Monday, July 27, 2015

Harvest Monday, 27 July 2015

This week I had a much lighter harvest than normal. This is pretty typical in the transition from spring to summer for me. If I could actually eat all foods, I'd be harvesting things like tomatoes and peppers and legumes. I can't even touch a tomato plant as I get sick from that. At least the legumes I can grow for my townhouse mates. I don't grow much mind you, but I have a soft spot in my heart for beans. I've always loved them. And since I've never seen a bean beetle in my life, they have been easy to grow. Well at least until the rust takes them down.

Early summer harvests for me tend to be cucumbers and zucchini. I eat a lot of the cucumbers in cucumber salad, but I also pickle them. Before it was always refrigerator pickles, but this year I'm into fermenting, so I've started making pickles that way. One of the tricks to keep your pickles crisp, is to use something that contains tannins. Often these are grape leaves, which I don't grow here. But luckily for me, grapes grow wild all over. I picked a few from the bike path to make my pickles. These won't go into the tally since I only put things that I grow into that. But it was still a harvest and a very useful one.

I had a new harvest this week - amaranth. It wasn't big. I just picked the tops off of each plant. Hopefully they will bush out a bit.

The side shoots have started in the broccoli. Sadly I've noticed a huge infestation of aphids in some parts. I'll have to go out and deal with that today or the shoots will be inedible. I love the first shoots as they tend to be pretty large.

And of course I harvested chard.

And some onions.

  • Alliums, 1.56 lbs
  • Beans, 0.44 lbs
  • Broccoli, 0.49 lbs
  • Cucumbers, 2.45 lbs
  • Greens, 1.83 lbs
  • Summer Squash, 1.64 lbs
  • Weekly total, 8.39
  • Yearly total, 248.40 lbs, $502.37

  • Fruits
  • Currants, 1.11 lbs
  • Fruit Yearly total, 37.51 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.

30 comments:

  1. The amaranth sure is pretty. I have some plants to set out for fall once I get the bed ready. My fermented cucumbers were not crisp but had a good flavor. I do have some wild grapes growing here so I will have to try those in my next batch.

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  2. I'm sort of in transition, too, as the peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers are mostly not ready yet. The wild grape leaves are a good idea for the ferments. I have those growing all over the back yard.

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  3. Love the color of your red amaranth. A critter came by and ate all my red and green amaranth. Hope you are able to get rid of your aphids, they are a real pain.

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  4. Nice manageable harvests this week! The scallions look perfect. That's a neat trick about grape leaves--does it only apply to wild grapes? How do they actually get used in pickling?

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    1. No any grape leaf is good. Or any leaf with tannins in them. I think oak has a lot too. I put a couple leaves at the bottom of the jar. I just had one layer. If I had more I'd probably put in another layer of leaves.

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  5. That certainly is a good sized side shoot of broccoli. I have one volunteer red amaranth plant that popped up in one of the tomato/pepper beds. The foliage is so stunning.

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  6. Your "lighter" harvest is considerably larger than my regular harvest any week! That broccoli side shoot really is big. I think I'm going to give up on side shoots, still don't see much of anything and I've got better things to do with that space.

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  7. Your broccoli side shoots are quite big, mine are teeny in comparison but I am giving them a little more time before I pick. Your spring onions look pretty good too, i hope to harvest the rest of mine this week.

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  8. I've never eaten amaranth and pondered over a seed packet the other day thinking of salad leaves. Does it taste bitter?

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    1. No. It definitely has a different taste than other greens, but not in a negative way.

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  9. Beautiful harvest as always. and I also use grape leaves for pickling together with horseradish young leaves for spricy taste :)

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  10. That basket is lovely! I have never had luck getting amaranth to germinate. Did you direct seed it?

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    1. I did both ways as I had never grown it before. The indoor seeded starts grew bigger faster, but the outdoor ones germinated without problems.

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  11. I'm sort of in transition, too, as the peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers are mostly not ready yet. The wild grape leaves are a good idea for the ferments. I have those growing all over the back yard.

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  12. Hi! Colorful basket arrangement. Pretty enough for the front of a magazine! I have never thought about being in transition but I guess I go from asparagus to zucchini and then starts the other things. Nancy

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  13. As Susie said, your small harvest is bigger than most of my harvests! Especially this year.The amaranth is gorgeous. Do you use it mostly in salads?
    I hope the addition of fermented foods to your diet can help with your gut function and maybe eventually expand the foods you are able to eat.

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    1. No I'm growing them for cooked greens. They don't hold up quite as well as the brassicas for cooking, but still good.

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  14. Our transition goes cucumbers -> tomatoes -> peppers and tomatillos. If we couldn't eat tomatoes we'd have something of a gap too.

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  15. You had such beautiful harvests this week. Your broccoli shoots are larger than my main heads! I do have a couple of heads starting to size up on a few of the plants - I'm really looking forward to harvesting a larger head as that will be a first for me.

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  16. That's not a bad harvest for a "light" one! I'm wondering if you have a preference for red or green amaranth, I've found that I prefer the flavor of green.

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  17. Nice varied harvest, the amaranth is so pretty, I've been traveling so much this year and still didn't get to sow seeds for my fall planting, I better get to it soon.

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  18. Nice harvest. I love that you are getting cucumbers!! I saw the very first of ours is set and growing! Some time later this week!!

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  19. My first batch of fermented pickles did not turn out well. Hoping that yours do better.

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  20. Ha ha, I was just thinking 'this isn't a big harvest?' too. I would be very happy with that lot.

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  21. Can't wait to hear how the fermented pickles come out! I haven't tried making them yet. Your blog is so inspiring - thank you for sharing!

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  22. Daphne- Even your small harvest is a huge one to me! That is so interesting to me about the grapes growing wild around you. Much like our blackberries everywhere here I imagine. And the foliage on that amaranth is just stunning too. Enjoy your weekly harvest.

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  23. Have you ever tried making dolmades with wild grape leaves? I've made them a couple of times this year and they're really good!

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    1. No I never have. Dolmades are actually on my list of things to try to make sometime.

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  24. I didn't know that you could put grape leaves into pickles to keep them crisp. If I ever get any cucumbers, I'll try that. Except my grapevines may be dead by then. VBS.

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  25. Wow, your harvest is so big! I've just planted some more spring onion seeds, I'll be soo happy if I manage to harvest as many as you!

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