Another Week

You can check out a few more harvests at Daphne's and Harvest Monday.

A Continuous Harvest Week

 

There was a lot of to harvest this week but the squash surly overwhelmed me. If you count, there are a total of 22 for this week alone. I did a lot of cooking with squash this week but enjoyed all of the produce. Peas are done and pulled.

  

My first carrot was pulled. It is a little ahead of the rest of them but a good 5" long. Juliet tomatoes are coming in and cucumbers. It is nice to still be getting greens. I have them planted in a more shady spot in the garden. Click on the smaller pictures to see them bigger. Check Daphne's for more Harvest

Garden Happenings

I love this time of the garden when you can see growth day to day. The forever changing perennial garden. The air was so thick this morning with fog that you could see all these interesting webs on many of the plants.

Bean flowers are plentiful. Much different than last year when we had such a hard time getting the beans producing and when they did in August, it was a poor crop. This year I should be getting them in another week or two.

Peas are beginning to plump up.

The big news is that two female butternut squash flowers opened with no males in sight. I clipped one of the male pattypan squash flowers to pollinate the butternut. I hope it works. An unfolded squash flower.

Last and Harvest

A few months back, which seems like yesterday, I posted about firsts. The first harvest is always so exciting. I have come to one of my last harvests. I pulled out most of the garden this past weekend and will, for the first time, plant garlic. This is always a little sad but a new crop and the frozen vegetables will keep us happy for part of the winter. I still have a few turnips, tomatoes and carrots left in the garden.
Here is what I pulled this week.

 

  

Harvest Monday

My husband and daughter have been away for the week so I have spent some of my time freezing and canning without two more mouths to feed. I never realized how much they consume!
Frozen Beans
Frozen Tomato Sauce
Frozen Okra stew
Frozen Kale
Then a friend of mine has been away and she has a peach tree. She urged me to help myself. First year that it has produced fruit and she didn't even get to taste one. I made:
6 pints of Peach jam
4 pints of Peach chutney
Of course I'll give her some.

Tomato plants don't look so good but oddly have started to send out new shoots and flowers and have set fruit again. The Juliet and Sun Gold are loaded with fruit and the Brandywines have plum size fruit. Even the Early ripers are starting up again. The glut is over so I am happy to have fresh tomatoes as long as I can. The idea of buying them from the store is disheartening.

Some of the fall radishes are ready for harvest. I should have planted more. I wonder if it is too late. I lose a lot of my sun in the garden this time of the year.

Hop over to Daphne's to see more harvests.

Where has the Time Gone!

Monday harvest came and went and I have just not been on top of the posting. None the less, I have been getting a variety of items from the garden and they are pictured below. Oddly, the tomatoes are being consumed and nobody is quite sick of them yet. The small ones pop in the mouth without being conscious that you are doing so. Slicing, tomato juice, and cooking with the others. Pole beans are beginning to come in regularly.  I cut back all the swiss chard and am hoping it will send out another burst of energy. I did not plant more. The kale is beautiful. and some of the eggplants are coming in.

Any idea what is wrong with these tomatoes? They are mottled in color and very  mealy. I am picking them from the same exact plants that other very tasty and juicy brandywine tomatoes are being picked. If it were happening to all of them, I could understand, but only a few is perplexing.

Beans

I was checking my fellow bloggers posts before I was going to post today. Low and behold, Robin over at Gardener of Eden posted exactly what I was going to. So go on over there and take a look. I am posting so that I have my own record of the delayed producing pole beans.

My Daughter's Garden Salad

I had a harvest Tuesday that was almost better than the total of all last week. I collected another bowl of beans and a good number of peas. My daughter is in day camp so she is not keeping up with the ripening peas. I decided to pull most all of the beets realizing that I planted them too late and they were not going to get much bigger. Can you plant a fall crop of beets and should I be starting now? I picked a few more Sungold tomatoes and I can tell that they are going to be coming in fast and furious. Another Ichiban Eggplant and two cucumbers. And finally some peppers, basil and parsley.

All of this is quite impressive since on Monday there didn't seem to be anything to pick. If I continue like this every other day, I am going to need a few more kids and at the very least, a husband that is in town to consume it all.

But the real news is that, today, my 11 year old daughter made dinner which included a salad that was completely from the garden. This is not so unusual for July but it is June. Of course, depending on what you put in the salad, I could consider that I had one back in May when all my lettuce was coming in but I never have just a lettuce salad. So tonight's salad was a combination of: beets, cucumbers, onions, green beans, and parsley. I am not to sure if I am more tickled by a total garden salad or that my daughter made it. She ate it also.
The finished product!

    

On another note, there was a lot of butterfly, bee action in the garden today. Cone flowers and Cosmos in June!

  

Harvest Monday

What a week for harvesting. The only problem is that I have not been able to keep up. It has been very hot on the east coast and the timing of everything is all off. Of course I am happy to get my produce earlier but I can not help but feel that it is a sign of some hard times down the road. Please look at Dapne's Dandelions to see Harvest Monday by some other gardeners.

The swiss chard continues to come in, I harvested most of my Asian Greens by cutting them 2" above ground. They will come back sooner than I expect.

I pulled up all the turnips, they did not do as well as the first two that I picked from my daughters plot. I started these in the ground and a little on the late side. I pickled these and hope they will soften a little. We had another wonderful batch of kale for those chips I previously posted.

I tend to pick my squash as small as I can and still get that "look at what I grew" feeling. When they start coming in, i become overwhelmed and this is a way to keep it all manageable. I admire Ribbit for all her zucchini concoctions. Some peppers, padron chilie and ?? and a small collection of beans.

So that is where I thought we were with the beans on Friday when I left to visit my sister. I brought her this bunch plus a little more that I collected and forgot to photograph. When I left on Friday, I inspected the plant to find a small handful that were not ready. I decided to wait the day or two when I returned. Too hot to pick on Saturday when I returned so I got up bright and early on Sunday and low and behold I collected a good size bowl of beans. With husband away for one week and still another to go, I am not sure if we can eat beans and all else fast enough. And - Finally the peas have started coming in. It did not help that my daughter was eating them off the plant. Good thing we went away for an evening and returned to many, ready to pick peas.

And a few odds and ends including the first cucmber.