Monday, August 31, 2015

Harvest Monday, 31 August 2015

I would say that summer is almost over now, but this coming week is supposed to be in the 90s again. I was really hoping for a return to more normal weather. Often the pattern start to shift in September. At least the corn and melons have liked the heat.

There has been a lot of corn and melons. Not all of the photos made the cut. Most of the melons got frozen for smoothies as I just can't eat 20 pounds of melons in a week. I did have some help though as I had my mother and MIL visiting at the beginning of the week and my aunt and uncle over the weekend. Sadly two of the melons rotted out before they ripened. Though they were on bricks their undersides rotted. I should have turned them over more to dry out, but I didn't know how prone to rotting Diplomats were. I never have to do that with my Halona melons. They do taste good though and produce well if you can keep them from rotting.

In addition to melons we had two apple harvests. I decided after the first one that the apples were at the perfect stage and the rest needed to be picked before they over ripened. I put nylon footies on my apples when they first start to form to keep the insects out as I don't spray my trees. Ginger Golds are such a wonderful early apple.

I split the bounty in half and I got one basket and my townhouse mates got the rest. As you can see a squirrel sampled one even through the bird netting. And a few apples had some minor insect damage. Mostly they were good enough to serve to guests.

I didn't take a lot of photos, but I'm still getting zucchini and cukes. There are only a few cucumber plants that are still producing. But it has been enough to keep me in cucumbers everyday. I've even gotten enough zucchini over the last couple of weeks to freeze some.

Though they don't always get weighed - or rarely get weighed - sometimes I do remember and the herbs get on the tally.

Chard and amaranth were both picked. I didn't pick any of my own broccoli, but since I had guests I did buy some at the store. I had enough of the other veggies to keep my guests supplied.

Below you might find it weird that I put melons on the vegetable list and not on the fruit list. But the fruit list is really for perennials. And melons are grown more like the vegetables. For the perennial fruits it really is a milestone. This is the first year I've picked over 100 pounds. Last year was at 71 pounds, so it has been a very nice fruit year.

  • Corn, 6.80 lbs
  • Cucumbers, 2.63 lbs
  • Greens, 2.72 lbs
  • Herbs, 0.19 lbs
  • Melons, 20.61 lbs
  • Summer Squash, 2.56 lbs
  • Weekly total, 35.50 lbs
  • Yearly total, 395.86 lbs, $1234.77

  • Apples, 28.66 lbs
  • Raspberries, 0.41 lbs
  • Fruit Yearly total, 100.28 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.

35 comments:

  1. Your method of protecting the apples seems to be pretty effective. I presume you can re-use the "footies" several times? I had to re-read what you said about "rotting Diplomats"! :)

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    1. Yes I wash and reuse them until they get holes in them.

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  2. I smile to myself at your method of protecting your apples.

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  3. I lost several of the Diplomat and Sensation melons to rot. I never thought about freezing them though, I'll have to try that next year.

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  4. Gorgeous as always, and awesome job on preserving apples from critters, will have to borrow that idea for future. Love the gorgeous amaranth leaves. What type of flowers are in the first picture with huge heads? They look like sunflowers..

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    1. If you mean on the last post and the flowers by my front door, they are Cappuccino rudbeckia. They are really gorgeous flowers.

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    2. Ah, thank you. Yes, flowers from last post,sorry about that.

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  5. Oh how wonderful! Congratulations on reaching 100 pounds of perennial fruit! That truly is a milestone :-)

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  6. How many dozens nylon footies you had to buy to protect all those apples? It must have taken you hours to enclose each apple. I had to use nylon footies to protect my eggplants from critters when I grew them in the garden.

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    1. Well I put footies on 75 apples this year. I buy them in boxes of 200 I think, so they last a while. And it does take time. I don't think it is any more time than having to spray every week though.

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  7. Beautiful corn! And I absolutely LOVE the nylon footie idea. I'll be looking for those on sale to use next year (seems like they can be used on many plants).

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  8. Corn and melons looking spectacular. I, too, love the footie idea, but have to laugh when I look at my full-size trees and imagine the process. Actually, though, I only spray once, at pre-bud (dormant oil).

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  9. Nice melons, too bad a few rotted. The Chinese gardener in the garden trains his up a trellis and uses netting to support the melons. Lot of work, however.

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  10. I hope your weather moderates. I loved those days in late August that turned the corner from summer to fall.

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  11. Congrats on hitting the 100 lb. mark for your perennial fruits! It really is such a wonderful feeling when you start to harvest more than a handful of fruit after waiting all that time for the trees or shrubs to mature. Hopefully my trees do as well as yours and I'll be needing a lot of footies in the years to come.

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  12. Those melons look great!

    Our basil would be a lot less work if we weren't weighing every leaf.

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  13. Wow, looking great again this week. I love the melons. We are hoping for our first melons this week! I love the nylons on the apples idea. I will have to keep that in mind as we are not planning on spraying our trees when they start producing either.

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  14. 100lbs whoop! When I read things like that it makes me wish I'd weighed everything apart from just my strawbs but I know I don't have the discipline to do that.
    The footie idea is great! I had a lot of insect damage on my apples, but picked the most apples I've ever had so far, as my dwarf trees are maturing. The footie idea might be the answer.
    And the melons and corn are lovely.

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    1. Haha, I thought I was getting my post in a lot earlier than normal but I'm still 17th :D

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  15. I can only dream of growing melons and our corn still has some way to go.

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  16. Wow congrats on your fruit harvest, the corns and apples are beautiful! You just reminded me I still have lots of unused footies somewhere, I was planning to give them away, now I'll keeping them for the garden.

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  17. Congrats on your record breaking fruit harvests! What a shame about the rotten melons though. I like the idea of freezing the excess melons, should I manage to harvest any this year I'll give it a try.

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  18. Cool idea with the nylon footies - I might pass that along to a friend who's just started planting an orchard this year, and mentioned a lot of damage on his first few apples.

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  19. Great apple harvest. My Fuji tree has 3 apples on it and I'll be happy if those ripen up, while the Golden Delicious still hasn't produced any fruit. Next year I'm hoping for more.

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  20. You have had a lot of beautiful fruit this year! I didn't realize that apples were harvested now. I live in the very deep south and we don't grown them down here. It would be lovely to have a little mini orchard. Are you planning to make applesauce or other recipes with them? or just enjoy them fresh?

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    1. Apples are normally harvested in September and October around here, but these are early apples. And we will eat most of these fresh. I will make sauce, but probably with apples from the farmers market.

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  21. I never knew about putting tights over apples! what an odd but obviously effective thing to do! its great to see your summer abundance, whil we are enduring a very long cold winter. mmm, corn... :-)

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  22. Hi Daphne, Congratulations on your fruit tally!! Yummy looking apples there, Also corn and melon. It seems I didn't get a lot of cukes this year. Turned hot here again also. Nancy

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  23. We had a cold snap, so a lot of the maturing is happening slowly. I have some enjoyable pictures of the progress, though. Join in!

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  24. I have heard of putting nylons over the apples but I have never know anyone with the patience to do it! What a great organic way though to keep out the bugs.And yes, I am crazy and grow things I don't like to eat, including fresh tomatoes. But it is always a joy to harvest and give them away.

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  25. For the longest time I was staring at your nylon covered fruit trying to figure out what they were. Your corn and greens are looking exceptional as well.

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  26. Apples and corn! Call me jealous! I wish we could have a apple tree on our roof! Loving this happy harvest post, enjoy all these goodies!

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  27. Everything looks beautiful. Well done! I'm especially envious of those gorgeous apples.

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