Monday, June 3, 2013

Harvest Monday 6.3.13

Wowsa! What a whirlwind! This Harvest Monday will span the last 2 weeks. Because I'm a ditz and didn't post last week.
Last week was Memorial Day, but that is no excuse. I simply was busier than a Groundhog on, well... Groundhogs Day.

Here's the recap of what i thought to take pictures of...

Beans, cukes and tomatoes are the star of the show this week. 7pounds of tomatoes, 4 pounds of cukes, and just as much for beans. Amazing harvests have graced my tables and my cooking pots and I am humbled by it all. I only wish I was able to store more of it. I have only a single jar of pickles to show for this. BUT! We have enjoyed the heck out of it. Eating most of our meals straight from the garden has been refreshing and the kids have been just as thankful.




 
After all these harvest I decided to go get the last of those potatoes. I just wanted to get rid of any problems for the tomatoes that they were growing next to. Not that the tomatoes were having problems yet, but I couldn't imagine the bugs that the potatoes had would be good for the tomato plants. So I set about my chore, and gathered another few pounds of spuds...

Unfortunately I broke one of the main stems of the super roma. :-(
 


Now I have another 6 pounds of green Roma's sitting on my counter. Hopefully they will ripen. These all seemed to be ready to turn soon. I tossed any that were terribly small or damaged in any way.
 
Needless to say I was in a small tomato glut this week. It didn't last long. The first tomato glut is always met with a serious intensity from all of us here. It's taken very seriously that those first 'maters are eaten with abandon. This years first seem to be very thick skinned for some reason. It may be what has saved them so far from the bugs. I'd be OK with that. I'm willing to trade a little less bug damage and gardener worrying for a thicker skinned tomato.
 
We also had an incident with our sprinklers again this last little while. Thankfully we had a wonderful harvest right before our problem or I would have been crying huge crocodile tears. Most of the plants are doing fine now, but the green beans seem likely not to recover. It looks like there is an issue with our electrical panel that carries the sprinklers and pool pump. I don't have money any time soon to have an electrician out so I guess we will just have to keep a closer eye on it. Good thing it just pops the breaker. Bad thing if I don't notice it in time.
 
Oh, and can I just give a shout out to those sweet potatoes? Oh sakes alive! Hubby won't usually eat the suckers, but I put them in a stir fry and he ate them right up. YUM! OK, I didn't put all of them in there. I just love a good sweet tater. (especially fried with a raspberry sauce. WOOWEE!)
 
See you soon!
 
Barbie~

14 comments:

  1. WOW! That's a very nice harvest for so early in a year! Our potatoes and tomato plants are only now starting to bloom.

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    1. Thanks. The tomatoes won't set bloom once it hits 70 at night so we're nearly done here until September or so. *sigh*

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  2. :-( about the super Roma stem that broke, ouch! Hey, if those tomatoes are too green to turn red, turn them into pickles! When in doubt, think pickles!

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    1. I'm a fridge pickle person. Regular pickles seem wimpy to me. Not enough room in my fridge for too many pickles, but pickled tomatoes have always interested me. May have to give it a try. :-)

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  3. I am so jealous of you! Enjoying tomatoes, green beans, potatoes, and cucumbers... all things we are going to have to wait quite a while yet for. Yum!

    Sorry your irrigation system is giving you problems. Sounds like you can manually override the problem so long as you are vigilant in paying attention to it.

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    1. Ah, but vigilant is something I am not. Vigilance and patience = not my strong suits. LOL.

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  4. Too bad about the sprinklers. It's always something, isn't it? I am envious of your tomato glut. I have blooms, so it won't be too much longer! :-)

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    1. It is always something to tend to. Keeps us on the move! Dave you'll have a load soon and then I'll be the envious one. ;-)

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  5. I am so jealous of your harvest. My tomato plants just went into the ground, will be weeks before I see any flowers let alone fruits. How did you stir-fry your sweet potato?

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    1. I stir fried the sweets by starting them first with a little water to let them steam for a couple minutes. Then once the water evaporated I stir fried them like normal with everything else. They ended up with a nice carmalization on them... Oh so yummy. It was sweets, broccoli, snow peas, onion, chicken, and sesame seed. Nice and light and the sesame oil with the roasted seeds really set it off nicely. I went with a light terriyaki type glaze but not much of one at all.

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  6. Nice potato harvest. Too bad about the Romas, but maybe it's an opportunity to make some green tomato chutney.

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    1. I'm thinking fried green tomatoes. I do love those! Chutney does sound interesting though. Thanks for the idea.

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  7. Ooooh wow look at your great harvest! So much so much earlier than we get! Soon enough, then the season will be done before we know it.

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    1. Our season is exceptionally short here. The rain will put an abrupt halt to most of my harvests. It keeps most things form polinating. Thank goodness for okra, sweet potatoes and cowpeas! LOL

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