Monday, May 19, 2014

Harvest Monday 19 May 2014

This weeks saw two baskets of greens and radishes. This includes the first harvest of the bok choy. Both the early bok choy and the tatsoi are ready to pick now so I can have fresh cooked greens as well as the salad greens.

And two baskets of kale blossoms. In addition the first baskets has the lone two choy sum stalks that grew. Sadly lack of rain and watering on my part killed them. I did water some things in the days before the rain. But not noticing is a problem with the thicker row covers. I just can't see in as well. At least the two stalks that I did get were thick and quite delicious.

I got the first harvest of my rhubarb which is the first of the fruit harvests this year. I know it really isn't a fruit but it is lumped into that category.

I do my tally for fruits very differently than for the vegetables. Vegetables are annuals for the most part. Yes some herbs and asparagus aren't, but the majority are. So making a yearly tally makes sense if you want to see if your garden is paying for itself or not. I know the answer doesn't really matter as the garden is so much more than just a source of food, but I started to do tallies because I thought the numbers would be interesting to know. And I kept doing them because the harvest totals let me know how a new technique or timing schedule was working. But I digress.

The fruits are different because you can plant a fruit tree or sometimes a bush and not get a harvest for years. But when a tree starts to produce it can put out pounds and pounds of fruit for a very long time. So my fruit tally is a running tally over the years. Sadly it seems every year I spend more money than I bring in from the fruit. Evey year I plant something new or put up a new trellis. This year I put in a weeping plum and some strawberries.

Last week I ordered some soaker hose and a timer for the raspberries. The raspberries were put in against the house. Actually they are surrounded by two bulkheads, a brick path, and the house. Which makes them easy to control. But sadly they are also in the rain shadow of the house. And they have slowly been dying as they don't get enough water. Three of the plants have already died, and we only have two left. I'm sure they would spread if we could keep them watered enough. So I spent yet more money on the fruits.

It will be interesting to see how long it will take me to break even on the fruits. I might never if I keep putting more things in, or like the strawberries, I replace them with other varieties. I know of four trees that are being evaluated right now and might get ripped out at sometime for various reasons - a Honeycrisp apple that doesn't want to grow, a Green Gage plum that attracts every aphid in the yard and is always sickly, two figs that aren't really hardy here, but I'm experimenting with keeping them alive over the winter. But I'm giving them more time to see if they can live and produce. So I can see potential expenses in the future. But maybe not.

  • Asian Greens: 0.53 lbs
  • Greens: 1.36 lbs
  • Herbs: 0.29 lbs
  • Roots: 0.59 lbs
  • Weekly Total: 2.48 lbs
  • Yearly Total: 6.16 lbs
  • Yearly Tally: -484.23

  • Fruit
  • Rhubarb 2.14 lbs
  • Spent 28.54
  • Tally (all years): 77.64 lbs $-1022.78

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.

20 comments:

  1. Lovely greens. The garden was so dry last week that I almost lost some of my kale and kale is pretty hardy. Luckily, they bounced back after the rain. I finally got the bed strung with soaker hoses this weekend. I hope your fruit trees turn around.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your harvests look so fresh and wonderful!

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a lovely bunch of greens! I love how on the other side of the world you have similar harvests - rhubarb and kale. Although our kale is just beginning.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lovely kale blossoms! And seeing your rhubarb reminds me I need to cut some of ours. It is interesting to hear your thoughts on the investment in fruits. I have peach, cherry and pawpaw trees that have yet to bear, but the blueberries and blackberries have more than paid for all the fruits.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Can you plant your figs in container and shelter them during the winter months?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have no good place to put them. We could take them down to the basement I suppose, but I have a bad shoulder and carrying them down would be really hard. When I was younger I'd do things like that but not anymore.

      Delete
  6. I always love to read about your tally sheets and the way you keep track. I did it one year and found it to be something I don't like to do. I wish I did, but I have decided to do a more general thing--I see if my harvests can last an entire year. So I only record weights of things that seem enormous. And I am diligent about recording planting and harvest dates. It would be better if I could do like you do, but this works fine for my needs.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Very lovely greens, and sorry you're not having a good luck with fruit. I think it's a long term investment so takes patience. I know my fruit trees will be striped again this year to keep them growing better rather than having few apples or peaches - but that should make it better in a long run. However with my goozeberries and red currants I just found out last night that bunch of cabbage butterflies layed eggs and they were ravaged by emerging catarpillars. Go figure. Never expected to lose my fruit to a cabbage nemesis. At least I hope we'll get strawberries as my Cabbot is covered with blooms!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The cabbage butterfly likes gooseberries? I've never seen any on mine before. I hope they don't take a liking to it as the butterflies are always dancing around the garden.

      Delete
  8. So glad you had rain. Having to monitor the soil and plants for signs of stress and need for water takes time and puts all your hard work in jeopardy. Water is very expensive here in San Diego so I try to give the plants what is needed but not too much. Plants like rain best, don't they?

    ReplyDelete
  9. I get so little fruit that I don't bother to tally it, it would be too discouraging, I really just grow it for the fun of it. My vegetable tally is very useful though, especially since I keep track of it by date, it's helpful in more ways than I can mention here. It's nice to see some fresh vibrant greens coming from your garden.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Everything is looking great! I can't seem to get Chineese cabbages to grow in the spring here in Utah so I'm jealous of yours. We will be several years away from break even on our fruit as well. This year we will only get strawberries and maybe a few raspberries.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ooh, I just planted my first rhubarb plant this spring. I can't wait to get some.
    You have a nice and varied harvest this week!

    ReplyDelete
  12. You have a lovely harvest and more every week! I planted some Asian Pak Choi and it is about as large as yours in the picture. Should I be harvesting it and how do I use it. Do you freeze yours? I am new to this Pak Choi growing and not sure if I will plant it next year. Nancy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well besides putting it in a stirfry, you can cook it lots of ways. Two of my favorites are for baby bok choy (which mine are) and start by cutting it in half lengthwise (or more sections it is really large one) and washing. Then for the first one I get a pan really hot with some oil. I add the bok choy and cook it on both sides until it starts to just brown. Then I deglaze with some sake and add some oyster sauce. The second way is after cutting and cleaning I take the real leafy part off. Then I put a little dressing of oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and a touch of sugar on it and grill it.

      Delete
  13. Yesterday I was telling a gardening friend about your tally sheets. He said that sounded like an awful lot of work. I agree, but it would also be interesting to have the data. That being said, I have a hard enough time keeping up with blogging!

    Your kale flowers keep reminding me that I haven't even planted my kale yet :(

    ReplyDelete
  14. Nice harvests! I like having tallies, although I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to data and graphs. Hopefully your fruit will eventually give you a profit. I just planted apple trees this year and they've already been almost stripped of leaves by caterpillars! I have a feeling it's going to be a struggle to get them to survive and even harder to get apples out of them.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I meant to buy a rhubarb crown this spring but it just never happened. Oh well. In my last garden, we moved two years after I planted my rhubarb and we never got a chance to harvest any. Hopefully one day the stars will align for us.

    ReplyDelete
  16. So many garden fresh vegetables to enjoy! We're happy to finally be able to thin the seedlings...

    ReplyDelete