Harvest Monday, September 24, 2012

I just can't get over how many Sun Gold cherry tomatoes I've gotten in the past week!  I picked 3 baskets, and could have picked more if not for an unfortunate run-in with a huge grasshopper.  I finally gave up and ceded the rest of the cherry tomatoes to him.

This week's harvest also included 6 green peppers and 3 zucchini.

Most of my fall seeds have sprouted, and I spent quite a bit of time on Saturday thinning the radishes and greens.  They are looking good!

To see more great harvests, check out Daphne's Dandelions.

Seed Sprouts and Other Garden News

Radishes are truly amazing.  Four days in the ground and they were up and growing like weeds!

 

 

 

The greens emerged slower, but by Sunday I had several little patches of green sprouts.

 

 

 

The beets are just beginning to emerge, and the carrots are as yet MIA.  Hopefully I'll be seeing them later this week.

 

In other garden news, I pulled up another 1/3 of the squash garden on Sunday.  There are just a few plants left now, all of which had a little zucchini trying to grow.  We'll see what happens there!

 

I had another huge harvest of cherry tomatoes this weekend, while the large red tomato varieties have largely quit ripening.  I'm tempted to call it, harvest the green tomatoes, and make a batch of green tomato chutney.  However, with so much squash refuse, I really have no room in the garbage can at the moment!

 

 

 

Check of Daphne's Dandelions to see other weekly harvests.

Fall Garden

Here's hoping the fall garden will be a success!

I managed to clear out 1/4 of my garden space for fall planting, put down a fresh layer of compost, and hand tilled to break up the soil. Since space is at a premium this year, I decided to try a different approach. Instead of planting in long rows, I sectioned off the patch in rectangles, then planted several short rows of seeds in each. I'm really looking forward to seeing the results! 

You will notice quite a few repeats from the spring garden --

Parisienne Carrots
Bull's Blood Beets
Tennis Ball Lettuce
Watermelon Radish
Easter Egg Radish

I am trying a few new heirloom varieties --

Parris Island Lettuce (source: Baker Creek. Described as a romaine variety with uniform heads. Leaves are darker on the outside, with lighter creamy green insides. Developed in 1949.)  

Blue Curled Scotch Kale (source: Baker Creek. Described as compact and tender, with blue-green curled leaves.)

Bloomsdale Spinach (source: Baker Creek. Described as glossy deep green, with delicious leaves. Developed in 1925.)

That's quite a bit for a little space, but since I'm really the only one in the family who likes greens, I just planted a few spinach, kale, and lettuces. That gave me a lot more room for carrots, beets, and radishes. There's really nothing to see at the moment, but hopefully in the next week to ten days I will have lots of sprouts!

Harvest Monday, 9/10/2012

What a beautiful weekend!  We had two glorious days of 70-degree weather, and I headed out to the garden to finally plant those fall seeds!

My big tomatoes have pretty much stopped ripening, but I am still getting cherry tomatoes.

I also found 3 more zucchini among the dying vines.  I pulled several more vines to make room for the fall garden.

Sadly, about half of my carrots were buggy.  I decided to pull them all out to prevent the bugs from spreading further down the rows and damaging the remaining carrots.  It seemed that the Chantenay carrots were much more effected than the Parisienne.

My red peppers are winding down, but I have several left on the vines trying to ripen.  I picked two this week that were half green, half red.

Stay tuned later this week for more news on the fall garden!

Check out Daphne's Dandelions for more great harvests.

Harvest Monday, 9/3/2012

So it's Labor Day; September has begun, and I can hardly believe summer went by so quickly!

The bugs have really taken over my garden in the last couple of weeks!  Squash bugs are everywhere, and I squished 8 tomato worms on Saturday that had infested the carrot patch!

The tomato harvest was pretty minimal this week.  Even though we had a week of nice hot weather, the green tomatoes don't seem to be ripening as fast as they did in early August.  I did get a few nice big tomatoes and a couple handfuls of cherry tomatoes.

A couple of my zucchini plants finally died, but I've still got a few babies coming on the plants that are left.  This week, though, I thankfully only harvested one full grown zucchini.

I made a beef roast on Saturday and needed some carrots, so I picked about 1/4 of my patch.  Most of them are really beautiful, but I did find several that were buggy.

To see more great harvests, check out Daphne's Dandelions.