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 8.12.13

It's Harvest Monday again.

I've decided to take the tally down. I don't keep track of how much I'm bringing in currently so it's pointless really. Maybe I'll put it back up. But, I realized that I never accounted for any of the blueberries, or the potatoes I harvested... much less the sweet potatoes I've harvested. I'm just not good at it. I know I've gathered over a hundred pounds this year. And the most productive time is yet to come. Heck, I had my garden completely out of order for a few months while I created the new beds. (I seriously love my new beds BTW)

SO, news for this week? I had a harvest to show you. I had a lovely bunch of green beans... well I should clarify. Green yard long beans in a bowl waiting to go inside. In the bottom of this bowl I had my cow peas. Pink Eye Purple Hulled and a couple holstein beans. I set the bowl down to go out and trim up the orchid tree where it was rubbing the fence... guess what I had when I came back?

Only the dried or drying cowpeas. All the green type beans for fresh eating were gone! THIEVES! DAB BLASTED... FREAKING FRACKING.... bushy tailed RATS!!!! Now, granted that I went from just trimming that single branch back to all out cutting a third of the tree down as it was encumbering my guava bush and it ended up taking me an hour - but sheesh! I'm guessing this may be part of the reason my harvests have gone down so drastically this summer. Not that I have a lot to harvest, but this was the frist time ever that I've actually been out working and had the critters steal stuff from under my nose. >:-( Grrr...

OK- Onto another interesting development. One of my little lovely fluffy butts has given me a little gift of wonderment. She normally lays eggs that are a plain pale pink but yesterday she gave me one that apparently went in for a second coat in the paint department. What a beautiful egg! I'm not sure I'll be able to bring myself to eat it.... wait a minute. I'm sure I'll get hungry enough at some point, but it will be hard to crack that pretty thing.

Normal above - Yesterdays speckaled job below

 Pretty eggs. Make for a yummy breakfast. Thanks Dusty! She's a great bird. Now that it's getting so close to Fall I'll have to start thinking about ways to preserve some of their eggs. They are all over a year old and likely to stop laying over the winter. (BOOO, HISS!)
 What would I do if I had to pay for eggs?


The main garden was turned under as promised and I sowed out this weekend: corn, roma bush beans, Kentucky wonder beans, pole Violetta, popcorn (different silking by 30 days) and watermelon. Also in the main garden is: Tomatoes - Betterboy, big huskey cherry, bog boy and solstice.
I also have a good 30 tomatoes chitting currently that are mostly determinate type for the high raised bed. These are due to be planted into the first cups today if it doesn't rain and I can get the mix on the way home. I should have a good 10 extra tomatillos if anyone needs some. LOL.

That's all the big news at the moment form this end. Things have been quite in blog land because summer is coming to a close and we have been busy making preparations and finding courses to enroll in. I'll delve more into that in another post since we have a complicated mix here. I hope the Back-to-school preparations are going well in your land, too!

See you soon!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 7.15.13

Hey, Lookie there! It's Monday again! Harvest report time. I'm linking in like usual to Daphne's Dandelions. Thanks Daphne, once again for being such a great hostess. Make sure you stop by her place to see what is being harvested all over the world!

 

Here at my place it's avocado time! Of course, that doesn't man much. I only had about 6-8 set on the tree and then the dab-blasted squirrels got all but one before I managed to cage the thing. BUT, Oh but a harvest is sweet indeed when it is the first of it's kind. After all this tree is one of 5 avocado trees on my property. One of them was killed back this year and it looks like it will not be making a come back. It's no longer healthy so it's compost bin bound. The tree this fruit came from is Mexicola. It also got frozen not this past year, but the year before. It's only about 4 foot tall. All the other trees make fun of it. The most promising tree towers more than 20 foot taller than it. Yet, it was the first to bear. Go figure.

What? You wanted to see this luscious fruit? OK!

OOOO... It looks so large. It's only 4" long. LOL. But as they say a harvest is a harvest! It's going into guac. a small serving of guac but darn it guac non-the-less! We really lucked out because it started to ripen on the tree while we were away in Alabama and this is what it looked like the day we came home. If we had been gone another 2-3 days it wouldn't have been any good and I would have cried!

 

Also on our harvest menu this week, and only this week the Concord grapes. Of course I didn't bother to tell the husband and kids not to eat them and when I came back from harvesting the peppers for the guacamole - well it was down to this...

From 3 bunches of grapes to a few measly nibbles left for the Mom. They left me what had fallen off the bunches. Lovely. I hate to tell them but it still tasted just fine. The fruit only split because of how much rain we've had lately. But I did learn a hard lesson. I didn't trim the vines back last year in hopes they would take over the play house this year. They didn't. Not only did they not grow as much, they didn't produce as nearly much. MUST. CUT. BACK. the grape vines. :-(

 

Last but not least on my harvest list for this week are some more sweet potatoes. I saw a few mounded up and really was craving some so I felt around the base of a few plants and grabbed these out from under them.

YUM!

 

Not on my harvest list, but harvest here in Florida by my parents in Jacksonville and gifted to me while I was visiting this weekend:

 

 



A big bunch of yummy tomatoes and one of my favorite things, EVER... Canned tomatoes.

I have serious issues with canning. I just can't get post doing it all by myself the first time. I know once I do it I'll be fine, but until then I am over joyed by receiving gifts like these!

I should say I also received some beans, but there is no proof! They are all gone! :-D

Just like the first jar of tomatoes. ;-) YUMMO! Thanks again, Nancy!

 

Guess it's time to get back to work for me. Tonight I have plenty to do. I have to separate one of my flock who is picking on another member. I'm hoping to curb the behavior even though I don't think it will work. I'm going to start with a week of isolation. Wish me luck!

 

See you soon!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 6.24.13

Ah, it's Monday again! Time for another installment of Harvest Monday!
It's almost the end of June and the garden chores are getting interesting. The giant zucchini plant disappeared, but not willingly so. It took a chunk of me with it. The corn fell down. I'm still hoping and praying for the remaining 8 stalks to mature though it is doubtful.I did clean up the stalks that were broken. I found a little surprise there.

It may not be much, but apparently one of the stalks hadn't broken all the way through and one of the ears had matured before the others did. I don't know how it did that as the other ears are still not mature, but I'm not complaining. At least I got one ear! Interestingly enough my cucumber plant had sent out a side vine and low and behold a GIANT cuke had set up residence in the corn stalks. A freebie. A little on the hollow side, but it was still perfectly edible in my book. Sucker weighed in at almost a pound by itself! (OK 9 ounces, but I was still impressed) It was larger than my 9" ear of corn after all.

 If you've been around the blog at all you know I did a little taste testing earlier in the week. My fig tree granted me 4 more of these little beauties for a total of 5 figs this week. YUM. I think I need more fig trees. They were delicious!

The first batch of limas are in. Tropical storm Andrea stole a good half or more of the first crop of them. The only good news about that is that MAYBE some of those limas are now growing instead of just rotting because of all the rain. There was just enough here for a good side dish. Love me some limas. The holsteins were finished drying, too. But, they aren't as pretty dried so I took a picture of the few that were picked last and still good shellies. These were finished with my limas for eating instead of saved for seed. They taste like a cross between black eyed peas and... well... I guess black beans. Me like.

Enter the seed for my Fall crop of beans. Daphne sent me the original beans, My first pole beans ever. Thanks Daphne. Unfortunately due to our rains and the garsh darned squirrels the tag is no where to be found so we'll call them Daphne's beans. Nice and beany flavored. Cooks up great. Get a string as it matures, but worth the effort for flavor. The beans are rather huge and it may be worth growing for the beans themselves if I didn't like the green beans so much!

 

So while the garden is slow to produce now it is giving me my seeds for next year. The long term summer crops are doing their thing and all I'm doing is trying like mad to keep up with maintenance. Oh, and since I like to keep records here I had a complete crop failure due to the rains and it looks like that was my dragons tongue beans (bush) :-(  Shame. There are just not many green beans you can get this time of year here. Hoping the yard longs give me something soon or I'll be eating the cowpeas as green beans instead!

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 6.17.13

It's Harvest Monday.

It is. I promise! I may be slacking lately, but it's not on purpose. The sickies are still hanging around my house. Hopefully a bucket of Lysol and another week will set things right again.

Meanwhile, the garden has taken a real beating. I pulled out all the bush green beans, and the Holstein beans, the zucchini and the cucumbers. It's looking a little barren in one of the new raised beds. I'll need to get around to replanting it this week. I'm thinking about covering it with some netting and trying for another batch of cucumbers there and maybe some determinate salad tomatoes. Things that will stay low enough under the cover and behave. LOL.

Meanwhile my corn fell in the last massive wind/rain storm we had and it was really bad timing. The tassels and silks are already out and some of the stalks broke - at least half. Bad news for the remainder of the corn that still need pollinating. I guess I'm just not meant to have a decent crop of corn. But, I'll try again in the fall like always. I'll leave the stalks where they are because the lone cantaloupe is still developing in the stalks and I'm not losing it! The netting is almost 1/2 developed and I can't WAIT to taste that baby!

What I did harvest is a pound of the Holstein beans (dry), 7 huge cucumbers. The last for a long while. :-(

 

 The last zucchini on the plant. A monster no doubt. It was good and will be missed. I couldn't believe that the plant had shot out several new plants from the underside. I had never grown this variety before and will be trying to look through my seeds to see which one it is because even after it was completely attacked by bugs it just kept on going. The plant this baseball bat came off of had split in half from a cucumber worm burrowing and was still trying to produce. Unfortunately the gnats that the frass was attracting coupled with the fact that I was only getting 1 fruit a week now? Eh- not worth keeping in the garden. I don't need a bug attractant.

I also got another good couple of piles of tomatoes, a butternut (The only one! This plant is gone now, too)

 

 

And my girls constant working to keep me in eggs. Bless there little souls. Love my girls.

 

The garden is no longer being very productive. There are a few tomatoes left and of course the sweet potatoes as I need them for meals. The okra are tiny yet, but growing. They should be producing by July 15th. When we get back from our next trip to Alabama in July I'll be starting my Fall tomatoes and getting ready for the fall garden. I can't wait. Something to look forward to while the garden is going into stasis!

 

Linking in to Daphne's Dandelions. Make sure you check out her place to see all the great things being harvested all over the world!

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 5.20.13

I think I've hit the peak of harvests now. It will decline fast. So while I'm happy at the moment I know that it won't last long.

For instance? In the last 48 hours my zucchini plants when from having one green worm boring into it - to a complete infestation. the blossoms now have worms, the leaf stems have worms, the baby zucchini have worms. I do not have worms, but I do have a bad attitude. I knew it was coming, but I'm just NOT happy about it. If Mr. Giant corporation can come out with super germ warfare why can't it come out with a zucchini plant that fights back? LOL. Then again, as big as those plants get? Maybe having them fight back isn't such a good idea. What would happen if they decided they wanted to keep their bounty? That wouldn't be a pretty picture!

OK - On to serious matters. This weeks harvest!

 5lbs 6oz of new potatoes, a few bell peppers, jalapenos, 6lbs of tomatoes, the last of the snap peas (the vines are still there but no more weight will be recorded. The vines will come out this week)
Zucchini, Beans bush and pole, carrots, cucumbers, eggs (of course!) strawberries - but most get eaten in the garden because we only get a couple a day and a leek.

Oh, and that is 6.2 ounces of mint y'all! I made a few drinks this week that needed mint. Some hot tea, and some cold drinks. I'm weird. I really like cold mint. But I prefer it in my chocolate. LOL.

 

 

This weekend saw phase 1 of the big major project done. I"ll share here in a day or two. I also have a couple lovely recipes to share this week with some recent harvests. But, for now I'm late posting this so...

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~



Come again?

'Moonlight' A white-seeded runner....

Well, now seems as though someone, somewhere along the line screwed something up. Now, I know that runner beans are notorious crossdressers uh make that cross pollinators. But, seriously. I'm buying the seeds for a premium here people! These seeds are out of stock everywhere and have been since fall. So I paid $5 for 15 seeds (and got 2 packets!) only to get the WRONG seeds, or at least not pure seeds. This ticks me off.

Bad news is that I bought them at the end of season last year to plant in our cool winter to try to pull through our fall and into spring. At the time it seemed like it might be worth the effort. Now I think I've waited too long to do anything about getting my money back or an exchange. Good news is almost all beans are edible once they are cooked, I just hope they produce well. The moonlight bean is supposed to be a really fantastic producer.

Only time will tell. Until then - I can only have hope and faith in these little seeds. Maybe Jack's Beanstalk is among them. ;-)

See you soon!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 8.27.12 & Isaac

It's Harvest Monday - I'm linking into Daphne's Dandelions once again to give my update on what's going on in my garden and what has been harvested! Thanks Daphne for always being such a wonderful hostess.

But, first the update on Isaac. For me he's just been a bit of a nuisance. Isaac took out my poor bean patch. My black beans are now none existent. Anyone who knows me knows this breaks my heart. I think it is too late in the season to restart them. (Daphne's seed for one  - I'd have to order this go 'round) and for 2 I need to repair the trellis the stupid storm took out last night. But for the most part this is what Isaac is:

It looks like the dead of night in broad daylight. It's raining, and windy. That's it. I'm glad. But, I think considering the timing I would have rather had it come here than where it is heading instead. :-( Hold on Louisiana!

As for my garden, I got 5 pods of black beans before the dagnabbed trellis came down, I also got a half pound of pink eye purple hulls, a pound of zipper creams (yummmm we had those last night) a few black eyed peas

a half pound of peanuts

AND... 2 small sweet potatoes. I totally forgot to weigh, in all my excitement I just cut those suckers up for sweet potato fries and snarfled! OMG.... I need to let the others grow more these were on the small side - but HOW - how do you leave behind the potatoes that taste like this?!?!?

Nom.Nom.Nom.

Also 'harveseted' 9 eggs.

Check out that range of colors from just my 3 hens. Can't wait till things settle down and I can figure out who is laying what eggs! Someone is laying a speckled egg that is absolutely beautiful. It makes it hard for me to break it. I want to keep them until the next one comes along just to make sure I'll get another that is just as pretty. LOL.

'Till next time!

Barbie~

  



Harvest Monday 4.23.12

Hey hey hey! It's Harvest Monday again. Well, What do ya know? Monday's tend to roll around pretty quickly around here. Joining in over at Daphne's Dandelions once again. Don't forget to stop on by her place and see what people are harvesting from all over the world!

This weekend was a rain filled one. It started Friday and didn't end until last night. It was certainly good for our parched Floridian soil. Most of our local wildfires are out, but I haven't heard yet about statewide. Hope to hear from other bloggers soon. At my house we got only a little over  a quarter inch Friday, 1.5 inches Saturday and close to another inch yesterday. You'd think we'd be drowned in that, but our sand wicked that up lickety split and it was dry as a bone this morning. Windy and cool with a high of only 74 today. It actually feels like Spring! Woah - weird for us. This whole weekend is strange for us. The temps never got very high and it is always odd when the skys don't turn blue after a rain shower. Normally rains only last a few hours tops. Even the times when I report several inches of rain it is typical that that accumulates extremely rapidly.

This week was a good week for me again. I pulled the rest of the beets and turnips so they are done for Spring. The green beans turned on production this week, Some broccoli, strawberries, the potatoes of course, some carrots, a green garlic some green onion as well. But, some how the tomatoes (just a couple romas) blueberries and cucumbers keep slipping out of my pictures. I'm not sure how I manage that! Here are the pictures I do have:

 

 

Ah, I do love living in Florida this time of year. Soon I'll be cursing the okra, and cow pea - lucky to have a watermelon posts - but for now I'm still loving it!



'Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 4.2.12

Welcome back to Harvest Monday! :-D

It seems to be always Monday here. I guess that is a good thing because it means I'm usually sharing my gardens bounty. I love that! Linking into Daphne's place for the party. Don't forget to stop on by and check out what people are harvesting all over the world!

This is April and true to nature it started just as it should have. I got rained out of my garden, and gladly so. It was a real toad floater. If I'd have had my camera (and I'm so glad I didn't because it would be ruined now) because I really had a toad float up in the pea patch that I had just turned. I'm glad he wasn't hurt! We were in pretty desperate need of rain so I was glad for it, but my cucumber trellis fell and took out my cukes so I'm not happy about that.

Well, with no further ado - Here are the pictures that I remembered to take this week.

 Haricots Verts  & Cherokee Yellow Wax Little bitty strawberries now and great big blueberries, and they are finally starting to come in handfuls instead of drabs, just as the strawberries are fading into the background. Good timing! A beet, cabbage, onions, rosemary

 More wax beans, cukes, mulberries, snap peas, broccoli, strawberries, blueberries, My! What a week!

A Alittle shirtvesting went a long way, but is unfortunately the very last of the snow peas. This was what I took off of the vines as I turned them under. In their place was sown derby bush beans.

Last but not least MINT > OH YUMMO. This handful of mint graced a nice pot of cocoa. MMMMmmmm... and some for drying.  'Cuz that much in cocoa would make my lips numb.

I'll be back soon. I've got a little project to share.

'Till next time!

Barbie