Harvest Monday October 4th 2010

The last of the peppers for the season were harvested this week, as were the last of the potatoes. Things are winding down now that autumn is upon us, but the harvests are still coming! Along with the last of the potatoes I pulled a rather large leek on sunday afternoon:

The leek weighed a little over 3/4 of a pound

Harvest for this week:

Potato 1.623 lbs

Bush Beans 4.55 oz

Dry Beans 1.15 oz

Wax Pepper 4.45 oz

Bell Pepper 1.2 lbs

Garlic Chives .50 oz

Leek 12.45 oz

Weekly Total: 4.26 lbs/1.932 kg

Seasonal Total: 56.63 lbs/25.687 kg

If you want to see what others are harvesting or share in your own bounty, stop by Daphne's Dandelions the home of Harvest Monday.

Probably won't be much of a harvest this coming week as the weather calls for rain and I am off to Nashville at the end of the week. Before Nashville though, I'll be writing up the the local food festival and reading up on planting garlic and over-wintering leeks and some more general garden stuff. I still have more bush beens, herbs, radishes, some lettuce, a leek, kale and hopefully some walking onions too look forward too before the growing season is completely over!

We have liftoff (and bindweed)!

Gail and I headed to the plot Friday afternoon. When I arrived I found Gail happily weeding with a large pile serving as proof that we will be fighting an uphill battle against Bindweed (Calystegia sepium). Lots of serious hand weeding is ahead of us!

Besides the Bindweed springing up everywhere it can we saw signs of a garden coming to life.

I am extremely ecstatic to report numerous Beet and Mesclun mix seedlings emerging from the ground a mere 6 days after planting! I looked very carefully in the rows next to the Mesclun for Spinach and Romaine seedlings and believe I saw a few, however the Mesclun mix and Beet seedlings were easily visible in abundance so I will only confirm those for now. No visible seedlings from the Onions, Carrots or Cabbage yet but I will be back Sunday afternoon and hope to find more signs of life.

To celebrate our growth we began planting our herb bed. Garlic Chives, Dill, Sage and Chive seeds were planted in short rows before we left on account of darkness.

Garlic Chive seedlings!

On the 2nd of the month I posted about my little indoor garlic chive seed experiment. 2 of 3 cups have seen a few seedlings emerge. The first seedling in cup 2 emerged December 10th, while I first spotted a seedling in cup 3 on the 13th. 8 and 11 days (respectively) after planting. Cup 1 still hasn't produced any visible seedlings. I am not worried though, as I read that garlic chives typically take 12-15 days to emerge.
Given the success of this trial, I plan to plant most of the remaining seeds in late dec/early jan.

Garlic Chive seed planting (indoors)

For the sake of getting something growing in the apartment I planted some of the Garlic Chive seeds (from my last post) last night.

My supplies: soil, yogurt cups, tape, toothpicks, spoon, x-acto knife, plastic food container, scissors, marker, seeds & plastic wrap (not pictured)

Step 1-Use x-acto knife to cut small holes in the bottom of the yogurt cups:

Step 2-Fill yogurt cups with soil, place seeds in soil, sprinkle a little soil over the top & moisten soil:

Step 3-Label the yogurt cups:

Step 4-Place yogurt cups into food container. Place toothpicks in yogurt cups:

Step 5-Place plastic wrap over the container/yogurt cups resting gently on the toothpicks (so as not to bake the seeds). Do not seal the plastic wrap, leave room for air to flow:

The final product (above) is now resting atop a kitchen cabinet until sprouts are visible, when it will be transfered to a sunny window. I like this little setup because the materials were found within my living space. Better the yogurt cups and food tray go to use then getting tossed in the trash/recycling bin.

Seeds!

I recieved my first seed packet in the mail. Not from a seed company but from Ottawa Gardener over at The Veggie Patch Re-imagined! 3 weeks ago she posted a free seed offer. A few days before I started this blog I sent an email requested Garlic Chive seeds. The seeds arrived saturday moring. Most of the seeds are going to be saved for spring but I'll be planting some this week to grow indoors as I've got the itch to grow something, and these seems like just the thing.

My indoor planting space/system consists of various windowsills and planters made from recycled yogurt cups, juice/milk cartons, and soda bottles.