Monday, July 13, 2015

Harvest Monday, 13 July 2015

Lets start with the fruit this time. I harvested my gooseberries and my pink currants. I made jam out of the gooseberries and froze the currants. I'm slowly collecting all the currants as I'll make them into jam too. But each bush ripens at a different time, so I have to slowly collect them. I've also eaten some of those currants fresh. The pink ones are my favorite ones for eating out of hand. The red ones are too tart for me to eat straight.

The big harvest this week was the cabbages. I harvested over 10 pounds. None of the heads are huge, which is fine. I have trouble enough getting through one head at a time. Coleslaw is my favorite thing to make with it. Luckily it keeps well so in a couple of weeks when I'm harvesting mostly zucchini and cucumbers I'll get to eat the cabbage too.

The last kohlrabi was picked. It keeps pretty well too. I've mostly been enjoying my kohlrabi as fermented pickles and also fairly plain. I love them cut into sticks then steamed and cooled. I like them raw too, but slightly cooked is my favorite. I've picked a decent amount of turnips, but they are pretty badly damaged. Still worth cleaning up and eating though.

The kale was picked and pulled, so now it is just my chard for summer greens until the amaranth picks up. I didn't pick chard this week as I didn't feel I needed it. I'll need to do that soon or it will out grow its row cover.

I'm still picking from the apiaceae bed - fennel, parsley, and celery. And the lettuce is still growing. Though I've tossed some of it that was bitter (not shown). I have a feeling after our last heat wave more will have to be tossed. I just hope I can harvest something this coming week. The rosemary was picked out of desperation. I used the last of my dried rosemary from last year. I needed more for my rosemary bread. Since I'm gluten free, my husband is stuck eating like that too and he loves the rosemary bread. I do have a lot of rosemary in the garden right now. But it needs to get bigger so I can get a decent harvest to dry enough for the whole winter. But what I picked will tide me over.

I've been picking the Walla Walla onions as they have been getting bigger. I'm pretty disappointed in them so far though. "Big" is being pretty small this year. Dixondale sent some pretty crappy starts for them this year (the other onion varieties they sent were good). Starts are supposed to be around pencil width. I got plenty that were about 1/8" thick which isn't big enough to make a good bulb. But I'll use what I get. Two of them were used to make some onion powder. I used the last bit up from last year, so I needed more. I'll have to do it again later in the year, but these ought to hold me for a couple of months.

And last but not least are my carrots. I so love carrots. I have to keep myself from eating them at every meal or they will all be gone before the fall carrots come in. I'll probably pick the rest of the bed next week to get it ready for the fall cabbages. Hopefully I'll have cleared up some space in the fridge that is being used by my greens.

I was taking a look at some of the previous years' harvest tallies and comparing them to this year. Last year was my best year ever in the garden and I'm about 50 pounds ahead of those totals. I could still fall short this year. We have had some cool nights at times that slow down the melons and sweet potatoes. The melons this year are struggling more, but they might catch up. We will see. 2013 was my worst year ever in the garden and I'm 100 pounds ahead of those numbers. In 2012 we had the year without winter and I planted in February (remember this year the ground wasn't unfrozen until April). I'm about 15 pounds behind that year. I'm not surprised that that was the best spring ever in the garden. 2011 was the first year of this garden, and I'm about 100 pounds ahead so far this year. So all in all the spring crops have done well. I still have carrots to pick, but that is the last of the spring beds.

  • Alliums, 1.09 lbs
  • Broccoli, 0.31 lbs
  • Carrots, 3.33 lbs
  • Greens, 18.68 lbs
  • Herbs, 2.13 lbs
  • Roots, 2.84 lbs
  • Weekly total, 28.38
  • Yearly total, 211.16 lbs, $410.50

  • Fruits
  • Gooseberries, 5.92 lbs
  • Currants, 2.83 lbs
  • Fruit Yearly total, 36.25 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.

24 comments:

  1. Excellent harvests, Daphne. The pink currants are really pretty. Have you told us how you make onion powder? I can't imagine how many onions that takes, or how to dry them sufficiently to get powder.

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    1. I slice them very very thin with my mandolin and then dry them in my dehydrator for a couple of days. Then use the food processor to powder them. The two small onions only made about a tablespoon. I'll do a lot more later in the year.

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  2. Nice varied harvest. Love the photo of the row of cabbages. Got rid of my gooseberry plant not enough fenced in garden space to plant all that I would like. Wondering if deer will leave gooseberry plant alone?

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  3. Gorgeous as usual, and LOVE those currants and gooseberries! Not many people know or like them, but growing up in Europe it was one of the staples of summer fruit.

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  4. I had the same mixed results with the Dixondale onions. The intermediate day bundle had a few decent Super Star and the rest were tiny. A third of the Copra bundle were decent size, the rest very small. But they did OK once established.

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  5. So the pink currants are sweeter than the red. Interesting maybe something we need to consider.

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  6. My onions struggled this year but I blamed it on the excess rainfall we got. None of my starts was very big, certainly not pencil sized. I do want to try the pink currants. I think they would be a nice addition to our red and white ones.

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  7. I'm well into zucchini season and still eating cabbage too. It is amazing how well the European type cabbages keep in the fridge, even after they are cut. Most of my Dixondale starts were quite small as well, but they all sized up quite well, even most of the bolters. I can't blame the bolting on the starts, that was our weird warm winter followed by an unusually cool May, alliums just don't like that sort of temperature change. You certainly got a great variety of veggies this week.

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  8. Wow, I cannot get over what a wonderful variety you're bringing in! Everything looks so beautiful and delicious.

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  9. Such bounty! It is so pleasing to see. I have never had a gooseberry in life. Ah! Which is the tastiest cultivar in your opinion?

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    1. If I could just have one I'd grow Hinnonmaki Red as I could eat it out of hand and it cooks up well too. The Invicta is a better cooked variety, but it is too sour to eat without sugar.

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  10. Such bountiful harvests and even with a late spring. I wish you could share in our rosemary. It sprawls across the top of a stone wall for about ten feet.

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  11. I am always amazed at the variety of things you grow in your garden. The gooseberries look so pretty and ten pounds of cabbage should last you a while. My onions are not doing very well this year either and I grew them from seed. I think the early spring weather had a lot to do with it.

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  12. Your harvests are looking wonderful - so much variety! The turnips I sowed last month are taking their sweet time to develop - they take twice as long to mature than the earlier variety I grew, so I'm probably just being impatient.

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  13. Abundance and varied harvest, love those gooseberries, I got rid of them two years ago, they don't do well here, it was a waste of time and precious space for me.

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  14. So inspiring!! Where do you find the time? You are so talented!! I wish we lived near each other so I could learn from watching you! I'm harvesting my garlic today along with peas and onions today. Yay homegrown!

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    1. Thanks, but mostly I just spend my mornings in the garden during the summer. The afternoon is too hot for me. I do almost all my work before breakfast.

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  15. How disappointing that your Walla Wall starts from Dixondale were so poor. Don't they have a Quality Control department? I'm interested in the shape of some of your kohlrabi. In the past I have had some that went long like that, rather than round, but I don't understand what causes it. Do you know?

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    1. I've got no clue. I have some weird shaped ones every year.

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  16. Hi Daphne, Such a nice big harvest! That would be my dream! I harvested my first cabbage today. Since I am starting to harvest things I thought I would post here again. Thanks. Nancy

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  17. That's a fab harvest Daphne, especially the large basket of gooseberries, yum. I've picked some this week but should get the bulk of them soon

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  18. Terrific harvest -- already over 200 pounds! Maybe we need to carve out more space at our house..

    A.J. Coltrane -- Cheap Seat Eats

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  19. Daphne- Each week your harvest amazes me. You have such wonderful diversity. Those gooseberries and currents look amazing and that's one bumper crop of cabbage too.I see you are a number person like I am . One of the neat things about keeping a blog - really an online garden journal - for me is being able to compare one year to the next.

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  20. Looks great! I'm especially envious of your carrots. I've never been able to grow them. We've been enjoying the last of our cabbage in cabbage lasagna (essentially substituting cabbage for the past). Really good. We also have been eating lots of cole slaw. I don't think I've ever had gooseberries or currants. They look delicious.

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