Monday, August 18, 2014

Harvest Monday 18 August 2014

I have so many of the typical harvest baskets. So I'll give you a very unrepresentative sample. Usually it is cucumbers, beans, basil, and sometimes chard or broccoli. This one has some root crops - turnips and beets. Though I took photos of them all, I'll spare you the repetition. Even I'm bored of them at this point and that is saying a lot since I never get bored of seeing the fresh veggies even if it is just beans and cukes.

What I will show you are the things I'm really loving this week. That would of course be corn. We eat it fresh most days. Oh it is so so good. My husband is constantly raving about it. The top basket is mostly the last of the first section of corn planted. The second basket is the first of the second planting of corn. There were more baskets this week as I pick it fresh everyday just before dinner, but those were the biggest.

I have to show off the peaches. I harvested over 14 pounds of them last week and I probably have the same amount left on the tree. I do have to split these with my townhouse mates as they are part of the landscaping for our yard. But I still have enough to do some preserving. Though I'm doing my best to eat a lot of them fresh with juice dripping down my chin. That really is the best way to eat a peach.

The last harvest I'll share is the last batch of onions. They were finally cured and dried so I could braid them and store them in the basement. I've been really shocked by the harvest totals this year. Especially when I look at last year's totals.

Variety20132014
Ailsa Craig16.2817.30
Redwing7.5211.89
Copra17.6435.94
Total41.4465.13

All of the onions had about the same amount of plants in the same set up as the year before. With the same fertilizer and treatment. There was only one thing different. I put netting over the onions to keep the onion maggots out of the patch. I can't believe how well it worked. The Ailsa Craig obviously isn't much affected by them, but the Copras, which are my main storage onion are obviously seriously set back by them. I know I've mentioned it before, but my Copras are really the best I have ever seen them. They show no signs of rot either. Any of them. Unlike in previous years. Then I'd make sure to eat the questionable ones first. Needless to say, I'll continue with the netting every year.

And though the yield of the Ailsa Craig onions aren't really different, they taste better this year. I was thinking of switching to a different variety because I wasn't fond of their taste as much as other sweet onions. But this year they all tasted great. So good in fact that I've been eating them constantly. As a sweet onion they don't store well. Though they are one of the best keepers for sweet onions. They last about 2 months in storage. In the past I often lost onions because I couldn't finish them up in time. But I only have a handful of them left. They will be gone way before the end of September this year.

And if you wish to compare onion varieties. The AC and RW onions have the same number of plants and the same conditions. There are exactly twice as many Copra onions, but it is hard to compare because I put the Copras closer to the path, which means they have more sun. Even with that though I'm surprised that the Copras out performed the AC onions (by a hair). The AC onions are a large sweet onion. They can get just huge. They got big, but none of them were huge.

  • Alliums: 26.73 lbs
  • Beans: 1.20 lbs
  • Broccoli: 0.96 lbs
  • Corn: 11.23 lbs
  • Cucumbers 12.68 lbs
  • Greens: 1.17 lbs
  • Herbs: 0.20 lbs
  • Roots: 1.85 lbs
  • Squash, Summer: 1.21 lbs
  • Weekly Total: 57.23 lbs
  • Yearly Total: 337.98 lbs
  • Yearly Tally: $425.98

  • Fruit
  • Raspberries: 0.33 lbs
  • Peaches: 14.34 lbs
  • Weekly Total: 14.67 lbs, $46.87
  • Yearly total: 27.57 lbs, $102.12

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.

33 comments:

  1. Every time I see photos of your peaches I drool. Maybe next year?

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  2. As always an enviable harvest that inspires you to grown your own. Your sweetcorn looks absolutely scrumptious, I would love to get my gnashers around some of them. I am hoping to grow some next year.

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  3. Great crop of onions! I'm sure you've told us before, but what variety of peach is that? Is it a dwarf tree, and when did you plant it?

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    1. It is a dwarf Red Haven peach.

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    2. Oh and I planted it in 2011. This is the second year it has produced fruit for us, though much more this year than last year.

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  4. What a basket of perfect tree ripened peaches, I would love a few right now. How do you prevent them from insect damage? Do you need to spray?

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    1. There is insect damage on a few of them, but most are blemish free.I don't do anything most of the time. I've never sprayed the tree with more than a soap and fish emulsion solution when the aphids were trying to take over the world one year.

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  5. Nothing says summer to me any better than peaches and corn, and yours are lovely! Those are some great onions too. I wish we could grow storage types here but our latitude makes it difficult to find one that does well.

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  6. Nice looking onions. One of these days when I a little more room, I will have to plant a peach tree. Those peaches look great!

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  7. I'm going to echo others on how wonderful peaches, corn and onions look!

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  8. The peaches and corn look fabulous! I am always impressed with your onion braids. So pretty and functional. It must have been a good year for onions. Mine did better than ever even with the disease issues I had.

    Thank you for hosting Harvest Monday each week. It is my favorite blog hop :)

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  9. Nice baskets of corn and peaches. I don't have the room for those so I leave it the orchards around here to supply me with my fix. Impressive onion harvest. Mine is probably smaller than last year because a lot of my transplants didn't make it.

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  10. Corn and peaches - double yum! It's wonderful when you find a method that significantly improves your harvest, as in your netting of the onions. What a difference it made!

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  11. I'm so impressed (well, with everything) with your onions! I haven't figured out how to grow a decently sized onion bulb - - mine are all the size of a golf ball or smaller. And your corn and peaches look so yummy!

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  12. What wonderful harvests this week! What rewards for all your investments in the garden.

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  13. I love the peaches, I'm very jealous. We are still several years away from peaches on our new tree!! Your onion harvest looks great!! Funny my copras are still a week or so away from being ready to come out but your are all done???

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  14. Corn and peaches, oh yum. What a delicious week of harvests you had.

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  15. Corn, peaches and onions!! Excellent haul this week Daphne!!

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  16. Your onion braids are so beautiful! And those peaches! Thanks for previously sharing how you preserved some of them.

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  17. I am getting bored with posting the same pictures over and over too but not bored eating most of it!! Lucky you to have beet greens. Mine are all gone and I like to put them in my smoothies. Nancy

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  18. That is an impressive harvest of onions, more so because of the increase on last years harvest. My onion harvest here in the midwest was also very good this year, no rot or fungi on any of them (I grow Ruby Ring). Nice that a landscape tree can produce so many nice peaches.

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  19. Daphne ! Those braided onions are gorgeous!

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  20. That corn really is fab.....I only have a few but they are tasty. If I'm lucky there might be some to freeze.

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  21. The onions are beautiful just for the bulbs, but I love the braiding work. Never tried it before - probably because I've never had enough onions!! And amazing harvest of peaches after just a few years?!

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  22. The onions are beautiful! And I can practically taste the peaches. Yum!

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  23. I didn't grow any Copras this year (trying Cortland instead) but my garden neighbor's Copras are the biggest either of us have ever seen. This was very unexpected because the community plots were not available until May and the onions were planted around May 10.

    Perhaps Copras like the cooler summer we are having.

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  24. Fresh corn and peaches for dessert sounds like heaven.

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  25. I enjoyed reading about your experience growing onions. I think it’s interesting that something can taste differently from one year to the next when growing methods are the same, and it makes me reconsider vegetable varieties that I didn’t like in my first garden. The red and yellow onions braids are so pretty together.

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  26. What lovely peaches, corn and onions. Such a magnificent harvest. I have so enjoyed reading about your many pursuits Daphne, I wonder how you find time to garden at all. You are growing a great diverse range of vegetables and I hope you enjoy preserving your peaches :D

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  27. Daphne, I don't know what impresses me more..the sweet corn harvest of the Peaches! Both are amazing. Isn't it interesting how some crops do better certain years than other years. That's part of the fun of gardening, trying to figure out why. Thanks for hosting!

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  28. Your corn and peaches look amazing!!

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