Monday, December 17, 2012

Harvest Monday, December 17th, 2012

I still had some small patches of veggies to pick for the winter. The weather forecast was for colder weather and I had used up my greens from the fridge. So it was time to pick.

I got a nice basket of bok choy, tatsoi, radish, and turnip.

There isn't much left in the little patch. I might get another harvest. But if I do it will be very small.

I planted spinach a while ago. I usually don't get a harvest in the fall. They were really planted for overwintering and an early spring crop. But I thought the plants were big enough to take a couple of leaves from the largest ones.

It was a decent harvest of spinach and a little bit of baby lettuce. I didn't plant the lettuce. They are a volunteer romaine. Maybe Little Gem. I don't know if the lettuce will survive the winter or not. Last year I had several babies over winter in protected spots, but last year we only got to 5F (zone 7b). I'm in zone 6b so it was 10F warmer than normal.

The garden looks so barren now. It just needs a covering of snow.
  • Greens 2.96 lbs
  • Roots 0.86 lbs
  • Weekly total 3.82 lbs
  • Yearly total 712.78 lbs
  • Tally $1509.22

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.

25 comments:

  1. Beautiful greens. I've never bought or cooked bok choi or tatsoi. Clearly gardening is expanding my kitchen's universe, since now I have to give them a try.

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  2. Your garden looks wonderful to me. All that space! I have a few things growing but it will be a while before I can harvest anything.

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  3. Still getting good harvests! Good for you! I think your garden looks just about perfect.

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  4. Fantastic harvest for this time of year. Like your smooth leaf spinach, what variety is that?

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  5. That young spinach looks picture perfect. I still have spinach going but it is getting long in the tooth and looking a big rough. My pac choi and tatsoi are growing and harvestable but the slugs have been hard at them and I will need lots of patience and trimming to get a useable harvest from them. Your winter garden is charming and still so productive for you. Good work!

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  6. I don't have a harvest today, but a question. I planted bok choi this late summer. We had another warm fall here in Maine and it flowered so early. It is in my hoop house looking green and growing still. Is it too late to eat it? Since it flowered so early will it taste ok? My spinach, kale and lettuce are fine. Can't understand why the bok choi bolted so much sooner.

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    1. Usually Asian greens are fine to eat even when they are flowering. Some people consider the flower buds an extra treat. Try it to see if it still taste good. It might well.

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  7. Lucky you to get a taste of the spinach! It looks like it's growing quite nicely. Mine from the fall planting is still too small to harvest. Your Asian greens look great too. It reminds me I need to plant some tatsoi.

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  8. So nice to see the long view of your garden. Amazing that even after all the fall cold and snow you are still harvesting. Been reading Eliot Coleman?

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    1. Weirdly I've never read his books, but I've read enough about his methods online. My patch just has a row cover on it now though. I'm not doing plastic this year.

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  9. Baby spinach yum - how do you cook your turnips? My family were not over thrilled with them.
    Love Leanne

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    1. These are actually not your normal turnips. They are Japanese turnips, sometimes called salad turnips. Usually I eat them raw, but occasionally throw them into stirfries.

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  10. Looks like you got this week's harvest in just in time! We woke up to an inch or two, not a lot but enough to keep us inside and from accessing our covered beds. Amazing harvest, especially for mid-December, don't you think?

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    1. It is a sign of the warming weather. Usually I'd have had to cover them in plastic for them to be this healthy.

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  11. The weather here is warmer than usual also and my harvests are looking rather unseasonal. I'm sure that your next harvest, however small it may be, will be a welcome one. It must be difficult for you to have such a limited amount of fresh veggies from the garden in the depths of winter.

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  12. Your Bok Choi looks so good - I just pulled mine out as they'd been eating by caterpillars. It's funny how the shape of homegrown bok choi looks nothing like the stuff I buy from the shops.

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  13. I think 37 lbs of harvest this time of December in Massachusetts is utterly remarkable. Congrats.

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  14. It is wonderful to see what you are still harvesting! Nancy

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  15. Your garden beds look so neat and tidy ready for their big sleep over winter. Hope you have a great Xmas !

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  16. A Beautiful harvest Daphne, thanks for postings. I really am missing our winter garden this year. With our move I'm temporally with out a garden. Keep up the great work!!

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  17. You had a great harvest this week. I wish my spinach had made it; it looks great.

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  18. The more I read northern hemisphere blogs with their beds happily resting for the winter it does make me wonder if I should give mine the occasional break. But then I feel like I'm not maximising my space and I plant things. do you think yours benefit from the rest?

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    1. No. I think the soil is happier if you always have something growing on it. The soil actually hates being empty. You could give it a rest by growing a cover crop and turning it under if you wanted to, but as long as you continually give it compost over the years it should be fine.

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