photo) got pulled as we were mulching the asparagus bed and it was in the way. In addition I saw the first leaf miner eggs on the back of the leaves this week and this spinach was not protected from them. So it is now gone.

Also the spring spinach was finally big enough to pick. If you remember this bed had a lot of damping off. Many of the plants died, but there was still more than enough for a good harvest.

This is the pile that I picked. There is over two pounds here. I needed three trips with my basket to pick it all. That table is my kitchen counter and is over two feet wide. Some of the spinach is Gigante D'Inverno (seed from Granny) so the leaves are very large. About as large as my overwintered spinach leaves were.

Also in the spinach bed are some radishes. The ants are really doing a job on the roots, but I can get some good root by cutting parts out. In addition I get one of my favorite spring meals - Radish Top Soup (Chop one onion and saute in 3T butter. Add a full colander of washed radish tops with ribs removed. Cook down. Put in a blender and blend with 4c of chicken broth until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Optionally add 1/2c cream. Heat through.). In years past radishes have been one of my first harvests so it was always a welcome meal. This year I have so many other things to pick and eat that it didn't have quite the allure, but it was still good. I'll probably freeze some for the winter.

Before I get to the tally I want to remind people of the mushroom growing giveaway. I'll pick a winner on Friday, so make sure to have your name on the list by Thursday.

• Greens 6.86 lbs
• Radishes and Turnips 1.84 lbs
• Weekly Total 8.70 lbs
• Yearly Total 22.58 lbs
• Still in the hole $-412.04
  

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Slices of Heaven

Today we were supposed to be mostly cloudy, but it turns out we were mostly sunny. The high was supposed to get to the mid sixties, cooler along the coast (which means me). Instead we hit 73.7. What a gorgeous day!

Not long ago we bought a new grill for our two families to use. It has been sitting out back getting rained on ever since. I was going to wait until Sunday to grill for the first time this spring, but it was just too nice.

I've never had grilled baby bok choy before. I was kind of getting a little sick of using them up. They have a touch of bitterness in them that I wasn't fond of. Cooking helps. Age helps too for some reason. I made a pasta salad with chopped bok choy and dried tomatoes (from last yer). I didn't like it at the start, but after a few days it tasted great. The bitterness was all gone. Well grilling takes all that bitterness away for some reason. Which is good because I've got a lot more bok choy out there to eat. And it was just pure heaven. Yum.

Grilled Bok Choy

• baby bok choy
  
• 1/4c rice vinegar
• T oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• dash of red pepper
• t sugar

Mix marinade together and pour over halved or quartered baby bok choy. Mine was pretty big and I think it could have been cut into sixths. But you don't want to cut them so small they will fall apart on the grill. Cook over medium to high heat until slightly charred. I used high heat and the leaves all went up in flames. I think it might be prudent to cut the leaves off to use for something else like soup and just use the stem parts. They just don't take the heat as well. I used the same coating for some choy sum and it was good too, but not nearly as good as the bok choy.

Even the hamburger featured some garden fare. I didn't put lettuce on it, but I put on my cucumber relish from last year. Now I'm dreaming about the first hamburger with a nice slice of Cherokee Purple tomato. Today makes me believe summer might really be around the corner.

Back to the Roots Giveaway

I've been contacted by a lot of people over the years that want to give me stuff. I usually turn them down because they want to give me things to try out that I would probably never use. I'm more of a purger than a hoarder so I don't want anything I can't use. I'm proud of the tiny amount I send to the landfill every week. But then comes a really cool company and sadly they don't want to give anything to me. They want to give something to one of you all. How could I refuse?

Back to the Roots started as an mushroom farm that grows oyster mushrooms on old coffee grounds. So they take an urban waste stream and turn it into mushrooms. Their own waste product becomes a soil amendment for gardens. Not only that but they help to support their local school and community gardens. You have to love a socially conscious business.

The best part is that they have started making mushroom kits for you to grow your own mushrooms and have offered to give one to one of my readers for free. So if you leave a message on this post I'll randomly pick one of you to receive it. I'm going to try to not respond to any of the comments to make the counting easier. Make sure that you leave your email address so I can contact you to get your mailing address if you win (I didn't ask but for now it is US entries only, though I've sent and email and maybe it will be expanded as I know I have a lot of readers from other countries). I'll randomly pick the winner next Friday and let you know who won.

And before I forget they have left a discount code if you want to buy one, mushrooms4me10 online, though you can get them at many Wholefoods too. I also probably have to say the legal blogger mantra. I'm not associated with them in any way and I've not received anything from them myself except to give a kit away to my readers.

Don't forget to leave an email address. Feel free to make it fairly unreadable by the bots. I can figure it out.

Addendum: Blogger is having trouble with comments. If you want to join and can't leave a comment you can email me at: daphne@alum.mit.edu If you can leave a comment, please enter the contest that way.

Rain. Rain. Go Away!

This spring has mostly been kind to us. We have had a few half inch rains, but then we get sun. The weather has been cold so there hasn't been much evaporation. I only felt that I had to water my plants once all spring and that was because they were just seedlings and didn't have their roots fully grown. But this isn't our usual spring weather. Usually we get a lot of clouds and some cold drizzly weather. On average we get an inch of rain every week. In fact our yearly weather is the same. Unlike the west coast with rainy and dry seasons, we get 4"+/- 0.5" every month with August at the low and November the high. So all year long we get a good amount of precipitation.

Of course those are all averages. And before this week we were running behind in May precipitation. After this week I think we will have caught up. It started raining late Saturday night. We have had a few pouring rains, but mostly it has been light drizzle. We won't have a peek of sun until the coming weekend. I should be used to these rains, but I'm not. I grew up in Colorado in the land of sunshine. When it rains for three days straight, I start to get depressed due to the lack of light.

Worse than the rain is the cold however. Yesterday's high was 49.5F. Monday's was 50.9F. It is cold. Really really cold for mid May. I think even my greens are hunkering down in that weather. I'm sure the spinach is happy though. And I'm shocked, but even some of the beans are germinating in this weather. The pintos (both kinds) have come up. The Waltham butternut has germinated in the cold weather too. My Black Futsu hasn't come up yet though.

The chamomile, above, had just taken off in the rain. I swear it had doubled in size since Saturday. I expect a lot of nice tea for the cold winter months. Hmm I think I could use some now. Brrrr. At least it is getting warmer today. We might even get to the mid 50Fs.

That ought to make my poor tomatoes happier. I don't think they like this cold and damp weather. But I can't see them under their plastic. I think when they get uncovered and we get some sun, I should spray them with aspirin and worm tea to ward off disease. This cold weather can't be good for them. At least hey are protected from the rain.

As for me. I'm staying out of the garden. I've got my eggplants and cucumbers to keep my company. They keep leaning toward the sun hoping to go outside, but I know better. They don't want to be out there in the cold rainy weather.

Harvest Monday - 16 May 2011

Monday's harvest was a small basket of lettuce. Only 10.8 oz.

Wednesday's harvest was Choy Sum and Chinese broccoli. 5.2 oz.

Saturday's harvest just kept coming. I'd see one thing that needed harvesting. I'd take it in and weigh it and put it in the fridge. Then I'd run across something else. So above is harvest number one. I was planting some green stemmed bok choy to replace what was harvested and noticed the bolting tatsoi. So it was picked. In addition I picked enough of the bok choy to fit in all the seedlings. 19 oz.

The second harvest happened when I noticed the chard leaves had really started to grow huge. They aren't quite at their maximum size yet, but they are getting there. 7.4 oz.

The third harvest was when I was in the front of the house helping Joel, my husband, with the mulch for our landscaping. The spinach was once again huge. 7.5 oz.

The fourth and last harvest of the day was for lunch when I wanted to make a salad. I was sure there must be some radishes ready. I wasn't particularly happy with what I saw under the row cover. Many of them had died like the spinach had. But when I pulled some seemingly healthy plant up, I found the roots had been eaten by ants. Ants? I've had them eaten by slugs before, but the evidence was conclusive. I have a new pest to deal with here. I wonder if it wasn't death by damping off for the spinach in the same bed. Maybe the ants ate the roots? I'll have to savor the few radishes I do get this year. 3.8oz.

Red Sails, Deer Tongue, and Paris Island

Sunday's harvest was because I was in need of more salad greens for dinner. My container in the fridge was empty. So out I went into the rain. This time it wasn't a small basket of greens. My lettuce was really taking off. A lot needed picking. 22.8 oz. I still need to pick one more Paris Island romaine head to finish thinning out that row. Then they can grow into large heads. After that I'll move on to the Little Gem romaines which have already sized up and are ready to pick. My summer lettuce replacement plants have just started to germinate. In three weeks they will need a space to go in the lettuce bed. So far I'll I've done is pick the edges of the leaf lettuce and thinned out some romaine. I'll need to eat a lot more in the next few weeks to open up some space.

Chicken soup with egg and bok choy

I haven't been taking a lot of photos of my meals as there are so many harvest photos which take priority. But I figure I'd leave you with a photo of yesterday's lunch. I woke up to a sore throat and a headache. Oh how I hate being sick. So on Saturday I made some chicken soup. I had broth in the freezer. I defrosted a couple of cups of it and added some soy sauce, bok choy, leftover rice, and an egg. In addition there was a touch of left over chicken soup from Thursday's dinner, so I tossed that in too. It must have worked as this morning I'm feeling tired, but much better. Or maybe it was all those zinc lozenges. Or all the gallons of tea I drank. Or all the vitamin C I took. Or the Epicor I'm always on. But I think I'll rest today and take care of myself. No heavy digging in the garden.

• Greens 4.6 lbs
• Radishes 0.14 lbs
• Weekly Total 4.74 lbs
• Yearly Total 13.88 lbs
• Still in the hole $-444.72
  

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.