Harvest Monday, August 13th, 2012

Corn was still queen of the garden last week. I picked ten ears one day as the last of the corn in one of my beds ripened up. I'm getting better at picking them at the correct ripeness, but I'm still not perfect. There is a huge difference it taste between perfection and a couple of days over or under ripe. I was going to be mean and never give my townhouse mates any as before that last day I was picking in twos and threes. But with 10 ears in one day they got a couple and I even got to freeze some. My husband who doesn't appreciate much of the rest of the food that comes out of the garden was joking with me about being mad when I gave "his" corn away.

Almost all of the rest of the bush dried beans were picked before the last bit of rain. And Kentucky Wonder is putting out another wave of beans. You can't see them in the last photo because they are buried under the dried beans. I still haven't weighed any of the dried beans. I'll get to them once they are picked and the plants torn out.

My onions were dry and were braided and weighed. These are the Varsity and Redwing onions. I haven't gotten to the Copra onions, so you will see those next week. Last year I planted a bit less and got 17 lbs total. This year it will be about twice that poundage with only a third more space. So it was a good onion year. I was afraid of where I planted them. It is in the shadiest portion of the garden. I hate planting anything there, but they still performed. Well all except the Varsity onions. Half of them were tiny and some never grew at all. Both varieties of onion were given the same amount of growing space and you can see the difference in yield. I won't be growing those again next year.

I picked some rhubarb to freeze for the winter. One plant got pulled out as I decided that I hated it. The other is a nice rhubarb and only got lightly harvested. Even with that I got more from the rhubarb that I left. Most of the other was full of rotting and hollow stems.

It was a good week for brococli. Many of the side huge side shoots were ready. The plants are very stressed now and getting diseased. I had to cut the centers out of some of the heads before weighing. Some were black. Some brown. Earlier in the week I had taken down the Windsor plants that gave me ounces to try to save the Fiesta that were giving me pounds. They need more air in there as mildew sets in. I also took off all the diseased foliage of the Fiesta. It may or may not save them. If they don't survive, well, they have been great producers so far. I can't complain at 1.5 lbs/sqft they have been stunning. My others only gave about 0.5 lbs/sqft. Usually broccoli doesn't pull its weight in terms of production but this did.

I warn you if you want to try it though. It is not a wussy broccoli. It has a lot of flavor. I went out to eat the other day and my side dish was steamed broccoli. After eating Fiesta I found your typical steamed broccoli to be tasteless. It is kind of like eating free range chicken versus regular chicken. The taste difference is striking, but some prefer the milder taste. Not me, but some do.

I totally forgot to take photos of my tomatoes. It shows you how much I care about them anymore. But they were nice if ugly Cherokee Purple tomatoes. A bit cracked from the changeable dry to wetter weather. I gave four to my townhouse mates that weren't going to be around for the weekend anyway. And seven to another neighbor that lives right next to the garden fence.

I was a bit worried about not having my main bed of tomatoes in the garden. Typically they are such good producers. They produce over 2lbs/sqft of space for me. But at this point I'm only 20lbs behind last year's totals and by this time the bulk of the tomatoes had been picked already. So I'm doing fine. I think the huge greens harvests this spring really made up for it. Plus the tomatoes were replaced with sweet potatoes. Those haven't been harvested yet. I'm not sure what I'll get as I've never grown them, but I'm hoping.

• Alliums 26.80 lbs
• Beans 1.16 lbs
• Broccoli 3.49 lbs
• Corn 8.09
• Cucurbit 16.26 lbs
• Tomato 6.52 lbs
• Weekly total 49.58 lbs
• Yearly total 369.45 lbs
• Tally $574.13

• Fruit:
• Raspberries 0.14 lbs
• Rhubarb 3.39 lbs
• Yearly total 29.47 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.