I am guessing that this is the week that the ground will start to freeze on a permanent basis for the winter. So I had to harvest everything except the few things in the garden that can handle it. This includes spinach, mache, and kale. I also have a small patch of Asian greens left. In the past couple of years I've kept a small patch of them alive into the middle of January. I've covered them with a row cover and then with plastic. But this year I'm being lazy. I've left them just under the row cover. A row cover really can't handle snow well. It collapses. But I'll see how long they last. Not that I need anything right now. I've got tons in the fridge. I even took a cooler full of greens to Thanksgiving with me and gave it all away.
As to the tally I had to subtract some weight too. My storage onions are not storing well. I'm guessing I'm going to lose about half of them before they get eaten. So I've knocked off half of my storage onion total. I'm not sure why last year they stored fine until March, and this year they are rotting in November. I'm thinking that I must have bruised them when picking. Maybe. I'll be very gentle next year and see if it helps. Or maybe they just didn't like their partially shady spot. They will be in a slightly better spot this coming year. But I just can't give them the circle garden every year. Something has to grow in the bad spots in the garden. If I liked frozen onions at all I'd freeze the lot, but I really hate them frozen. So I'll just try to use them up. And then I'll be stuck buying onions from the grocery again.
- Broccoli 0.31 lbs
- Carrots 16.99 lbs
- Greens 19.82 lbs
- Herbs 0.07 lbs
- Roots 0.45 lbs
- Weekly total 37.63 lbs
- Yearly total 708.97 lbs
- Tally $1491.63
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.
Your cabbage look wonderful, as do your carrots! Don't you just love clearing out beds and bringing in a great haul? It can be a bit overwhelming to figure out what all needs to be done with it, but I think it feels great!
ReplyDeleteA very impressive harvest for this time of year. How come bugs are not bothering your Asian greens?
ReplyDeleteI grew them under a row cover. The brassica bed had a lot of black aphids, but they don't seem to like the Asian greens as much. Tons on the cabbage, but none on the other greens. Luckily with cabbage I can just peel the outside of the cabbage off and then it is pristine.
DeleteExcellent harvest this week! I try to rinse off my produce before taking it in the house too. It makes handling it so much easier and less of a mess in the house. I have a bunch of wire baskets as a result - which are great to harvest into and then allow me to hose the items off and let them drain before going into the house.
ReplyDeleteBountiful Brassica Harvest! They look so wonderful. I am not sure which brassica will prefer our new tropical garden. Those cabbages are very cute what variety are they? Oh carrots very good :).
ReplyDeleteOne is Gunma it is the larger two and is a flat cabbage. The other is Early Jersey, which is a pointy cabbage.
DeleteI also saw a lot of rotting in storage and another gardener asked me about the same problem. Several weeks ago I adjusted my harvest by subtracting 30%.
ReplyDeleteI finally did some research, and I'd say it is bacterial soft rot, possibly caused by onion maggots.
This is what the West Virginia extension has to say and the problem description closely matches what I saw happen in my onions.
"Bacterial Soft Rot usually starts at the neck of the bulb but, unlike Neck Rot, progresses down one or more scales. An offensive sulfurous odor is given off by the rotting bulb.
Care of handling helps prevent the rot from occurring. The organism causing Bacterial Soft Rot enters through a wound and moist conditions encourage its growth. The Onion Maggot, both adult and larva, is an important factor in causing wounds for the infection to enter the bulb.
The insect also carries the bacteria from plant to plant."
I grew two varieties from seed this year. My purple Cabernet matured early & were harvested around 7/15. My yellow Copra did not mature for another 2-3 weeks. The Cabernet had no problem at all while I've lost about 30% of the Copra. About a month ago I went through the Copra storage bags and removed anything with a smell and counted what I removed.
I've been growing Copra for 4-5 years and this is the first time I've ever seen this problem and only the Copras were affected. Why did the Cabernets escape? Maybe the onion maggot flys didn't like the color. Maybe the earlier harvest date means they escaped the second generation
of onion maggots. In any case, I'll grow Cabernet again next year. They are storing quite well.
I'm suspecting the maggots because all my onions were grown under identical conditions - same bed, same schedule, same fertilizing, same watering. Also the same techniques used in previous years. And this is a first time problem.
And you are seeing a problem that might be the same. I wonder what other bloggers are seeing.
That may be the reason. Last year my onions fell over much earlier so were harvested three weeks earlier. Could it be the onion maggots come later in the year? I'd hate to have to cover yet another crop to protect it from insects. I might experiment and cover a portion and see if it works. Though it might also be the weather. All the insects came out three weeks early. And the winter was very very mild. Lots of strange insect activity that I don't usually see.
DeleteYes, it is a problem what to plant in the "bad" or shadier areas of the garden. I keep to my raised bed rotation, but always hate to see the broccoli or tomatoes land in the least desirable bed.
ReplyDeleteYour carrots are beautiful. I'm hopeful for this year since I had excellent germination of the first sowing.
Your harvest is always so colorful! Gardening is such a grateful way to have a nice healthy diet. The carrots look so yummy!
ReplyDeleteWowie! Your green and carrots are truly beautiful.
ReplyDeleteYour an inspiration, I always mean to keep a tally of the weight and amount I harvest but never remember to.
ReplyDeleteLove Leanne
The row covers really did keep your greens looking good. I think I may have to try that for my next round of greens, the cabbage moths have really been chewing my brassicas this autumn.
ReplyDeleteoh my I know I have been saying this for a month now...but I am so jealous of your harvests..!!
ReplyDeleteThat is quite a haul for any time of the year, amazing for how late it is in the season! We don't grow onions ourselves, but have noticed a big range in how long they're lasting, depending on which farmer they came from. I suspect it's more a problem due to disease rather than how they were handled. This seems true of lot of storage crops that don't last as long as they should...
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of carrots, yo! Must plant more asian greens....must plant more asian greens! I have just a touch more Tatsoi but I just drool over yours. Oh and I am definitely going to try Fun Jen next year...is that your favorite asian green?
ReplyDeleteNo. I like it only for salads. I never cook with it. It is so hard to say what my favorite is, but probably Michihili Chinese cabbage. If I were forced to pick one. I'm sad I didn't grow it in the fall this year. I should have made a spot. It is a huge cabbage. I plant two across the bed and give them three feet on the sides. So 6sqft each. Each one is huge. BTW it doesn't really head like the Napa cabbages. But the inner leaves are blanched with the tight outer leaves. I keep thinking that I ought to eat it one leaf at a time and not pick it all at once.
DeleteI'm astonished at how much you have still harvested! And it all looks wonderful! I think with onions it was just a bad year. The few I got were small and I am already seeing them sprout and have had to throw a few out. Last year they lasted until July! I will be reduced to getting them from the grocery store too before very long.
ReplyDeleteWow over 700 lbs of harvest this year.
ReplyDeleteJealous of your Asian greens and carrots, wish I have some, better get my acts together next year.
Black aphids got on some of my lettuces. They really stand out on the light green types. And slugs really got after my Asian greens this year in one bed. The Sluggo didn't seem to do as well as it usually does.
ReplyDeleteYour greens are lovely, carrots too. It's great you shared some of the greens. I'll bet they were really appreciated.
Lovely greens. I wish I were more familiar with them. Sorry that you are losing your onions. Maybe I should check on mine! Nancy
ReplyDeleteShame about your onions. I can see why you gave away some greens - that is a fabulous harvest.
ReplyDeleteWow, so many carrots! The caterpillars have eaten most of my bok choi which is sad.
ReplyDeleteLooks wonderful. I can't imagine a place where freezes really happen.
ReplyDeleteI've been enjoying my frozen onions just because I don't have to chop them. But I can see the downsides. Hope your cold gets better fast.
What a great harvest for this time of year. I'm sorry to hear about your onions. We didn't have a good onion year either. In fact we're still trying to figure out how to have a good onion year. We resorted to freezing leeks. They'll last the winter, but they're not ideal.
ReplyDelete