Harvest Monday July 11th 2011

The harvests keep rolling in!! summer is definitely here with some heat and humidity that my peppers and tomatoes have really loved!

This weeks harvest is all about variety. Included in the harvest is the 3 heads of test garlic I mentioned last week that were dry enough for our liking. I also harvested the final 2 heads of Red Cross Butterhead lettuce. One of them is pictured here:

We also got down the basil (see below) and Gail made our first batch of pesto cubes!

This Week's Harvest:

Lettuce (Red Cross Butterhead) 1.056 lbs (16.9 oz)

Chives .55 oz

Walking Onions 2.65 oz

Huckleberry 1.50 oz

Raspberry 1.50 oz

Green Garlic 2.45 oz

Garlic 3.35 oz

Basil 9.75 oz

Total for the week: 2.416 lbs (38.65 oz)

Total for the season: 6.25 lbs (100 oz)

The dry beans and min-zucchini have had some critter issues so we will see if we get a harvest from them. The bush beans were so ravaged that I pulled them before they could anything. It's a constant battle against bugs, critters, and the weather. What's a gardener to do?!

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

Harvest Monday July 4th 2011

The Garden is starting to take off and kick into the heat of summer. Below is our incredibly fresh harvest as it was harvested today after a hard day of work and the great 4th of July Picnic/Barbecue the Fenway Garden Society threw. Here's what we harvested after some hard sweaty work this morning:

Chives: 4 oz

Mesclun Greens: 2.90 oz

Green Garlic: 1.25 oz

Lettuce (Red Cross Butterhead): 12.65

Total for this week: 1.3 lbs (20.80 oz)

Total for the season: 3.834 lbs (61.35 oz)

We also harvested 3 heads of non-green garlic which I will add to the harvest total once they are dried out.

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

Signs of things to come

The garden has quickly transitioned from waking up to promising future delights. While weeding on Sunday I snapped a few pictures.

Our first 2 tomatoes made their presence known! Almost 2 weeks before I spotted one last year these 2 tomatoes can be found on one of the Cherokee Purple's that Gail picked out!

Not to be out done 3 bell peppers have already set fruit as well! Hopefully the cubanelle and jalapeños won't be terribly far behind!

Some of the summer (hopefully) lettuce is finally out competing the weeds as well. Here's a nice shot of some Red Cross butterhead that is reaching for the sky.

Finally, a nice pink rose, after all it's not ALL about food, just mostly.

Harvest Monday June 6th 2011 a little of this & a little of that

Another week, another small, but appreciated harvest. The chive blossoms I mentioned yesterday came attached to some great chives! I also trimmed some Kale leaves off a few of the plants. Not a ton yet, but enough for a bowl of kale chips! We also ended up with a few small radishes that were crowding out their brethren and had already popped themselves out of the ground!

Radish .75 oz

Chives 2.55 oz

Kale 3.25 oz

Total for the Week 6.55 oz

Total for the Season 10.05 oz

The garden is teeming with life and the signs of harvests to come!

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.

Garden Happenings

The garden and I have come out of our winter slumber and things are slowly coming to life. The garlic is flourishing, radishes have sprouted, and the kale and arugula look pretty great. We're waiting on more lettuce, carrots, and bush beans to sprout as well. We also planted a little huckleberry plant we picked up at a local nursery.

We also picked up some beautiful looking tomato, zucchini, marigold and pepper seedlings that will be going in the ground soon.

Pictured above is our collection of pepper seedlings- jalepeno, cubanelle, and 'Golden Summer' bell pepper as well as marigolds.

Below are the Tomato and Zucchini seedlings. We are growing Speckled Roman's for sauce and Cherokee purple because Gail thought they look nice and I never met a tomato I didn't love!

In the front you can also see our 'bush baby' zucchini seedlings:

We didn't have luck with our own zucchini last year so we are going with a mini variety to save space and starting with seedlings to increase our odds this year!

The bed all the peppers, tomatoes, and most of the marigolds will be planted in is going to be worked over just as soon as the weather cooperates. Once that is done the garden will be in full production mode!

Also, my kitchen counter seed starting experiment was not very successful but if any of these mini broccoli or leeks toughen up they might find their way to the garden as well:

If the weather and critters cooperate we'll be harvesting loads of tomatoes, peppers, and hopefully zucchini!!

What's growing for the fall?

As planting spaces open up throughout the plot we are slowly transitioning/planting fall crops. Here's what we have in the ground as of Sunday:
Kale - We were gifted 5 seedlings from fellow community gardener Marie (who provided our leeks at the start of the season). 4 of the 5 are doing really well!
Bush Beans - We planted a row of organic Fresh Pick bush beans. These are a Jade type green bean.
Butterhead lettuce - The Romaine was incredibly successful at the start of the season. Hopefully the Red Cross butterhead we planted will produce as well. Red Cross produces a mix of crimson and green heads.
Mesclun/Baby Greens - A mixed bed of Johnny's Selected Seeds Elegance Greens Mix, additional Ruby Streaks mustard greens, and Surrey (Arugula/Rocket with a 'wild arugula' look)
Onions- Egyptian/Walking Onions of course!
Beets - more Detroit Dark Red Beets! They were slow to mature and undersized in the spring because we planted late, hopefully this crop will yield larger end results.
Radish- A few interspersed plantings of Champion Radish
Spinach- A 2nd attempt at Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach. Our spring/early planting suffered from our lack of experience and weed identification skills. Trying again in the hopes of better results.

As more space opens up I'll fill it with more greens/fall type crops.
What's to come in your fall garden?