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.

Variety	2013	2014
Ailsa Craig	16.28	17.30
Redwing	7.52	11.89
Copra	17.64	35.94
Total	41.44	65.13

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.

Down They Come

After Removal

I had one huge wall of beans, but the Kentucky Wonder beans started with rust and it was just getting worse. They were producing, but not a lot. I decided they needed to come out along with the yard long beans next to them (they too were infected badly, in addition the KW beans had sent over vines and were mixing into them). I left up the Golden Gate beans. I've liked those beans. They keep putting out more flowers. It probably isn't enough to make much of a meal now, but we will see.

As you can see the chard in front of the beans now gets a lot more light. Well some of it at any rate. I noticed its production had dropped. I think with the less light due to the season and due to the beans was a bit much for it. I'm also detecting a bit of rot on the stems that isn't normal. This is the first time I've tried to grow chard with beans to the SE side of them. I knew it might hurt their production, but before this it hadn't. Behind the beans was some scraggly lettuce that I tried to grow over the summer. Not very well either. I figured the lack of light in the section would be enough to keep it going, but I'm not sure it got enough water. Now that some beans are out and the lettuce is out, I might rip out some of those onions as I'd like to use the section for some baby Asian greens. If so I'd better get to seeding them soon.

Right next to the bean bed is the cucumber and zucchini bed. I keep getting way, way too many cukes. So I figured I'd pull half the patch. That will also give more light to the area so my Asian greens will grow better. I've given away a lot of cucumbers. I'm getting sick of eating them every day and I love cucumbers. It is weird that I want to take down my beans and cucumbers because they are two of the veggies that I can count on every day. I guess I'm ready for a change. It is almost that season.

Maybe tomorrow I'll finally remove the hoops from the zucchini section now that I can reach it better. I really don't need those up. Funny how I don't notice it in the garden, but it is glaring in one of the photos.

The third thing I took down this weekend was the tarp that covered my drying onions. They looked very good. So I trimmed them up and braided them. They are now stored in the basement. I looked over the numbers and I did very very well in onions this year. I'll be more detailed about that in my Harvest Monday post.

Again I still left some work for myself. I haven't taken down the onion rack. But I'm sure I'll get to it this week. Then maybe I can deal with the compost. It won't be long before I need it to put over the beds in the fall.

Single Serving Peach Cobbler

I've been eating peaches every day. Usually I have a snack in the afternoon and peaches are the star. Yesterday it was three peaches. Yum. But I figured I could eat more. I certainly have them. So I made a peach cobbler. Not a huge big thing. I created a fruit cobbler recipe that makes just one ramekin of cobbler. I can use up small bits of fruit. And since it is just me eating it, I don't have to deal with a large cobbler that is too much to eat. And each time I make it is is fresh. I wish I had taken a photo of it last night. But it was gobbled up too fast. Oh my was it good. That decided me. I was going to preserve some peaches so I could eat this in the winter, when I really need the fresh taste of peaches and there aren't a ton of them on my counter.

Peaches are acidic fruit so as long as it is just fruit, sugar, and lemon juice, I'm all set with doing a water bath can of these. It doesn't matter the proportions. My cobbler last night was a touch too sweet and I used 1 1/2 T of sugar to 3/4 c+ of peaches. This time I used 6 cups cut up and smooshed down peaches with 3/8 c sugar, and 2 T lemon juice. Just for the record that is still a bit too sweet. I'm wondering if these peaches need sugar at all. They are very sweet as is. I figured I'd needs some as I'm adding lemon juice. Maybe next time I'll try just 1/4 c sugar. I know I'm making a dessert, but a balance is good.

I cooked it down for about 4 minutes. The big question for me was how long to water bath can them. Peach jam has a processing time of 10 minutes. Canned peaches are 20 minutes. They aren't as cooked down as a jam, but certainly more than a peach half. So I split the difference at 15 minutes.

I made 5 1/2 half pints. I thought a cup was the perfect size for my mini cobbler so I used the cup sized jam jars. And that nice orange color to my peaches is made because I do not remove the skins on my peaches. They are home grown and not sprayed. Why waste the most nutritious part? Even if it is dessert. I wipe the fuzz off of them before I cut them up and they pretty much disappear into the peaches by the time they are cooked.

I always think of cobblers as a very American dessert if old fashioned. I don't know if it is true or not. For all I know it originally came from another country. But in our country cobbler is a very traditional dish and depending on where in the country you come from, you make it differently. In the south they tend to make a more cake like cobbler. Here in the north it is more of a biscuit type of cobbler. I'm from the north so that is the kind that I grew up with.

Last year I was into making fruit crisps which is a wholly different and also similar dessert. It is easier to make small batches of that as there is no buttermilk (or anything wet except butter) in the topping. I just had a batch of the topping made up and stored in the fridge. When I wanted some I tossed some fruit, sugar, and cornstarch into the ramekin and then sprinkled on the topping.

But a cobbler must be made fresh every time. And it is best hot out of the oven. So a single serving is the way to go if you have no one to share it with. I think the best cobbers are made with buttermilk (of the northern versions at least, there are some really good southern ones made with egg as the liquid, but you can't do those single serving) . Buttermilk is not something I have in my fridge on a regular basis. So I've made the recipe to use 2 tablespoons of buttermilk. I buy a container of buttermilk and freeze it in my ice cube trays which are exactly 2 tablespoons in size. Every time I want to make cobbler I defrost one. Since I figured out this trick I've dispensed with crisps as cobblers are so much yummier. At least I think so.

Oh and since my cobbler is a generic fruit cobbler some of the ingredients have ranges. If you use a very sweet fruit, use the lower amount of sugar. If it is rhubarb use the highest. If it is a wet fruit like peaches use the most cornstarch if it is drier like blueberries use the least. And the last one is lemon juice. If it is really tart like a gooseberry, leave it out. If it needs that tartness kick add it in. Basically use your good judgement.

Late posted photo of tonight's cobbler

Daphne's Single Serving Fruit Cobbler

• Filling:
• 3/4c tightly packed, slightly mashed fruit (or 1 c more loosely packed fruit that will cook down)
• 0 to 1 T lemon juice
• 1/2 to 1 T cornstarch
• 1/2 to 3 T sugar
• Topping:
• 1/4 c flour
• t sugar
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/8 t salt
• T butter
• 2 T buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Mix up the filling ingredients and put in a large ramekin.

Combine all but the last ingredients for the topping and either cut the butter into it or use a small food processor so the butter is no bigger than a small pea. (I smoosh it with a fork until it is right.) Add buttermilk. Mix until combined. Put over the top of the fruit. Bake 25 minutes or until the topping is golden brown.

Enjoy!

Repairing the Damage

Staked Fennel

We had a storm come through on Wednesday. It dropped about 1.5" of rain which we sorely needed. But with the wind and rain a few things got knocked over. Nothing was all that bad except the fennel. It is blooming and setting seed right now and it has a lot of heavy blooms. In fact I can't believe all the blooms on it. But I had no stakes to prop them up with. So I first had to recover some from the corn patch.

Most of the corn in this patch has been harvested, but I hadn't cut down the finished stalks. Or removed the bamboo stakes that I put in after another storm knocked all the corn down. So I went about doing that.

Now that a lot of the plants have been removed, the squash will be happier. It was really trying to invade the paths. In fact it got away from me as it always does.

One branch went up and over my poor current bush and over the fence. After propping up the zinnias on the one side with some string and taking out the corn plants on the other. I found a lot of fruit in there. So my poor current will have to live in the shade for the rest of the year. I haven't seen a lot of the squash set, so any that have will stay.

If you remember from before I said this corn was setting two ears per stalk. That is true. But the second ear usually look like the one above or even less developed. A few have been edible but not many. The first ears are all perfect, but not these ones. So the stalks left have second ears that might do something. I'm hoping.

The wasps on the fennel were swarming around the flowers as I staked them up. There was even a white faced hornet (never fear they are very gentle hornets). I really wanted to take a photo of them, but couldn't get the silly camera to focus on them. Then a downy woodpecker landed on one of the stakes in the cleared out corn bed. He happily sat there for a while. I sort of got him in focus. I really need my husband's good camera for this. A point and shoot doesn't do focus on small things well. But this bird has been visiting every day now since the sunflower has ripened some seed. Sometimes I'll walk by the plant and not notice him (since the flowers are 8' high), but then I hear him fly off.

Peaches

Can you say PEACHES? This is one over abundance that I will never complain about. I picked these off my tree yesterday morning. There are still a lot of peaches left on the tree. So I'm celebrating. Since the trees are part of the landscaping these are split between my townhouse mates and me. So they get half and I get half. They have four people that have to share them all, but here it is just me as my husband doesn't eat peaches (yes crazy I know). So I get a lot all to myself. And nope I'm not sharing.

I ate two yesterday and three today. I'm trying to eat the ripest ones first. Some will need a few days to ripen on the counter. But I'm really hoping that there will be more than I can eat. I want to be able to preserve them for the first time ever. Should I just can plain peaches to eat at lunch? Should I can a mix for peach cobbler? Should I make a peach rum sauce? Peach jam? Peach butter? Peach syrup? Peach leather? Peach cordial? Or just freeze them plain for my smoothies? Argggghh so many choices. What would you make?

Taming the Zucchini and Preserving

I'm not quite sure what came over me yesterday. I really have to seed some fall vegetables, but did I do that? No. Instead I was looking for zucchini in the patch and decided it needed to be cleaned out. Not pulled, but Costata Romanesca likes to put out side shoots. And it runs. The old leaves die off, the new ones look nice. So the patch was mostly a mass of foliage that wasn't producing. There was lots of yellow leaves that were trying to find light but were getting cut off by their neighbors branch.

So I found where each of the three plants came out of the ground and followed them along. I cut off all the side branches and the old leaves. It looks so much better now. And I can find the zucchini when and if it produces.

I found the main reason it wasn't producing too. Once all that old struggling foliage was off I could see the ground. That morning I watered and not a drop touched the ground. The wall of cucumbers had gotten so tall that it blocked the sprinkler from hitting it. I'm going to have to hand water from now on. Or at least until the cucumbers die off.

Once I got inside something again came over me. Usually I would eat and walk the dog. But I just had to use up some of my mass of cucumbers. So I made more pickles. I definitely don't need to make any more this year. I'll have to find homes for all the rest of the cucumbers. I did have one friend that took a pound and Donna has said she wants some for pickles. I hope she takes them all as every day I pick more and more. I need to rethink giving cucumbers 8 sqft in the garden. It doesn't seem like a lot of space. But they have given me 38 pounds already and there are tons of little cukes on the vine just waiting to size up.

The dog and I finally went for our walk about an hour and a half late. He was not very happy with that. He kept giving me this look telling me I was neglecting him all because of some weird need to do something now that could have been done later. It isn't like the cucumbers were going to walk off or anything. Though I can always hope.

And even though I hadn't been posting about it, I've been doing other preserving like making flavored vinegar with my herbs. Above are tarragon and basil. I also made an Italian flavored one, but I thought the oregano was a bit too strong in it. I might have to dilute it with more basil and thyme.

I've been freezing things too. Last week I froze some celery. And Then some chard, zucchini, and corn. Everyday now I freeze more corn. I pick what is ready and we eat what we want for dinner. I offer some to my townhouse mates, and anything not eaten is frozen. So not too much has been frozen yet, but I think over time it will add up.

Harvest Monday, 11 August 2014

Let's start with the good this week. And that would be corn. I harvested corn five days this week. Yesterday I even harvested enough to freeze. I've been sending some over to our townhouse mates. It isn't as perfectly pollinated as last year. This corn seems to put out its pollen later in the day. I'm used to the morning pollen. So I hand pollinated it during the morning. I noticed there wasn't much pollen at all when I did it. Once when I was out just before lunch I knocked them and pollen was everywhere. I always figured all corn was the same. At least I know for next year.

I was good and caught up on the chard. The first one was a large enough harvest to get two servings to freeze.

I harvested the early Copras and the rest of the Ailsa Craig sweet onions. Most of the latter had been eaten over time, but I had a decent amount to store. For a sweet onion it keeps pretty well, but not longer than two months, so they get eaten first. There were four braids of onions. Three of Copra and one of Ailsa Craig. In one or two weeks the rest of the storage onions will be dry and I'll braid those up.

Not all my alliums are bulbing onions. The bunching onions are getting harvested and used too. In addition to the bunch above for me, I gave a bunch to a friend that was visiting. I have way too many of these in the garden. I didn't weight that bunch. Things do slip through, though usually it is the herbs that don't get weighed.

I had a lot of the typical cuke and beans baskets. They often come with something else, be it broccoli, zucchini, herbs, or beets. I have a lot more photos, but I'll spare you the repetition. Let's just say I could use less cucumbers. I harvested 15 pounds of them this week. If I'm really trying I might be able to eat half of that, but usually not even that much. I did give away a couple of batches of them, but I need to give some more away this week. It is way, way too many cucumbers. If this keeps up it will be my best cucumber year ever - or the worst depending upon how you look at it. I hate throwing produce into the compost pile. I do see signs of them slowing down, but not quickly.

But until they stop I'm eating lunches like these (though often with carrot sticks too). I do love my cucumber salads.

In other good news the peaches have started. I did pick them just a tad too early. It took them four days to ripen on the counter. I'm getting impatient with them. Last year I started picking them in July. This year they are taking longer.

The autumn raspberries have started too. I'm so happy. I've been going out every morning to see what I can put on my cereal. Sometimes it is a small handful. The worst morning it was just two. But I'll take even two. They are so good.

Now for the bad news. I had to rip up a lot of the celery due to mosaic virus. I'll probably have to do the rest this week. This makes me really sad as the plants really like the cool fall weather and they would put on a lot more growth. I've never seen this in my garden before and I wonder where it came from. From the celeriac seeds? I'm not really sure.

• Alliums: 30.34 lbs
• Beans: 0.86 lbs
• Broccoli: 1.98 lbs
• Corn: 9.67 lbs
• Cucumbers 15.51 lbs
• Greens: 2.54 lbs
• Herbs: 0.79 lbs
• Roots: 1.11 lbs
• Squash, Summer: 0.74 lbs
• Weekly Total: 63.54 lbs
• Yearly Total: 270.20 lbs
• Yearly Tally: $293.80

• Fruit
• Raspberries: 0.21 lbs
• Peaches: 3.46 lbs
• Weekly Total: 3.67 lbs, $12.85
• Yearly total: 12.89 lbs, $55.25

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.

Braiding Onions

Sorting onions

Yesterday after getting the lettuce transplanted and my mache seeded, I noticed that the first Copra onions that I picked were dry. The others aren't far off, but they weren't quite ready yet. The clouds looked threatening, but I figured I could get them braided and inside before it let down.

Braiding Copras

I was wrong on two counts. It never really let down. It just dribbled. And I only got through two braids before I had to go in. Some people make really long braids, but I like short ones with about 10 onions. I think they look nicer and are easier to carry.

Copra top, Ailsa Craig bottom

This morning I went out to finish the job. I got one more Copra braid, but I noticed the Ailsa Craig onions way in the back were ready enough. So I did those too. I've been eating these all through July so there weren't enough for even two braids. I just made one. And kept three onions for the kitchen. If you are interested in a braiding tutorial, I made one years ago.

I still have Copras out there drying. And I noticed that the ones on the far side of the rack weren't getting as dry as the ones closer to the left. So I moved all the onions still on the rack to the left side. The right side has a pallet in front of it and some morning glories growing up it. It really blocks the air flow. Next time I do this I'll have to remove the pallet for better drying.

I weighed the onions I braided and hung them in the basement for storage. Though I still have Copras to harvest, the final tally numbers are in for the Ailsa Craig onions. I thought they were a bit smaller than last year, but the numbers don't lie. I got about a pound more this year than last with the same number of plants. So I might have had a few huge ones last year, but they were more consistently large this year.

I'm really thrilled this year is a good onion year. You just never know what is going to do well each year. The celery is pretty sad. I had to harvest three more bunches due to mosaic virus. I ought to just rip the rest out and freeze it. The new variety, Tango, is all pulled up now and the virus took it right down, but my old standby, Ventura is still trying to hold its own. And the beans are getting hit hard by rust. Today I stripped off about half of their leaves to keep the spread down. But it is only a matter of time before they all come down. I found that the Kentucky Wonder beans are really very susceptible to it, but the new bean I tried this year, Golden Gate, isn't hit nearly as hard. Plus it put out a lot of beans before the rust got into the patch as it is an early bean. I might have to grow this one instead of KW from now on. The asparagus beans seem not as badly affected too. Though it is starting to get into them also. So it is a bad beans and celery year, but a good onion and corn year. I think I'm happy with that.

An Empty Bed

After ripping out the onions last week, the bed has just been sitting there. I should have planted the kale right away, but I just didn't get to it. I've been feeling lazy recently. There were weeds in the bed. One of the weeds was some alpine strawberries. So I transplanted those out to the front yard on Monday.

Sadly my laziness also let my kale plants dry out enough to badly wilt. Watering did bring them back, but I know better than to do that. I'm really not good at watering every day.

So I finally got my act in gear yesterday and planted up the kale. Only four of the Winterbor were doing well, so most of it is Scotch Curly Kale. The later tends to survive the winter better here, but the former puts out a lot more kale rapa to eat in the spring. I much prefer to have them half and half.

The bed is not just going to have kale. I sowed some cilantro down the middle for fall harvests. Once I find my mache seed (where did it go?). I'm going to under plant it with that.

And since I've been ignoring my gardening duties, which includes dead heading the coneflowers, I was rewarded with a goldfinch coming to eat the seeds. Sometimes it pays off being a lazy gardener. I had to take the photo through my back window as when I tried to go outside it would always fly off. A Downy Woodpecker visited my sunflower yesterday too. Then the Cardinals came to visit. It is nice seeing some of the other birds besides European sparrows. There are flocks of those in the neighborhood, but not a lot of other variety.

Two Sisters Beds

Yesterday was a red letter day for my husband. He has been asking for the last several weeks about the corn. Is it ready yet? I'm terrible at telling when to pick it. I always rip the biggest ear open a bit so I know when to start. And oh was it good. My husband said it must have been time consuming for me to inject sugar into every kernel. Some people like the old fashioned corn that isn't as sweet. My husband loves the newer varieties.

For the first time this year I'm growing growing a yellow corn. In the past I've always tried bicolors. I've found that in New England bicolor corn is the traditional. Where I grew up in Colorado my parents won't eat anything but white corn. I'm only growing one variety Honey Select. I've been trying new varieties every year as many of the newer hybrids have trouble sprouting in cold spring soil. This seemed to do pretty well, but I didn't push the season much. What surprised me about this variety is that they produce two ears for every stalk. Though I haven't checked them all, I even have one stalk that has three ears on it. They seem to be forming pretty well too. Amazing.

Bed 1

The other of the two sisters plants is the squash. You can see it growing all around the foot of the corn. I give it three feet at the ends of beds. This space contains two squash plants spaced two feet apart. Then I train it to grow into the middle of the corn. I plant the corn and the squash on the same day. The corn is spaced a foot apart. The corn grows a bit faster and it seems to work. My only issue is when the corn doesn't sprout and I have to replant. Then the squash can overtake the corn on the edges. This is why I need a really good sprouting corn. It can't fail or I'd have to rip out my squash too and restart.

The only squash I'm growing is Waltham butternut. It is productive for me and resists those nasty vine borers. Every year I worry about it setting in time to ripen. This year the first little one set on August 1st. It is now a bit over 4" long. I see a few others starting to set too. Squash is a big winter crop for me, so I need them set soon.

Bed 5

I have two full 4'x16' beds planted up as two sisters.

Bed 7W

And one 4'x 8' section planted up near the beans. This is 25% more space than I had last year for these crops. So I'm really hoping they do well this year. The corn certainly seems very happy. I expect I'll get a lot of frozen corn for winter. Usually I just get a few packets, but not many. Also this year I didn't space the corn plantings out very much like I usually do. I was originally planning to go to London later in August, but that trip was canceled. I tried to time it so it would all be ripe before we left. So when the corn starts to really come in this week we will be inundated for a couple of weeks then we will have nothing. Last year I had better timing and we ate sweet corn for a month or so almost every day. I think when I plan summer vacations mid July is best as I can time things better to leave a gap in production. August is a terrible time to leave.