Harvest Monday 5.18.15

Good morning, er... afternoon! It's harvest Monday again. This weeks harvest is a throw back to cooler days. I still have quite a few carrots int he garden. It's been rather hot out for a good while so the carrots aren't the sweetest, but they are most certainly edible still. Especially shredded and left int he fridge for a while.

The peach harvest ended this week. The last few were put in the fridge, and the squirrels managed to eliminate the need for harvesting the remaining 1/2 of the crop that were in the top of the tree. Grrr...lucky for them I did get some peaches this year. They aren't falling for the trap any more and I'm not sure what to do about that. I will have to find another way or move the trap. Either way I'll figure something out because now they are knocking down the avocados. 

So a few have been brought inside to see if they will ripen and be edible at any point. The larger ones are the only ones that have a chance, but I will continue to try as long as they continue to knock 'em down. Only good thing here is they are showing no interest in the fruit itself. They seem mostly unharmed if a little bruised.

 



Tomatoes are finally sizing up. I've been getting a small handful of cherry toms each week, but these little beauties are making my mouth water. I'm going to be angry if the dang tree rats mess with these!

I already have their use planned. They will be the first FRESH caprese I've had in a while, and I CAN'T wait! Too bad it will still be a few weeks. (pooh)


We've been working diligently outside the past few weekends and it seems like I'm turning wheels for no reason. We are having our home painted starting today and we needed to remove everything from against the house. It meant cutting the kiwi back to the (almost) ground in order to remove the trellis, cutting back all my flowers, and bushes away from the walls, removing some of the older plants, and putting all my potted plants outside. Along with that I had to take down 2 portions of fence, a gate and had to re-arrange the living situations for all the birds. None of them are thrilled, but they are all safe and moderately happy. They'll live this way until next week sometime (at the earliest!) when I can put their living quarters back in order.

We were planning a trip to Alabama to have a meeting with a builder and discuss our wants with them. We are looking at putting in a basement and a shell. We'll do all the plumbing, electric, cabinetry and flooring as we are able to. I'll keep ya posted on the progress with that. It's exciting, and scary to have another mortgage over our heads. Talk about budgeting!

Unfortunately now that this is all taking place I may have to stay behind in order to care for the critters. I hate to miss out on the meeting, but I know my hubby can take care of things and I will be kept up to speed on the important details.

See you soon!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 5.11.15

Good Morning. It's Monday again, Harvest report time! As usual I am linking into Daphne's Dandelions. Make sure you stop by her place to check out what's being harvested all over the world.

This weeks main harvest has been green beans. Each day I've been able to get a nice handful of them. Enough that on Mothers Day I was able to not only serve the 7 of us, but I have left overs that will be good for dinner tonight as well. I also harvested a few more blueberries (Only enough for us to eat off the bushes each day) and a few cherry tomatoes for salad toppings. I really love this time of year. I wish the variety stayed through the summer, but around here not much does well in the humidity.

Since I'll be pummeling the main crops this year I've decided to try to net at least part of the main bed and try to grow pumpkins in there. The kids will get a kick out of it as it's been a couple years since we've had a good crop. Maybe I'll put some up the trellis and try some gold nuggets as well. YUM! This is something to look forward to, even if I won't have my usual things to eat from the garden meanwhile. What else will grow really fast in the summer? Maybe some black eyed peas. They do reasonably well in the humidity. I've gotten my husband and son to eat greens in small quantities finally so maybe black eyed peas will be the next thing I force on them. ;-)

The extension piece of the main bed has begun. The new blueberry plants are here and they need a lot of TLC, so I'm trying to get that section completed first. The plan is to work each night this week for an hour on it. Last night I got the outline figured out and the foundation set up. Unfortunately It runs uphill a bit so I need to go back and level it out again. Trial and error and all that. Only good news is that once I've decided I like the way the foundation is laid it will be easy to stack them and make a wall. The foundation brick is completely under the ground and the second layer will be about 1-2" under as well totaling roughly 6". I'm hoping this barrier will help keep the invading grasses OUT of my garden and if all goes well the additional height of the wall will help to control the weeds as well.

Today I am absolutely exhausted. After getting those bricks out of the ground  last weekend, and loading them, hauling them and unloading this weekend I also went out to the blueberry farm (on Mothers Day) to buy 5 mature plants. That turned out to be more work than I realized. We got them loaded but had to get help to unload them when we got home. It was just too much. My muscles are just plain wore out. Only I'm not terribly sore. Just mildly achy. That's great news because had I pushed my back too hard I'd be in trouble today. It helped that I spent an hour or so in the pool yesterday as well...

All right back to work with me, though it will be hard not to spend the entire day dreaming of the garden and trying to figure out what I want to do with it. :-D

See you soon!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 5.4.2015

Goodness, I almost forgot it was Monday again! It's amazing how quickly the time flies round here!

This weeks main harvest was blueberries. 3.5 pounds of them. It pretty well ends the season with only a few dozen berries left on the bushes. I've trimmed most of them back already and now it's babying them until fall again. Well worth it if you ask me.

Most of the blueberries were washed, dried and frozen on baggies for easy access. I saved a pound that is destined for blueberry pie and blueberry muffins. I'll also make blueberry jam, but that I can make from frozen berries if I need to. We tend to eat about a pint in a day between the 5 of us.

Yum. Some of these berries were exceptionally large, and I'm hoping that means that the fruit size is going to increase next year to match what only a few of these were. This was the 3rd year in production for these plants. Maybe the 4th year is ideal for size, or maybe i"m just finally supplying the bushes with what they need.

I currently have 16 plants that I rooted from cuttings last year. They will be ready to begin production next year or the following depending on their summer growth.

In other news, also joining this weeks harvest are peaches!

These lovely little jewels are scrumptious and I'm finally getting enough to keep the kids fed each day. Featured here is a typical bowl that gets picked and eaten daily. But, production is ramped up with a lot ripening at once now. It means the chickens are getting their fair share of them. That's good because once they get soft at all the fruit flies are insane. Any tips for getting rid of fruit flies? Blech.

They are so bad that even when I pick fruit that still needs to ripen to bring inside the next morning we a couple in the house again. 

I'm not getting enough to can, and it's just a little too much to keep up with for fresh eating. The quality of the fruit isn't as good in years past, but the quantity makes up for that. They still taste incredible cooked with a little cinnamon on top. 

This solidifies my thoughts on taking out the second peach tree. It's just not producing much at all and it's not healthy. I'd rather take it out and replace it with a pollinator for my unknown variety of plum. Then again I could end up with 2 trees that don't produce plums. HA! That would stink. The plums bloom after the peaches have set fruit, so timing wise we'd move from strawberries in February to March and April blueberries, then April/May peaches & figs and May/June plums and guava. After that it's blackberries, persimmons and pomegranates. My garden would finally be set for March-September with perennial fruits. Whoot!

Now, waht will give me fruits in November, December and January here? The citrus is just too hard with the greening around here. I still have 3 trees but only 1 is capable of producing good fruit, and even so it' son my porch so it doesn't get pollinated well unless it blooms on the weekend. LOL

Well, make sure you stop by Daphne's Dandelions to see what is being harvested all over the world, and what people are doing with those harvests. Have a great week!

See you soon!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 6.2.14

Ah, yes. Harvest Monday. I missed a few weeks, and didn't link into Daphne's place a few times so it seems I've been gone forever. But, I haven't. I've been harvesting little bits here and there. The last of the blueberries are in and I'm already mourning their loss. It's only been a few days since the last picking but my fridge seems empty without them.

Also harvesting tomatoes, beans, peppers and carrots. It's been a good couple weeks and I've had the best harvest ever of beans. These beans are a bush variety and thanks to ducks and chickens - well fertilized. :-) I don't know if that is the main difference or if the weather was just perfect for them lately, but this is the smallest planting I've ever done and I harvested almost twice as much as my Romas in twice the space. I plan on cooking them tonight to do a taste test and if they are nearly as good as the roma beans I will be letting them go to seed.

Here are the pictures for the week:

 

The ducklings are doing well and the chickens still hate them. It's something I'm going to have to deal with soon...they need to be housed together and soon. We plan on taking the majority of the ducks to Alabama on the 4th of July. But, the one that stays needs to stay in the chicken run. This should be interesting. I don't know what to do to help the situation as the ducklings where inside the run in a wire cage for weeks with no attitude change from the hens. I would think about replacing the hens at this point to introduce an entirely new flock together but it's not chick time at the feed stores anymore so I would be forced to buy from a hatchery and I'm not sure that is a good answer. I'd need to find homes for the rest of the chicks.. Ah well- so I keep trying. They do well together in the yard, but not in the run.

 

See you soon!

Barbie~

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~

New garden box

What was good for some, has not been good for others.

 

I'm not sure if it was the new soil, the new bugs, or the combination thereof. But, the cauliflower grown in the new garden box did absolutely amazing. The tomatoes are on fire. The zucchini looks great, the beans are doing well, The potatoes, however - not so much.

 

I dug up twice as many plants as I have previously this year in other beds to get even less potatoes. Most plants only had 1 or 2 potatoes of any decent size on them. Of the potatoes I managed to finagle out of the ground most of them were irreparably damaged by one type of bug or another. Ewww... Some of the potatoes were split, but most of them were simply - infested. Gross. and one was rotted.

 

Really!?

 

Normally after pulling a plant and seeing that it wasn't very productive I would simply leave the rest to see if it would produce better if I allowed it to mature, but being that even the single potato that came up with the first plant had holes and I could see the damage, I decided to investigate further.... and of course I kept investigating. :-(

 

Once I pulled these 10 plants I realized I couldn't get to the last 2 plants because their roots are so close to the super productive romas. I'm not willing to risk those tomatoes yet. But, it makes me wonder HOW can the potatoes be so damaged by the bugs in the dirt and not the tomatoes? Well- the root systems of these potatoes are the healthiest I've ever had on any of my other plants. Without a doubt that is true. Is this something that will calm down once my soil establishes itself?

And here I had (wrongly apparently) thought I'd have at least a year or two of nematode free, pest (soil pest anyhow) free gardening. HA!

While I was disturbing this bed I figured I'd better check on the sweet potatoes as well. Good thing I did!

'Cause now I've got myself some sweet tater fries waiting for me this weekend! I actually harvested the same amount of weight in viable sweet potatoes as I did in regular potatoes from this bed, and that was just from checking under 2 vines and seeing what I could see poking up. LOL. I <3 sweet 'taters! I left my giant trowel there for comparison. The 'taters are bigger than my hand. :-D I can't wait to eat them. No real damage to speak of on them. I could see one tiny spot on one of them that looked like something thought about messing with it and then moved on. I do worry though what will happen now that I took the regular taters out- will the displaced bugs go to the sweet potatoes?

 

I've simply never had to deal with anything like this and I don't know what to do about it. I've never had an ecological system so out of whack. The good news is I did find a couple of earthworms already making themselves at home in the garden bed. It's a sign that things are - or will even out. But, meanwhile - What would you do? I'm afraid to leave the sweet potatoes there and I have a new set of slips ready to plant out now (purple!)

 

Any advice?

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 5.13.13

It's Monday again. This time it comes directly after Mother's Day weekend. I hope that you have a lovely weekend. I know I did. I didn't just have Mother's Day. I had Mother's weekend. :-)

But, as for the harvest. It was fairly meager pickings this week. I actually harvested more than I care to admit because a rather large amount got eaten in the garden. I pulled the pea vines and well, any peas got eaten while I was there. We had a few cool days so there were more than I care to admit. But the vines were well and truly shot and our hot weather is upon us and not relenting so I knew the vines had no hope. I also ate about a half pound of blueberries. I now have 5 pounds in the freezer, so a decent amount for the year. Not enough for our large family, but a good start!

As for what I can actually attest to?

Zucchini made a major come back this week. This one in the picture is only one of 10 that we ate. I grilled a few, but this wasn't out favorite this week. Our favorite is oven roasted with grape seed oil, mozzarella  garlic, spices and tomato..oh - YUM. Even picky teenager eats it like it's going out of style.  We try to take major advantage of it this time of year because it doesn't last long. I have two very strong plants right now but the bugs have come out this week and that means the plants (not just the zucchini) are going to be suffering soon.

I knocked the tomato off the vine but it is nearly ripe now. I also took one that was starting to blush and ripened it with a banana. That was the one we used for the zucchini oven roast. The snap peas are still giving and looking O.K. The vines are hanging tough for now. Not producing well, but still just enough to save their booties.

The blueberries are just giving  the bare minimum they can now. The mocking birds found the fruit this week and I got dive bombed by 3 of the suckers Saturday. I may have to invest in a pellet gun. Wonder if Mockingbird stew is any good? Kidding...sort of.

 

I'll be back to give details of my weekend later. For now- I'd better get back to work.

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

 

Harvest Monday 5.6.13

Monday - Already? You've got to be kidding me! This weekend went SO fast!

I worked on a project for the chickens. I forgot to take pictures while I was working because i was by myself, but now that it is almost finished I have to go back and take photos. It's worth it. I turned the door around to their pen. I always hated the door leading to their run. I still do, but I hate it a little less now. LOL.At least I can OPEN the door now. See, it used to open in, and the little chooks always seemed to toss all the shavings wood chips and anything else they could find right in the path of the door. I fixed that! It did impede on their space a little, but there is only 3 of them and they do have a good sized run for just a couple of them. I have a few other things up my sleeve for them this summer, too. Just a couple things to help in the way of boredom and keeping them occupied during our seasonal rains. :-)

Ah, but that isn't why you are here is it? It's not just Monday... it's HARVEST MONDAY! Of course! This weeks harvests included the first potatoes and zucchini of the year. I threw those on the grill with some pork chops Friday night. I love it when a meal comes almost entirely from the garden, and ALL local. :-)

Also harvested more carrots, another cauliflower. This one topped out at a decent 2lbs 9oz. a few strawberries a pound of blueberries (not all pictured) and ... well... Oh yeah! One H.O.T. radish. I'm guessing that the weather is just getting too warm for them now.

The zucchini are full bore now. I've got a good 6 on the 2 bushes/vines? Hmm... Anyway We'll be swimming in them the next couple weeks which is good. They tend to only last a few weeks now as we get into May and June so we will be sure to take advantage while we can!

The potatoes I pulled up are the ones that are planted around the blueberry bushes. I didn't like the idea of leaving them to grow to full size under the blueberries and damaging the bushes roots. I knew the longer I let them grow the more likely I'd have a hard time digging them out and end up hurting the bushes. Since they flowered almost 3 weeks ago I've been keeping a close eye on them. Turned out to be the perfect time to pull this little bush we each got a small potato perfectly proportioned for us!

I would love to show off to you my first blackberries of the season as well, but my lovely daughter decided that she wanted to pick me a bouquet of flowers... (Can you see where this is going?) Just so you know when you cut a blackberry flower it only last a few hours in a vase. Also, just so you know it's REALLY hard not to cry when you realize just  WHAT the flowers are that your well intending child handed you with a smile on her face. 'Happy Mother's Day' she says. Happy Mother's Day, indeed. What a gem she is. Every. Single. Bud. And from the thornless canes no less. LMBO.

Ah, well. I suppose it wouldn't be gardening without trials and tribulations, now would it?

 

OH! Guess what else weird just happened? My blueberries REbloomed! Check it!

How Weird it this? I talked to a local blueberry farmer about it and more than half of his crop re-bloomed as well. He thinks it is because of the really late weird frost/freeze we had a few weeks ago. We had another weird cool spell just Saturday night - it actually got down to 59*. For us in May... that is just freaky. The blooms this time aren't as pretty and I'll assume they won't be as large of fruit, but so far on the bushes that have re-bloomed I have about half again as much fruit. That is good because I didn't get as much fruit this year because we didn't get but about 40 chill hours total. The bush in the picture is only a second year cutting so the fruit wont be kept. It's too small to support it yet. Next spring I'll allow it a small crop.

I'm rambling now. Off to work.

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~ 

 

 

Harvest Day 5.29.12

It's not Monday. So, I'm late - again. Hey,  it was Memorial Day so I had plans. Plans that got blown away by Sir Beryl. Good thing we decided not to go anywhere. Turns out that there were a much greater number of downed trees and my parents had no power up in (North of) Jacksonville for 24 hours at last count.  No fridge or freezers and that also means that their 7 (yes, SEVEN) dogs that have the invisible fence to keep them on their five acres would have been roaming free out in the storm without someone there to start up the generators. Not to mention that the picnic and all the other outdoors activities like camping we had planned wouldn't have been so fun in 45 mile an hour winds. We were only planning on going to Ocala after all. Not all the way to Jacksonville. Silver Springs State Park is what we had our eye on.
Oh, Well. Next weekend we'll have a condensed version of the same thing.

Instead I welcomed a gardening friend over to see my mess and our kids enjoyed some watermelon while we enjoyed some conversation. It was a good distraction from thwarted plans and picnics gone awry. I sure hope their plans held out and Illuminations was still wonderful for them! Thanks, Tina for stopping by. Next time hopefully the lawn mower will be up and running and my grass won't be trying to attack your ankles! Troy found a treat for Nick and is waiting to see him again, too. :-D  The pool is back and ready for action. ;-)

I spent yesterday evening cruising the garden not really expecting to find much to bring in but to my surprise I did. And, I found quite a lot!

I had a roma and a bush tomato damaged from the storms, so those came out. There are a few of the tomatoes in this picture, but most of them didn't make the cut. I don't think they'll ripen so they aren't here to be represented. If they do I'll show them later. But these four all were starting to blush so they are here. A few more carrots - that large one weighed 6 ounces! The first eggplant of the season (THANKS RICK- that is from your baby long purple plant from the swap) 2 cukes some broccoli, strawberries, purple podded beans and dragons tongue.

This is the haul from earlier in the week. A key lime, a few carrots, cucumber, zucchini, green garlic, broccoli, and below 4 pounds of onions out of the main bed of alliums, I pulled them because they were starting to multiply by division more and more. It's getting hotter out and that means less likely to bulb at this point and I don't need this many green onions for my cooking. I do after all still have this many onions in the garden still. Bummer year for the onions. But, again Florida is a huge give and take State.

There is no guarantee when you garden here. The sun is extremely low, extremely hot and it makes for quick crops, and that is good and bad. The downpours and humid conditions are hard on the plants and certainly perfect for making mold and mildew. It's an evolving process and an ongoing experiment. I'm always faced with the next question. These onions are one of the prime examples of how gardening here changes every year. Some years I get great big onions and some years it fizzles. But this year I got great lettuce and some years I get none. Go figure. Same with the carrots. I'm still getting them and it's already 90 degrees out regularly. Normally the carrots are done and gone by late March. Here it is going to be June and I'm still pulling and picking them. :-D 

I roll with the punches as every gardener does. My garden looks bear right now to me. I'm waiting for some cowpeas to come up and the old spring tomatoes will be going out - while the new fall tomatoes will be growing and waiting their turn to get into the garden. I still haven't found a good determinate/semi-determinate variety for me/this area. I feel like this is a struggle I will always deal with in some form or another. Maybe I'll just go by a crate of the suckers! Maybe, like the carrots I'm just missing something that i haven't found yet.

Oh, I did learn something kinda new this weekend while I was cleaning up around the place. Will share tomorrow. ;-)

Gotta get ya back here some how!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

HARVEST? MONDAY 5.21.12

I don't have much to share. But, linking into Daphne's Dandelion's to share it! Thanks Daphne for always being a great hostess. Don't forget to stop by her place and say hi!

 The last week has been about the summer change.  Here is the one basket I remembered to take a picture of.

These carrots have changed my mind about how I'm growing carrots from now on. I loved growing them in with the onions all willy nilly. It worked out well - and this giant type also worked out well. They took no longer really than the smaller types and I got so much more! Look at the normal sized on in there next to the larger ones. Wow! What a difference. Considering how MANY carrots this family eats....I'm thinking go BIG or go HOME! er... OK I am home- but you know what I mean.

The biggest honking carrots, and nice sized green garlic (I'm begining to think I'll only get green this year) a good cuke, some okra, berries, zucchini, broccoli, a few beans, a young red onion. A decent haul. I got a couple chilis and 2 small romas this week as well as a few more okra and broccoli- but that is about it. I really was concentrating on getting things changed over.

More sweet potato slips went in. 6 more - so 12 total. I won't be breaking a record with that number, but I have so many other things i want to grow that I don't have space for much else. They are all bush type of course. The peanuts are all up, the soybeans didn't germinate very well. I'm quite disappointed. I think I'll risk moving the plants and distributing them so that they can at least benefit from the area given to them rather than leaving them crowded to one side, as it seems the ones that did germinate all were together. (figures) There wont be any more slips going in now. I used the butt of the potato to generate the last of these. They had some great roots though! Awesome for not having transplant shock. LOL

The last stand of sweet corn for summer is up. I'll try again in fall. I don't know what my failure is with it all the time. Like carrots I just keep trying. I'll figure it out at some point! ;-) The last batch from a few weeks ago was delicious, just miniature. I'll plant popcorn in the heat of the summer. Funny- the corn always grows up in the plots in Alabama. Humph. Guess the clay holds the nutrients better and longer. Even with all the amendments and how wonderful things are doing (compared to how they USED to do) I still can't get corn to grow. Oh, well!

I also cleaned out the rest of the non vining green beans, so any green beans you see now until fall will be non green, flat Italian, or for the first time ever, POLE! Speaking of - it seems to me that I may have stumbled upon something. My dragons tongue beans are not very, uh - 'poley' they are much more bushy. They are also not holding up well in our humidity. :-( They have loads of beans that isn't the problem at all. Its that the poor little plants have already gotten mildew. *sigh* Can't win for losing 'round here I suppose. You should see those beans here next week.

Hopefully the growth of the seedlings will be good this week and I can do some update shots soon. Right now it would just look like a blank garden and then a lot of the same old stuff you always see. (the allium patch, the blueberries, etc)

Summer is here officially - we have our first Tropical storm off the coast of Florida and it's 'officially' hitting 90 each day this week. Yikes!

Stay cool my friends!



'Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 5.16.11

Wacky Week! It's Harvest Monday again, and I'm still joining in the fun over at Daphne's place. If I didn't I think she might come looking for me. Nah. Probably not - but I would miss seeing everyone else's posts!
This weeks harvest? I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I took the tally - but left it sitting on the kitchen counter.
I'm thinking me and weighing my prizes isn't going over so well. LOL. Oh, I started with good intentions. I did. I just have some of the worst follow through. Maybe I'd be better off to just keep it on paper. So far that is what is actually get kept track of. Then again it doesn't get added together unless I bring it to my own attention and post the total here. Such a catch 22.

The first ear of corn came in. Oh - YUM. I wish it was easier to grow good corn here. What I believe is the last of the broccoli and carrots are here.

More zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, Cilantro, peaches, blueberries, green beans and kidney beans 

 



So a very diverse picking this week. It won't be so diverse next week. The carrots are gone, and I've left a stalk of broccoli to flower hoping to attract some bees or wasps, or anything that flies that can pollinate.
The weather has been wild this week and believe it or not cool. But the crazy winds have taken out all my sunflowers and most of my beans, and corn. Some of my tomatoes stalks are broken and citrus pups are falling. Usually our wild storms are late summer and after the larger less sturdy plants have produced their finest crops. So it was  quite a shock to find my peppers snapped in half and all the damage done in the last few days.
The rare tree sale was a good time, though I missed meeting up with a comrade and wished for a bigger budget while I was there. This week is the middle of the month so stay tuned for my mid month update!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 5.2.11

Happy Monday! Harvest Monday, of course. Joining in at Daphne's once again to see what the world is harvesting, and sometimes how they are using their harvests. Break out your Maypoles people the harvests have begun to diversify. It's time to string the ribbons and celebrate!
This week was the most productive by far this year. Lettuce, berries, beans, CARROTS (each day a few as I needed them!)

 

 

 

 

*Onions (small bulbs, but oh so good) 6lb total      *Green beans total of 5lb 6oz      *Zucchini I forgot to measure it all but 4lb 7oz       *Carrots for a whopping 3pounds, my largest EVER harvest of them       *Strawberries 9oz     *blueberries 15oz      *lettuce 8oz      *peas 4.5oz      *peaches 2lb 3ozs!   Blackberries  4oz  *broccoli 1lb 6oz

The broccoli is nearly final, and the lettuce is final - I am still undecided if I will allow the remaining plants to try to give me side shoots. The second succession of beans are starting, just as I'm almost ready to pull the first set out so perfect timing there. The most productive zucchini has PM so it's a matter of time now... and that's all right I'll have it again in a few months in the fall. I'm sure I'll get a few more weeks out of it, until the steady afternoon rains come. Now I will have to keep an eye on my winter squash I suppose. Ho hum.

'Till next time!

Barbie~