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.