Monday, April 16, 2012

Harvest Monday - April 16, 2012

This week had the last of the asparagus. The female plants that I was harvesting from were ripped out and replaced. Most people don't do this. They live with the female plants, but I had to order a bunch to replace some deaths in the patch. I had enough to replace the females (the ones with the berries last fall) so I did.

Then when I was prepping a bed there were a few over wintered carrots. So I got a tiny little harvest of them too. But of course I forgot the photo.

Those were the tiny harvests. Most of the harvests this week were huge. I was preparing for the heat coming today. The predictions are for 88F which is bound to cause havoc with any overwintered green. So I harvested a lot of them. Basically any green that had overwintered was harvested to the ground and frozen for later use.

A good portion of the cilantro was ripped out. I didn't bother to take it all out as I had way too much with this harvest.

The kale was shared with my townhouse mates. We both are freezing for later. At over 8 pounds there was plenty.

And the spinach. This is almost 5 pounds of spinach. That is my kitchen counter it is on and it is a full width counter. My big harvest basket was dwarfed by the harvest. I ate some. Gave some to my townhouse mate (though not half of it like the kale). It still took me about an hour and a half to prep it all as the leaves were pretty sandy. But I've got 11 servings all frozen for later. I need about 30+ packets when I'm all done, but it can be either spinach or chard. If the hot weather doesn't make the overwintered spinach bolt, I'll get another harvest from these plants. If it does, I still have the spring spinach that is small. I usually don't start harvesting any of that until the end of the month or into May. Well maybe a few thinnings, but not enough to freeze.

I was kind of sad to have to harvest them all because of the weather. I would have preferred to harvest about 3/4 of the spinach for freezing and leave the rest for harvests over the next couple of weeks. But I figure better safe than sorry as everything bolts.

I did spend money this last week on tools. I bought a rake, a hoe, and a really expensive trowel. I tend to break trowels. I've got one that bends if you use it. I've got one that the tip has broken off. I was getting down to just two that were any good. And one sits near the compost pile to move things around when putting in new kitchen scraps. You'd think that would be enough, but its not. I like to be surrounded by them. I tend to leave them all over the garden. This one like my rake and hoe has a red handle so I can find it better. I do tend to lose them in the mass of green later in the season.

  • Asparagus 0.16 lbs
  • Carrots 0.34 lbs
  • Greens 13.29 lbs lbs
  • Herbs 3.34 lbs
  • Weekly total 17.13 lbs
  • Yearly total 38.12 lbs
  • Spent 54.89
  • Tally -$505.52

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.

46 comments:

  1. Boy all those greens! We feel like we're a little behind the ball here. It's a learning curve. That's for sure.

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  2. Wow, what a harvest of the winter greens! Your cilantro looks great - our cilantro never does quite as well as I would hope. Probably because we grow it in containers rather than in one of the boxes.

    That's interesting about asparagus and berries because we planted a variety that is supposed to be all male but I remember that last fall a couple of the plants had red berries.

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  3. A very impressive bunch of greens! I love how you weigh everything. I admire your attention to detail even though I'm incapable of it myself. It's supposed to get into the 80's here this week too. I planted some Daikon radish this year but already had to pull them up because they had begun to bolt.

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  4. What a big harvest! I can not believe it is only April here!

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  5. I've linked my post on one way I use raw milk from a local farm. http://learningandyearning.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/homemade-yogurt-ready-to-pack-in-a-lunch-made-in-a-picnic-cooler/

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  6. I dream of "way too much" coriander. I really struggle to grow it, it does just about OK in winter but that's about it. Having too much sounds just wonderful.

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    1. Have you tried growing this vietnamese coriander,http://rareseeds.com/culantro-or-vietnamese-coriander.html, as a sub for cilantro? I have to grow it inside most of the year, but if you live someplace warm it should grow great and no bolting.

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    2. I have it in the garden and you're absolutely right - it thrives here all year. I do use it in lots of things but sometimes you just need the real thing I think.

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  7. Your greens are always so impressive while mine always looks behind. Our weather has been crazy this spring so the harvest I thought I would get this weekend, didn't happen. The wind was just too much. Maybe this week.

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  8. Over 13 pounds of greens is very impressive at any time of the year, but to get that much in mid April is super impressive. All the warm weather leading up to this next hot day appears to have had a positive impact on your garden's growth rate. It's benefiting yours and your townhouse neighbors freezers too!

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  9. Oh Wow! Very bountiful harvest! Can't wait till mine starts rolling in.

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  10. I'm just in awe of the overwintered greens. Very much looking forward to my turn next year. Enjoy the heat!

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  11. We'll have to look out for the female asparagus later this season, thanks for the tip!

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  12. Wow that spinach looks great, I am jealous! When was it planted? My spinach that I planted weeks ago is doing nothing.

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  13. What an amazing harvest! I've been worried about our over wintered greens bolting, too, but it hasn't gotten quite hot enough here for that yet. Probably soon, though. I had no idea there were male and female asparagus...duh. Why would you not want the females?

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    1. The females supposedly don't produce as well as the males. They put their energy into the berries in the fall.

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  14. Great harvest~ We had a bit of slushy rain on Sat morning and it's been a bit cool since; just so happy it didn't actually go below 40 at night. Now this week we're supposed to get back up to 80. I've set out some tomatoes already, about a month ahead of schedule, just can't believe this weather!

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    1. Thank you for coming by my entry yesterday and diagnosing my squash! I tried to follow this link and it isn't working for me.

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  15. Your kale arrangement is gorgeous. Would make for a nice centerpiece.

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  16. Great harvest! I can only wish for this quantity of spinach and kale, but it's only now starting to really grow out. It's supposed to be 89 here today so not sure if I'll get any spinach after this heatwave.

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  17. That coriander is spectacular, Daphne!
    And the poor female asparagus - it should go join all the male chickens and cows somewhere for pity party ;P

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    1. I have images in my head now about female asparagus and male chickens and cows colluding about how to stay alive. But then the chickens just eat the asparagus and it all breaks down.

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  18. To have temperatures as high as 88 at this time of year really confounds the garden plan. New England gardeners have always had weather to contend with but this seems to be a new wrinkle.

    The volume of spinach and kale is impressive! Susan

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  19. Love it all...the cilantro is beautiful!!! Sorry I had to link twice, don't know why the first link is not working.

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  20. hmmmm...can't link mine or see "Jody" 's link.

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    1. I think I got your link fixed. I removed the second one and fixed the first.

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    2. Oh and Jody's link is fixed too.

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  21. Thanks! Did I do something wrong? Maybe I have taken too long to get back to Harvest Monday and it was trying to boot me out! LOL.

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    1. I'm not sure. I think the link was bad. I know Jody's had an apostrophe in it where it didn't belong. I didn't notice what of yours was wrong. I think you're just out of practice. lol

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  22. We live in Las Vegas and our weather has been weird also. March was very warm and now we have been getting wintery storms. Oh well, our weather is always crazy. We only have about 30 optimal days (generally) for tomatoes to set, so you have to bee really careful to plant them at the right time. Last year they were beautiful plants and the russet mite wiped them out in about a week. Ugh.

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  23. Nice greens! I hear you on tools. Two of our favorites broke last week. Time to make a new handle.

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  24. Love the cilantro. Have you ever let it go to seed and harvest the seeds?

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    1. Yes these are all self seeded cilantro too. I always let them go to seed and collect the coriander. The bed this came from was actually started from the chaff left over Not all the seeds come off and so the chaff is how I start a new bed. I just toss it on when I'm done. Cilantro is a real PITA to start normally. But nature does a good job by itself.

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  25. Wow, great harvest! That's more spinach that I grow in a year! Of course we don't freeze ours because we can't get the kids to eat it that way so we just eat ours fresh.

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  26. All of the greens look good, my cilantro has started to bolt, a sign that the temps are starting to heat up! We had a huge spinach crop this year as well, even the kids like it.

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  27. Wow, that is an amazing harvest! I'm still struggling a bit with the new garden (and new gardener) and if anybody wants to stop by and look at a dead pepper and some dead squash and tell me what killed them, I'd be forever grateful!

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  28. 8 pounds of kale! Wow! And all that cilantro! *envy* I do finally have some harvestable Asian vegetables from my cold frame, but the weather here continues cold and rainy (ah! spring in the Pacific Northwest) Everything in my raised beds is shivering a refusing to grow :)

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  29. Thirty-eight pounds already? Good heavens, I have harvested 6 ounces! I'll never catch up with you :-0

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    1. I've seen your harvests. You will have no trouble catching up to me. I can't grow tomatoes this year (well I'm going to grow one if it will ever germinate), and that was one of my big harvests. I usually go for about a pound per square foot and tomatoes give me 2.5 lbs per square foot. Plus you have that huge garden now. Yup you will go way above me at some point.

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  30. Whoa, nice big harvest, my spinach didn't do well this time, maybe I'll try again later.

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  31. I love kale but have never grown it ... do you think it's too late to plant seeds? yours looks tall... is it staked?

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  32. Wow that's a lot of greens! I can't imagine 8 lbs of kale.. good thing you have people to share it with! Guess I should get out there and harvest the rest of my spinach. For some odd reason I never thought of freezing spinach even though I've bought frozen spinach many times... silly. You're smart to harvest everything, I tend to let so many things bolt and then have a garden of brassica blooms instead of edible harvests.

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  33. Hi! I just added my blog to your list. Hope I did it correctly! My little harvest today is nothing compared to what you get!!!!! That is wonderful. Nancy at Cozy Thyme Cottage

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  34. I am wishing for some of your cilantro at the moment. Ours are too small too cut yet. Lovely green you have this week. I have not had baby spinach since spring last year. I have to be patient for another 2-3months since the seeds just sprouted.

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  35. Wow that's a lot of spinach, lucky you had the time to harvest it all before the hotter weather arrives.
    I have painted all the handles of my gardening tools bright blue, much easier to find(I was always losing them).

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