Harvest Monday, June 4, 1012

The week started out with a lot of greens. I have a short season, but the smaller choys are very fast to produce. I used my warmest bed for the spring and put in two successions of greens in the bed. But they all had to be pulled before June 1st so the sweet potatoes could go into the bed.

That tatsoi was also in this bed and all got pulled. I had so much it barely could balance in my basket. I ended up giving away a lot of the tatsoi and about half of the Shanghai bok choy in the top photo.

Also in the bed was some self seeded dill. Other herbs harvested this week were oregano, English thyme, and some mint. They were all dehydrated for the winter.

In other greens news the chard got chopped back after two weeks of growth. There were over six pounds. I didn't need any of it since I still had some spinach from before and wanted to eat that up. So I gave it to a friend to freeze for the winter. Last year when the chard got to be too much I just left the plants to grow. But I found the plants weren't as happy as when they were constantly harvested. The stems started to rot. I plant them on 9" spacing and I think it is too close if you let the plants get big. But if I cut back all the large leaves every two weeks they seem to do fine. Oh and I forgot to take the photo until I'd had most of the leaves packed up to go. They fit into three plastic grocery bags.

The strawberries keep rolling in. The last of the Earliglow is now mostly over. One or two more berries are still left on the plants. The main harvests are now coming from Sparkle, which is a later June bearer, and Seascape which is an everbearer. I really like Earlyglow. It puts out very nice berries that don't rot much. I have found more rot in the Sparkle and they also have a lot of distorted berries. And they are smaller so take more time to pick. Seascape is OK, but the June bearers always seem to taste better and are healthier. Of course they won't be giving me berries in August, so I won't be getting rid of Seascape anytime soon. And I forgot to photograph one huge pile of strawberries. It overflowed this container which holds 3 quarts.

This might have strawberries in the photo, but it is about the peas. I had a couple of new and wonderful harvests. The peas started coming in. This has Cascadia snappeas and Blizzard snowpeas.

And more snappeas. I did give just a few to my townhouse mates, but they have been getting eaten as quickly as I pick them. They are a nice change from the ubiquitous springtime greens.

Then there was the scape harvest. I haven't eaten many of them yet, but I did make some salad dressing. Yummy. I have enough that I'll probably eat them as a side dish this year. Before I didn't grow as many hardnecks, so didn't get as many scapes. I also might put them in a stirfry too.

Though the photo is pretty bad, the first of the broccoli tasted just wonderful. I split the head with my daughter for dinner. Plain steamed broccoli is how all of them will be cooked. It is my favorite way. The peas often get sauteed in a bit of ghee and some salt and pepper. But broccoli I like naked. Broccoli is also one of those strange plants. They just don't produce the weight for the garden space they take up. I have nine plants this year. They share a bed with the chard which is a plant that is exactly the opposite as it produces like few other plants. I might have to devote more room to broccoli in the future. I do love it. The problem is that it doesn't free up space as easily as my Asian greens so the rotations don't work as well. I think I ought to find one that produces good central heads and no side shoots. That way I could just pull the plants after the first harvest. Then they could be in my regular brassica bed that gets freed up for carrots after June.

• Garlic Scapes 0.79 lbs
• Broccoli 0.31 lbs
• Greens 16.07 lbs
• Herbs 3.39 lbs
• Peas 1.69 lbs
• Weekly total 22.24 lbs
• Yearly total 114.79 lbs
• Tally -$187.60

• Fruits 
• Strawberries 9.1 lbs

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.