Harvest Monday September 27th 2010

Fairly small harvest this week, dry beans have nearly dried up, the parade of peppers is winding down, the green beans are coming in small batches (there are only 3 plants but each picking is enough for a meal), and I managed to salvage 2 potatoes. Thus far the potatoes have been mostly a bust with no serious harvests and not many plants left to produce one. As it is my first season gardening its all a learning experience, the success' and failures will help me plan and execute better next year!

Harvest for this week:

Dry Beans 1.05 oz

Bush Beans 3 oz

Bell Pepper 2.95 oz

Wax Pepper 3.60 oz

Potato 8.05 oz

Weekly Total: 1.166 lbs/528.72 g

Seasonal Total: 52.37 lbs/23.755 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.

Harvest Monday August 16th 2010

Tomatoes, tomatoes and more tomatoes! We also harvested the beautiful orange wax pepper in my last post, as well as the first green bell pepper! I had to pull up a few of the potato plant due to crowding/space issues! All in all a productive week!

This Week's Harvest Totals:

11.790 lbs Tomatoes

2.5 oz Cranberry Beans

4.25 oz Bell Pepper

1.24 oz Wax Pepper

14.25 oz Potato

12 oz Basil

.03 oz Mint

Weekly Total: 13.932 lbs/6.319 kg

Seasonal Total: 30.13 lbs/13.667 kg

Harvest Totals have been updated.

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.

Some Color from the Garden - Shades of Red edition

A short trip to the plot today showed that shades of red are really standing out these days!

The sunflowers are exploding with color. This one in particular caught my eye:

I've been leaving a few Hungarian Wax peppers on the plant to ripen in the hopes that I can get a few red ones for seed. This one is the first to turn orange. In the back right of the photo another wax pepper from the same plant is still in the greenish-yellow stage:
I picked these Cherry Tomatoes this afternoon. They are black cherry, have a slightly sweet taste and are a wonderful dark almost purple color:
One pod of the Ottawa Cranberry Beans produced beans that were more red then the usual mix of cream and red the beans usually end up:
The Cranberry Bean jar (note the new jar) is filling up more and more each day:

Harvest Monday August 9th 2010

A great week weather wise! The tomatoes are coming in full force. Here is a nice picture of some of sundays harvest:

The beautiful bouquet of sunflowers was part of the harvest. We also finally got a few Scarlet Nantes carrots that had reached a good size! The hungarian pepper was just starting to turn from yellow to a more orange, it was picked to add a little zing to a homemade pasta sauce.

Last week we had eeked out 4 cranberry beans, but this week they really came strong! Each trip to the garden resulted in more beans being harvested:

Harvest totals for this week:

3.77 lbs Tomatoes

8 oz Basil

5.45 oz Cranberry Beans

2 oz Carrots

1.10 oz Wax Pepper

Weekly Total: 4.80 lbs/2.177 kg

Seasonal Total: 16.198 lbs/7.347 kg

Harvest Totals have been updated.

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.

Harvest Monday - August 2nd 2010

This week was an explosive week in the harvesting department! The first full sized tomatoes were picked on Wednesday. 2 Early Girl and 3 Striped Roman tomatoes:

We headed to the garden to do some major weeding and prep work for the fall on Saturday. When we got there we had discovered one of the striped roman tomatoes was collapsing out of it's cage under the weight of all the tomatoes that were on it! For the sake of the rest of the tomato plants we pulled the plant and took home all of the green tomatoes. We also grabbed a few cranberry red potatoes, some baby onions, 3 more ripe tomatoes, and a hungarian wax pepper:

We ended up picking 2 more ripe tomatoes, and some small bunches of Basil, Chives, and Sage yesterday which didn't make it into a photo.

Harvest Totals this week:

1.55 oz Cherry Tomatoes (including the first cherry tomatoes from 7/22)

2.84 lbs Tomatoes

3.44 lbs Green Tomatoes

4.25 oz Potato

1.05 oz Onion

.50 oz Hungarian Pepper

.55 oz Sage

.65 oz Basil

.45 oz Chives

Weekly Total: 6.75 lbs/3.06 kg

Seasonal Total: 11.394 lbs/5.168 kg

Harvest Totals have been updated.

Now that full sized tomatoes have certainly been harvested, the tomato watch is over. I'll note the first harvests and keep track for next year!

Another First harvest this week:

2 undersized Cranberry Bean pods had already dried out, yielding 4 Ottawa Cranberry Beans. The beans came from Daphne by way of Ottawa Gardener.

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.

Signs of Things to come...

It's hot out. 6 days of 90F/32C or higher. Before watering the plot I took a few shots. Here is what is (hopefully) coming in the near future:

(This Sunflower is nearly ready to burst with color)

(The first Yukon Gold potato has started blooming. At least I think it's Yukon Gold)

(The Ottawa Cranberry Beans I got from Daphne are flowering and setting pods)

(Black Cherry Tomatoes are on their way)

(Early Girl Tomatoes?)

(Looks like there might be a Zucchini in there somewhere!)

(Blurry but wonderful looking Hungarian Wax Pepper)

Everything is growing so fast I'm barely able to keep track of it all!

Cranberry Beans & Cranberry Bread.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the wonderful gift of seed I received from Daphne's Dandelions last friday:

A packet of Ottawa Cranberry Pole Beans for the forthcoming garden!! They look delicious & can't wait for them to be in the ground! Once grown & harvested I will surely be passing on a few packets of dried beans of my own to spread into the gardening world.

As noted in my previous post I was quite disappointed due to the lack of black cranberries in my produce delivery. I had grand plans for cranberry walnut bread, chutney and a tart wonderful snack. Not to be deterred I was off to the neighborhood natural food store for a large container of dried local cranberries. They are a good substitution for what I was expecting.

In celebration of cranberries I made a delicious & incredibly simple cranberry walnut bread:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup butter

1 egg

3/4 cup orange juice

1 tablespoon grated orange peel

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1. In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Beat egg, orange juice and peel; stir into dry ingredients just until blended. Add the cranberries and walnuts.
2. Spoon batter into a greased and floured 8-in. x 4-in. x 2-in. loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 65-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

The recipe is easy and worked well enough, though I would reduce the heat 10-15 degrees and bake a tad longer next time. After years of cooking adventure I am slowly dipping my toe into the world of baking (primarily with bread making), and thus far I've enjoyed it.