Kale, Turnips, and Cilantro

I finally got around to pulling up the onions before the storm yesterday. I was hoping for a couple of inches of rain as we sorely need it, but we ended up with just 2/3rds. I think other places have gotten a lot more over the last couple of weeks, but the rain seems to just miss us. The rain left us with a whopping 1.5 inches of rain over the last month which isn't nearly enough. Even though I water, the soil knows it isn't rain.

The onions were in the fall kale bed and I wish they could have been pulled earlier. But I filled in the kale gaps. Hopefully the kale will have time to mature. I now have no little seedlings upstairs under lights.

I noticed the turnips under the fleece row cover were up and up way too thickly. I'm really bad at sowing tiny black seeds evenly. Carrots are easier as you can see them on the ground. Not with turnip seeds. I thinned anywhere between 3"-6" apart (the rows are 6" apart). These aren't the small salad turnips and are best picked at 3". I also thinned to really vigorous seedlings. I'm pushing our season here to plant them so late. Timing is everything in the garden. I try to keep things on schedule, but they can slip for all sorts of reasons. The good news is that they seem to be growing well. No signs of flea beetles at all.

I also got out and sowed some cilantro. I sowed a couple of weeks ago and the plants are yellowed and stressed from the heat and lack of rain. I'd like to do a couple more sowings over the next few weeks. The heat could come back and sort of has to a degree, but if I keep sowing, maybe I'll get a really nice patch of cilantro going. The spring cilantro is setting seed now and I've been picking it off as it dries. Ditto with the dill. The fennel is in bloom, but no ripe seeds yet. I think I need to grow less fennel. I didn't use nearly any of the seed I saved and I'm OK with eating fennel bulbs, but I'm not in love with them.

And in great news - the fall raspberries have just started. These three made it into my morning bowl of oatmeal. Oh raspberries, how I've missed you.

Carrots, Turnips, and Raspberries

Yesterday I cleaned out the last of the kohlrabies and turnips in Bed 8, but I didn't have a chance to reseed it. It is destined to hold my fresh eating carrots for fall - Mokum and Nelson. I like to seed them in rows that are 4" apart. I try to get the seed about an inch apart, but typically it doesn't happen very well. Some are clumped some are farther apart.

Getting carrot seed to germinate however is always an issue. So I cover them with two layers of agribon. It is thick enough to keep the soil moist if I sprinkle it every morning. But thin enough that they don't get squished by the fabric. I'll remove it once they are mostly up. Then I'll put on the row cover to protect from the root fly.

Next up were the turnips. I've done an abysmal job with my successions. So I elected to just sow a whole half of this section of bed. I hope they survive. The last sowing all died fairly quickly.

Raspberries by the patio

And last but not least for my chores today was the raspberries. The June crop was over. So I cut out the old canes and thinned the new ones. It was a good raspberry year so far (I have everbearers, so I'll get more starting in August), but I noticed over the last couple of weeks that the tips of some of the canes were blackening and wilting. So I looked at it and there are two girdles around each cane that had the problem. I've never had cane borers before and had to look up what it was. My instinct to cut it off well below the girdle was correct. I'm not too concerned about it as cutting off the growing tip tends to make the tops more bushy and send out more flowers. I'm more concerned about the leaves. They are a bit silvery looking, not the typical healthy green. I'm just guessing, but I think maybe spider mites. My eyes aren't good enough to see them if they are. I used to have a magnifying glass, but I haven't used it in so long I can't find it now. But if I can confirm it, I ought to do a soap spray. Spider mites aren't usually big pests here. We tend to be too wet, but occasionally they can be problematic.

My Most Hated Chore

Everyone has a hated chore in the garden. One of mine is cleaning up after everyone else's cats. I am not a cat person. I do appreciate them catching mice in the garden. They do. Well Molly does at least, who is the townhouse mates' cat. But cats can be a pain. They like to dig and leave their poo all over the place. I always have to put something like netting or bamboo poles on the soil so they don't contaminate it. Cats carry parasites and I don't want that in my food.

After

Also to encourage them to go elsewhere I give them a spot for it. It is under a small overhang so it keeps the soil dry which the cats like. But after all winter, cleaning up after them is not a fun chore. I was kind and only showed you the after photo. The before was pretty disgusting.

In that above photo you see my hose reel. I got both of them out and connected up. Sometimes it takes me a while to get it done, and sometimes I'm pretty good about it like this year. I think the nice weather has really got me doing my chores in a timely manner.

Yesterday I found some ramps being sold at the supermarket to eat. But they had their roots on them. So I figured I could plant them and see if they grew or not. I didn't get to them yesterday, but did today. I put them under the maple tree with my townhouse mates multiplier onions.

Yesterday the strawberries also came. I tossed them in to the fridge for the night. I only ordered 10 of them. I already had lots in the garden. But they die off over time. So I've been ordering more every year to fill in sections. I tend to like Earliglow as they don't die off as quickly as some others. Whatever diseases have come in, they seem at least moderately resistant to it.

Raspberry bed

And last but not least I got some of the yard cleaned up. I tidied up the perennials. And fixed the raspberry patch. The massive snowfall made the posts lean over. I put them back up and trimmed off the dead spots from the hard winter. They are starting to leaf out. I also noticed they are starting to spread again. They almost died off the year before last due to lack of rain. It isn't that we don't get rain, but that area is to the southeast of the house. A lot of our rain comes in from the northeast. Last year I put up a soaker hose and ran it when we had little rain. Usually raspberries are weeds around here, but I guess they don't like being dry. I'm really happy they are spreading again. I missed the bumper crops of berries.

Preparing for Spring

This week I finally brought out my sweet potatoes. I started them last week sitting near the radiator, but now they are in the window. Hopefully they will grow well. I need slips and I'm worried about the purple ones producing slips. Last fall they started to grow and I rubbed off the growth. Will I get new growth? I hope so. I do have more purple ones in my box of sweet potatoes. Maybe I should bring more out. I do love their taste. I've started Beauregard, Garnet, and Purple, which are the three that did best in my garden last year.

I'm a little late doing it but I went out yesterday to prune. It was the most glorious day. In the 50Fs and very sunny. I didn't even have to wear my coat. The raspberries were first. I lost a lot of canes to last year's lack of rain. I'm hoping I didn't lose whole plants. But I'll see once the spring growth starts. Then it was off to the peach trees. I'm no expert on fruit trees. This is the first time I've ever grown them. But all the books say open up the middle to an open vase shape. So I tried doing that. I've got five main branches on both peach trees. Not sure if I'm doing things right, but hey, I'm sure I'll learn.

The snow is mostly melted (or at least in the beds that see sun this time of year) so I tested the beds and found the pea bed was defrosted all the way down. The spinach bed had frozen soil at about 5" deep. I've planted spinach like this before and it does fine. So I might go out on the next warm day and get that in. I'll also get my peas in soon. Not all of them, but the warmer parts of the bed. The other parts will have to wait two to three more weeks.

The soil is unfreezing and my Asian greens that I sowed inside are starting to pop up. I'm really getting excited for the gardening season to really start.

In Need of Support

Since my husband was off on a business trip, I had the car today. So I took all morning running around trying to find some 4' T-post to support the raspberries. They grow next to our patio and last year they sprawled all over in the way. So this year I wanted to get them out of the way.

I went to Home Depot and they didn't sell 4' posts. They had some 5' ones that were just huge, but I thought they would be too tall not to mention too intrusive visually. So I kept looking. If I had known they would be so hard to find I would have called around before I left. I finally found seven of them at Mahoney's, but only seven. I needed eight. Luckily I have a few extra T-posts I'm not using right now. I'll try to replace it later.

I also got the rest of the hardware to put up the trellis, but for some reason my brain wasn't working. I bought four of those little doohickeys that that tighten wire, when I needed eight. Some days are just like that. Nothing quite goes right. So the bottom support is up but not the top support yet. I'll pick more up next time I'm at a hardware store. And while I was playing with the raspberries I thinned out the canes. I'll have to do it again probably as many are still coming up.

And look what I found on my doorstep. I ordered one mother of a ball of twine. I bought one that was a kilogram last year and I had used most of it up. This was about the same price but so much larger. Part is that the twine is thicker, but part of it is that there are 5000' in there. Do you think that might last a while? I'm hoping.

Addendum: I put this photo up at the request of Dirtdabbler. I forget its name but it tightens the wires. All you do is spin the middle part and the wires get closer or farther apart. It has a hook at one end and an eye hook at the other. I did a lousy job of putting them on. I might have to remove it so I can tighten it more. We will see.

No Rest for the Weary

I figured Monday would be a great day to take a break from physical work. I had a lot of errands and calls to make. I would mostly stay out of the garden except for a little watering. As I watered, I noticed one of my spinach plants had come up. Whoohoo! On Tuesday many more had popped up, but still it wasn't enough to see if they would totally fill out, but now at least I know that I will have some. With spinach that isn't always a given. Then I noticed little pea shoots starting to come up. Just a tiny top of many of them, but in a few days - especially with the all day soaking rain we are getting today - they will all be up. Again Whoohoo!

My day went right as planned. Until 4:00 came around. The UPS truck pulled in front of the house. I prayed it would be for my townhouse mates. And it was. Then the FedEx truck pulled up 15 mins later. Again I prayed, but this time my prayers weren't answered. I had a box on my doorstep. Usually I LOVE boxes on my doorstep. But dang it I wanted a day off.

The box was from Pinetree. It had 30 strawberries, 22 asparagus, and 5 raspberries. Sadly my husband was off on a business trip or I would have begged him to help. I thought for a minute, but figured if I didn't get them into the ground right away it would probably be the next night or Thursday. Sadly I had to go into the store to work on Tuesday or they would have just waited over night.

Strawberries planted

I power dug all those nice plants in. First came the raspberries in the back yard between the foundation, two bulkheads and the walkway. My last raspberry patch would try to take over everything it was near, but this time they are contained.

Then the strawberries were planted in the rock wall garden where the figs and plum tree will go. Earlyglow (8) is between the gates, Sparkle (8) is next down on the rock wall. And the photo above is of the last bit which is Seascape (10) which is an everbearer. I've grown Sparkle in the past and it is an amazing tasting strawberry. I hope the others are just as good.

The last bit to do was the asparagus. The bed is about 33' long. And I needed a trench 8" deep.

The first issue were the over wintered spinach plants. I harvested all the leaves from the plants in the middle of the bed, but the ones that were off to the side I left. I'm hoping they survive getting their roots cut. I would hate to lose my only early spring producer, but the asparagus is worth it if necessary.

Asparagus planted

Then I planted them all in the trench and covered them with about 2" or so of soil. I took this last photo at just after 7pm. So I was out digging again for 2hours and 45 minutes and about as fast as I could while the light lasted. I was so tired after that.

That night I had trouble sleeping. Over a week ago I injured my bicep somehow digging. It doesn't hurt all the time. But occasionally it sends out sharp pangs of pain. This doesn't make sleeping very easy. A low steady pain is easy to sleep through, but sharp stabs that I'm not expecting wake me up. I ice and heat it every night to keep it from doing so, but Monday's chores were just too much for it. I figured at least on Tuesday I could rest. I had to work the store (an artist's coop), but that involves sitting in a chair for hours, so that wasn't an issue. I even took the bus in and back so I wouldn't have to walk that day.

Then at 5pm. The damn FedEx truck rolled in again. Sob. I swear I used to love the UPS and FedEx guys. Now I curse them. It was my order from Miller's. I had six cranberries (Thunderlake) and two peach trees (Red Haven and Reliance) . I put the peach trees in a pail of water to soak their roots. My husband was there early that day. He had a conference call he was taking at home at 6pm. So he went out and dug two large holes for me. After dinner I went out and planted them. I'm ignoring the cranberries right now they came in small pots so are safe for a while. Luckily the soil was prepared a couple of weeks ago. Peat moss was already dug in. But I figured I didn't have to go out in the fading light. Another day is just as good.

I have three more mail order deliveries to come. I have one rose that is by itself, so easy enough. I have the order for two apples and one plum. Then I have the order for three gooseberries from Nourse Farms that I know will show up today. They were the only ones that emailed me the tracking number. They won't go in today though. It is pouring rain. I'll have to let the soil dry out a bit before they can go in. Thank God for rainy days. Maybe tomorrow. Who knows. But today I have off. I swear. When the gooseberries tell me to put them in as soon as they arrive, I can tell them I'm waiting for their own good.

Never Before

Every year I celebrate my first raspberry harvest. This year is no exception. The first raspberry was eaten off the cane on Monday July 14th. Wait did I say July? Silly me. Usually it is July. This year it was June 14th. Last year I didn't write it down but it was mid July sometime (about a week later than normal). In 2008 it was July 7th. Mostly I think about raspberries just starting to come in on July 4th.

I don't think I've ever had a harvest this early. I think of June as strawberry season. I've probably gotten one or two berries at the end of June before, but never mid June. Most of the harvest this year will probably be in June as the summer harvest lasts two to three weeks. Typically at least.

Who knows what this weird year will bring? But just by looking at the vines, it looks like all the rain we have had will make the harvest prolific. I'm anticipating a lot of raspberry sorbet to beat the heat.

Raspberries 2009 Overview

I got a couple of questions about my raspberries today on the harvest post. So this post is to answer some of them and be the first post to go over how the year went with this crop. I planted the raspberry patch 18 years ago. I had two sections (each about about 6' long by 4' wide) started in raspberries. I planted three canes of each type. They were bought from Pinetree.

I planted two different kinds one in each section. Lanthum is a summer bearer. It didn't last long in the garden. It never grew well and got diseased and was unhappy. I eventually ripped it up.

September berries

The other variety I planted was Heritage. It too got the same disease as Lanthum (something that makes each of the segments of the berries not ripen all at the same time and also makes them crumbly). It just didn't seem to care. I would lose a few berries to it , but not many. It would produce well anyway.

The first year that the raspberries grew they didn't produce much. The second year was OK. After about three years they had filled their space up and were producing like mad. Raspberries send runners underground. Once they get settled they act like weeds. A few times a year I have to go out and rip out roots that are trying to take over other sections of the garden.

Raspberry canes right before pruning back

My berries are planted in partial shade right at the edge of the woods. They do not get full sun. In the summer they probably get about four hours of full sun. At this time of the year they would be lucky to get about an hour of sun, but I haven't timed it. Since they grow well I don't worry about it. One side of their bed is raised with a small little poorly made rock wall. Which means it was put up by me. I'm the opposite of EG, I try to engineer everything so it just barely works. The least amount of effort to make it work right is my motto. MIT, my alma mater, is probably ashamed of me by now. The other side is bound by the driveway which is just slightly higher than the bed.

I have fertilized this bed exactly once in five years. I like to keep the leaves that blow into the bed there to mulch it. In the past decade we had a landscaping service that would blow them out even if I asked them not to. Now I'm doing it myself so they will once again be left in. There isn't a lot of work involved with the raspberries bed. Once a year I cut out the spent canes in July and at the same time thin out the new canes. In addition in March I usually clean up the bed of any canes broken over the winter by snow and prune off the old flower heads if I didn't do it in the fall. If it didn't try to invade its neighbors so much it would be the easiest bed in my whole yard.

The Heritage plant produces berries in July on year old canes. It does this in a very short time over about two to three weeks (this year July 14th- Aug 2nd). This year it produced 6.5 lbs of summer berries. Then starting in late August (Aug 25th this year) it produces fall berries on new canes. It will keep producing for quite a while. Frost won't stop them. It will kill the flowers, but the fruit that has set will still ripen. A true freeze will shut them down though. Last year I was still harvesting in early November. When it gets cold they do slow down a bit. So far this fall I have harvested 6.4lbs of berries. I have plenty of berries on my cereal every morning and still some left over to freeze.

As to problems with the crop, I had more than usual. The fall berries were more moldy and rotting than usual. I had to toss a lot of the berries in September as they would mold and ripen at the same time. The October berries seemed better. Also in September I had wasps (some kind of paper wasp) start eating the raspberries. At their height they ate about half the crop. They had disappeared by October.

Raspberries love rain, so our weird wet weather didn't bother them in the least. In fact they probably grew better than an average year.

Jamming

Well not much gardening is going on today. Instead I spent the time inside finally making my Raspberry Jam. I was going to wait until the fall raspberry harvest was done, but it looks like with the wasps I won't get very much. I'll probably have just enough to eat fresh every morning on my cereal. The summer harvest was pretty decent however and there were lots of berries in the freezer.

I unfroze them and put them through my strainer. Halfway though straining them I noticed I had the wrong screen on. Damn! Now I had to do it all over again to make sure those little seeds where all gone. I hate little seeds in my jelly. I hate them even more than having to clean two of those strainer screens. The screens get tons of seeds stuck in them. With tomatoes it isn't too bad, but with raspberries they can get pretty jammed into it. Once it is mostly clean I have to take my pokey thing (don't ask me what it is called I haven't a clue, but I think it is a pottery tool left over from when I was a kid). Each stuck seed has to be popped out individually. Arrrrggggghhhhh!

So needless to say I like to do all the raspberries for the year at once so I have less cleaning to do. I had just enough to make a one batch of raspberry jelly (6 cups) and one batch of raspberry jalapeno jam (4 cups). I'm not sure I'm going to like the raspberry jalapeno jam as much as the regular jalapeno jam, but I had to try it since it sounded good.

The raspberry jam was a very low sugar jam. It is still a bit tart. Hopefully I will like it as much as the jams that are mostly sugar. It will certainly be better for me.

Three Happy Surprises

Yesterday was filled with some happy surprises. Since I cleared out my path I could actually get down to the end to look at things. Usually I just go down to pick my tomatoes. This time I could spend some time down there.

I found that my Magdelena Big Cheese is finally turning beige. Whoohoo! I'm going to get at least a little squash from the garden. I was afraid this year I'd get nothing. The squash is not big. In fact it is quite small, but at least one fruit will ripen in time. I have another fruit that is getting bigger. Maybe I'll get two?

As I was looking at the squash I looked up to the cucumber trellis. I saw my second surprise. An Armenian cucumber finally set. It is the first one. I'd seen a ton of male blossoms, but I'd written them off already this year and figured I'd have to live with just my Diamant pickling cuke. I'll keep an eye on this one and hopefully pick him soon.

My last nice surprise was my fall raspberries. I didn't expect them to ripen so soon. I actually missed the first couple as they rotted and were attacked my some wasps.

Can you see the wasp in the lower right raspberry?

I never get tired of raspberries. I like the fall raspberries a lot. They are so much easier to pick then the summer ones. The only canes are the ones bearing fruit so I can see all there is to pick. With the summer raspberries I become a contortionist trying to see where all the ripe ones are. Fall raspberries also tend to be bigger for me. Maybe in the summer the plants' energy is partially being used to grow new canes. In the fall the only thing they need to do is put out nice plump raspberries.

I had these on my cereal this morning. Yum!

Raspberry Chores

After picking just 4oz of raspberries in two days I decided the raspberries were slowing down. They were also the most diseased and yellowed summer raspberry canes I had ever seen. It was time to cut them down to make way for my fall berries.

I have Heritage raspberries. They are called ever bearers. In reality they have two harvest seasons, summer and fall. The summer crop grows on last year's canes. After they crop the canes die. The fall crop comes on the new canes that have grown this year. These new canes tend to get a bit crowded out by the old canes.

The earlier I cut down the old canes the better. I often don't wait for the last of the summer raspberries to finish. I find that the fall crop tends to be better if I'm a little proactive. This way the mildews and diseases don't build up in the canes. In addition at this time I also thin out the new canes. I get rid of all the weak and thin canes and make sure there aren't too many close together. This makes for a better, healthier, easier to pick crop.

The cut canes are separated into old growth and this years growth (including new growth on old canes). This years growth gets tossed on the compost pile. This is most of the biomass. The bare canes from last year, now stripped of their foliage, gets tossed on the brush pile. It would take way too long to break down the woody canes in the compost pile so I don't even try anymore.

Now the raspberry patch looks a bit pathetic compared to the lush old growth. It is healthy however. The new canes have already started to bloom. The bees are having great fun. All this work required just under an hour to complete. Except for picking and taking off the spent blossom clusters in the fall that is all the work they require. They are such an easy crop to grow here in our wet climate.

Don't forget Harvest Monday tomorrow. I hope you will all join in.

Food for the Future

Yesterday was a busy day putting up food. The first batch was drying some herbs in the dehydrator. I picked chamomile and rosemary. I need a lot more rosemary if I'm going to be self sufficient in that herb. Having my rosemary plants die every year just doesn't work. I hope I can over winter the one I now have growing in a pot. The chamomile on the other hand is so easy to grow. I will have more than enough for my winter teas. Every week I just pick more and more. Pretty soon my pint jar will be totally filled.

Then it was on to the garlic. I dug it up on July 3rd and put it on screens in my garage to dry. After 24 days it seemed sufficiently dry and this week is supposed to be very hot and humid. I figured it was better to get it inside into the basement where it is a lot cooler and drier. I cut off all the tops. On each variety I left a different length of stem so I could tell them apart. I then peeled off the outer dirty later. Some of the heads had some mildew on the wrappers which was not too surprising considering our weather this year. I peeled off any layer that showed mildew. Mostly the mildew wasn't very bad, but the unknown supermarket variety had quite a bit of mildew and I had to take all the wrappers off some of them. I put them in the fridge to keep. I'll use them up soon. They wouldn't have lasted in storage anyway. That will be the first variety eaten. It was an artichoke garlic and they don't keep as well as the others that are hardnecks.

The heads were small this year due to being dug up early. My unknown supermarket artichoke garlic were fairly large, but since two of the eight cloves rotted out over the winter and one was a tiny little thing, the overall harvest in the same space allotted was not better than the Bogatyr or Gregorian Crystal. They all came in at about 1 oz/head. Bogatyr will still be grown again. The others won't. When the heads for the Bogatyr were sent to me, the heads and cloves were tiny. This year they are larger. I'm thinking they still have more growth to go before they are really full sized.

German Extra Hardy was the biggest of the group. They averaged just over 1.5 oz/head. Their heads were quite a nice size. I'll save half of these to plant again this fall. All the biggest ones will be planted. The smaller ones I'll eat.

After that was done I had to make strawberry sorbet. I had a lot of raspberries to use in the fridge and this week is going to be hot. I'll use that sorbet to cool down. Or at least that will be my excuse to eat it all. The recipe is a take off from the sorbet in Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book. I changed a few things.

Raspberry Sorbet

• 12 oz fresh raspberries
• 1 cup of sugar (I think I need to try 3/4 next time, my raspberries are pretty sweet)
• T Rosie's lime juice
• 1 c water
• 1/4 c red wine
• 1/4 c light corn syrup

I put it all in a blender and pureed it. Then put it in my ice cream maker. It made 4 cups of very yummy sorbet. I think it would have been a touch better if I had strained out the raspberry seeds, but that is a lot of work and probably not worth the effort.

Harvest Monday July 26, 2009

Though it wasn't quite up to the last Monday Harvest, this week at Daphne's Dandelions had a fairly heavy harvest and some nice firsts. The summer crops are starting to finally come in.

By far the best harvest was from the raspberries. I've been harvesting them every other day. Every morning I throw a large handful of berries on my cereal. The photo is a bit misleading since I took it at the beginning of the berry harvest when I wasn't getting a lot. This week was the peak of the summer harvest season (I'll have another peak in the fall when they crop again). I froze quite a bit and hope to make sorbet sometime soon. Last weekend while camping I shared a lot with friends.

The peas were the next largest harvest, but they are at their trail end. The snap peas have all been pulled and only the snow peas are left. They won't produce much anymore, but I'll still get some and since I ran out of Sugar Snax carrot seed, I figure I don't have much else to plant there right now anyway. I'll let them try to keep going for a bit longer.

I had several firsts this week. I had the first beans. There was just a tiny bit but I picked them to keep the vines producing. I'll continue to pick tiny bits over the summer. I don't have a lot of green beans planted. Most of my beans are dried beans, but there will be plenty for me to eat.

The first zucchini was picked yesterday as soon as I got home from my camping trip. It was still way too small when I left. Now it is a touch too big, but not too bad. No baseball bats yet in this garden. I've been picking the male blossoms for my salads and stir fries. I always use them to hand pollinate a female blossom if there is one. There aren't many females yet.

The first pineapple tomatillos came in. Woot! I really wanted to see what they tasted like. They do indeed taste a little like pineapple. They aren't nearly as sweet, but then I tasted the first small one. If they are like tomatoes they will develop a more balanced and stronger taste later on. It is so easy to pick these. They fall off the plant when ripe. I just bring them in. Supposedly they keep quite some time in their husks if they are just left on the counter. I'll wait to collect a bunch and make salsa out of them. I think they will be wonderful if I can ever get enough. They are such tiny little fruit.

The first of the potted tomatoes are starting to ripen. I have a bit of color on Aliana and Black Moor. I picked three Chocolate Cherries. I haven't tasted them yet. I want them in my salad later today. I of course also picked some Sungold F2s. Two of the plants put out reddish cherries and four put out the typical Sungold color. The color in the above photo is a bit off as most of them are golden. A taste test will come in a bit after they start ripening some more.

The serranos gave quite a few this week since I'm collecting seed and stripped one of the plants. I also harvested from a few of the other serrano plants. The harvest was frozen for future salsas. The jalapenos are almost there. Maybe next week. And the first cayenne is starting to turn red, but it isn't ready to harvest quite yet.

I wanted to harvest more herbs than the parsley, but didn't get a chance. The chamomile is way over due to be harvested. Also the first of the rosemary has to be dried. Hopefully this week I will have time.

So here are the tally totals:

• Beans 0.11 lbs
• Berries 3.52 lbs
• Cucurbits 0.61 lbs
• Greens 0.41 lbs
• Herbs 0.50 lbs
• Peas 1.13 lbs
• Peppers 0.59 lbs
• Tomatillo 0.03
  
• Tomatoes 0.77 lbs
  

Weekly total: 7.81 lbs
Weekly spent: $0
Yearly total: 48.88 lbs
Yearly earned: $87.27

If you would like to join Harvest Monday add your name to Mr. Linky so everyone can see your post. No huge harvests or tallying are requried. You can show us as much or as little as you want.

Chores Delayed

I couldn't get out into the garden yesterday. I just kept raining. I have things to do, but I'm afraid of transmitting all those fungal diseases around the garden. Don't get me wrong. I liked the inch of rain we got, but now I need it to to clear up and get sunny so my leaves will dry. The slugs however think this weather is the best. This hefty two inch slug has a lot of friends hiding in that crack. You know it is a bad slug day when they are just going into their hiding places at 9:30am.

The biggest chore I have is to deal with my peas. The Super Sugar Snaps need to be pulled. Yesterday I picked off all the seed peas to dry with the garlic in the garage. the rest of the plants are done. One last picking then pull the plants. The Mammoth Melting snow peas (above) just keep putting new pods out. I can't pull them yet, but they are totally infringing on the squash in the next row over. I have to do the limbo anytime I need to get by. This isn't working out well. I need to find a way to pull them upright and keep them restrained to their trellis if I want them to stay. They can't shade my squash plants.

I also need to get into pick the raspberries. There is a ton of ripe fruit on the bushes right now. I prefer to pick the fruit when the fruit is dry. It freezes and stores in the fridge better that way. I don't wash my berries after I pick them. I don't see a great need to water them down. If it doesn't clear up soon though I'll be out in my rain gear picking. Better that than letting the fruit rot.

The rain has knocked some of my dill down that is flowering. I love the dill heads. I think they are one of the prettiest and most interesting flowers in the garden. Luckily my best plants are still upright. Those are the plants my seed will come from. Strong stems in dill is a very useful trait especially since I have some that are 6' tall.

My beans are starting to come in. I won't pick these yet. They are dried beans - Ottawa Cranberry. These are the least aggressive plants of all the pole beans. Some have made it to the top of the poles, but not all of them. The Trail of Tears dried beans are the most aggressive. I have to keep them from traveling to all the other poles and mixing up the beans. They are allowed to travel from pole to pole in their own section, but they aren't allowed to invade their neighbors. Ribbit was thinking they we cute and cuddly ET beans trying to reach to the sky, but I think they are alien invasion beans. They grow up tall so they can reach down from above and take over. The Kentucky Wonder beans, my only green bean, are much more sedate though they too are reaching at this point. They have the smallest beans right now. They are cute little things at about an inch long. I can't wait for my first bean harvest. I'm getting sick of snow peas at dinner.

I was going to do a little tomato news, but gee this post is too long already I do love to ramble on. I'll put that in its own post.

Monday Harvest - 20 July 2009

Wow where to begin? It has been a really good harvest this week. When I left for the July 4th weekend, I told my friend taking care of the garden that he would have a ton of raspberries coming in. Historically - and I put these raspberries in 17 years ago - July 4th is what I think of as the start of raspberry season. Well I checked last years records and nope I picked my first berries on July 7th (3 of them) and on July 16th I showed the huge bowl of raspberries. I wonder why I think of July 4th as raspberry season? I'm thinking it is the Latham raspberries I used to have, but pulled out over a year ago. I used to use my Heritage raspberries as only fall bearing raspberries (technically they are called everbearers, but in reality they fruit in the fall on new wood and in the summer on old wood and there is a break in between) and would cut all the canes out in the winter. Now without my summer bearers I let them fruit twice. And they are fruiting like crazy. I pick them every two days and they fill up a large container. I eat them every morning on my cereal and I'm starting to freeze the excess. I just toss them into a bag and add more as I get more. I'm thinking raspberry sorbet or maybe jam.

Another wonderful new fruit coming in are my peppers. I've picked one or two before, but there were so many hanging off the plants I decided to pick them so they could set even more. I picked the oldest fruit so none would get ripe and stop production. Some are large and some are small, but they are all so tasty. I expected them to be hot. They are supposed to be twice as hot as jalapenos, but not this year. I think the cold weather has turned them sweet. They were sweet as candy with just a touch of spice. Quite tasty, but they will have to heat up a bit if I want them to spice up my salsas later in the summer. I diced them up and tossed them in the freezer. I'll keep saving them. They freeze fine. When defrosted they get a bit mushy, but for making salsa this isn't an issue.

The earliest spring carrots were pulled. They will keep me supplied for the next month until the next set comes in. As you can see I pulled the last of my cabbage too. These are all trimmed and washed and ready to be weighed.

It was a big herb week and I have more today to get dehydrated. I picked chamomile, sage, and mint (chocolate mint and candy mint). I had given all my dried sage to my son last time he was here. Now I have some again. My mint and chamomile is for tea in the winter time.

The peas are still producing. I think the Super Sugar Snaps have about had it. I have one more picking of them then they will be pulled. I'm saving seed on them and am a bit worried that the covings all have holes in them. Is this normal? The Cascadia are putting out more side shoots. The foliage on them is a bit wonky. It is thick and tough. The peas seem fine though. There are more blossoms starting so they will stay in for a while. The Mammoth Melting are still going strong. They may catch up in production to my snap peas if they keep this up. I wish I could pull them now. They are leaning in the paths so I have trouble walking by. They shade the squash a bit too.

The chard is still doing its thing every week. It is like clockwork. One picking a week at about half a pound. They have about four square feet (3' x 16") of space and this year have produced 4.7lbs of chard. I usually think the plants are doing well if I get a pound per square foot. These little troupers have already given me more than that. BTW I have about hmm maybe 400 sqft of bed maybe. I haven't really measured. But if I get a pound for each sqft of bed then I'd have 400lbs of food for the year. Somehow I don't think 400lbs is in my future, but I can dream.

Another good producer is my zucchini, but not yet. So far I have a few squash blossoms. The squash blossoms bring me to a dilemma. Which is the same dilemma I have with my cutting flowers (which I didn't do this week) and if I ever counted them my nasturium and borage flowers. I found out they sell for somewhere between $1-3 a blossom! I couldn't find them in my area so called it $1. Really? I would never in my life pay $1 for a single squash blossom. I understand why they cost that much. They are very perishable. I eat them the same day I pick them. They are good and are tasty in salads and stirfries, but really I wouldn't buy them at that price. I really think at the end of the year I'm going to put up two tallies - one that has my flowers in the total and one that doesn't. For now you are stuck with the tally that has flowers.

As to little bit of other non photographed items. I'm still picking lettuce. It is bolting faster so the heads are smaller, but it is still producing. I pick my Tropea and bunching onions when I need them. I have picked some tomatoes. The first one was abnormally large, but the last couple have been normal sized and smaller. Tomatoes are an issue though and to a smaller aspect my raspberries. I'm having shrinkage problems in my garden. No not the chipmunks stealing the fruit (yet), but the gardener is eating things out of hand. They get eaten right there. They don't get weighed. It is hard to resist a sun warmed cherry tomato. The raspberries are an issue too, but only when I drive somewhere. Luckily I don't drive much. Usually once or twice a week. The raspberries line the driveway. The drivers side opens right up onto the berries. You can't resist berries just staring you in the face. Really it is impossible. Some herbs miss the scale too. I picked a couple of basil leavess for a salad. Really a couple of leaves aren't worth weighing. They add up over time, but it is too hard to keep micro weights.

So here are the totals:

• Alliums 0.28 lbs
• Berries 1.64 lbs
• Carrots 2.34 lbs
• Greens 3.52 lbs
• Herbs 0.55 lbs
• Peas 1.44 lbs
• Peppers 0.34 lbs
• Tomatoes 0.19 lbs
  

Weekly total: 10.37 lbs
Weekly spent: $0
Yearly total: 41.2 lbs
Yearly earned: $33.33

Whoohoo! On the positive side. Finally. Of course without the cutting flowers I'm still quite negative, but for now I'll celebrate.

If anyone else is doing harvest posts, add your latest harvest to Mr. Linky. I hope it works. It is the first time using it. If not well put the link in the comments. Last year the Ottawa Gardener was trying to start up a harvest meme, but ended. Then Tessa was thinking of it, but didn't start. I was really hoping someone else would do the work because I just love seeing other people's harvests. Hopefully you will join me. Tallies are totally optional.