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~

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~



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 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



Harvest Monday 3.26.12

Well, this post was started hours and hours ago but something interfered. What was that? Oh, yes- WORK. PHTHTHTHT> :-P

The harvest was another good one. I keep thinking they will slim down again soon and yet they march on!

The first for this week? The first green beans of the year.

The first BLUEBERRY that wasn't stolen by the blasted birds.

The strawberries are getting much smaller now, and not setting as frequently. It's about time to chose what plants to save for summer and they haven't even set forth the runners. Very odd!

A few more cucumbers. 4 this week, and some chard as well.

Broccoli side shoots, snap peas, and snow peas, a few english peas, loads of lettuce and spinach that wanted to bolt, a few onions, a whole colander of mulberries and yes even the sour cream was in my harvest this week, though not from the garden. It was a trade. :-) Freezer Jam for sour cream.

Oh bother. Work has been one massive distraction after another lately. I mean that is what it is after all, but I don't like when work interferes with my personal life on my personal time. Of course right now my personal time (lunch break) is on work time - but this is legit personal time after all. Between the Captain of the Port and the general Coast Guard visits things are really heating up down here getting ready for the AUGUST National Republican Convention. It's hard to believe that preparations are already underway, but they are. I must return back to the desk now. Sorry it took so long to post. I hope you are all having a wonderful day. It's beautiful outside!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday! 10/4/10

It's that time again! Harvest Monday. Thanks Daphne for hosting Harvest Monday's. Link up so everyone can see what is ready for harvest where you live!
This weeks harvest is just that. Quite week. I didn't take many pictures. I'm missing a colander and a handful of okra that look just like the one posted. A handful of green beans and an extra large cucumber that tasted delightful! I was quite shocked. Hubby got ahold of it and had eaten half before I could even snap a picture. He's the cucumber guy. He loves all things cukey. :-) Found a beetle on my beans yesterday so that is not good. It could be in he that hurt my beans as a juvie...to bad there is no JDC for those things. LOL. Anway... here you go!

Don't mind the puny radish. It was a test. It was H~O~T, too! Rich enjoyed it, and Troy complained that it was too small. LOL. It's a French Breakfast so I'm quite sure he'll have his fill sooner or later.

The okra is still hanging in there. Not doing well at all plant wise but still producing! The main plants have quit entirely and shed all their leaves. I'm going to cut the centers out so they can continue a few more weeks. The weather is much cooler and dryer and oddly enough they are the only thing in the garden not appreciative of that!

The tabascos are ready for a few weeks of big harvests again. I can't say enough about this 'little' plant. It's made it through the spring, ans summer and still producing more than we can eat. At 4' tall it's about maxed out in height, and everyone comments on it's beauty. It's been such an easy plant that I think next spring I will have to start 3 and put them in the front garden bed. All of my other peppers that pettered out over summer are just begining to fruit again. I got one baby bell that i accidently knocked off the plant this week, and there is one more on still. The jalepenos, serranos, hungarians, all of them are flowering beautifully, but the fruit is very slow to set.

I may or may not have my first pumpkin on. I know I've said that before a dozen times but so far it looks good. Time will tell. In 3 days I'll have something growing larger each day or something stunted. I'm trying to reroot near the pumpkin so I can cut back the main vine. It may be a disaster waiting to happen, and I may lose the one pumpkin that I manage to get set but i have to try. The plant is very diseased now. It's outrunning it, but if I cut back the leaf skelatons that are left it will leave the vine too vunerable to the sun, and pests. So this is my experiment I suppose. I'm going to tie some ribbons on the vine and trace it back trying to cut out only the other vines but I've done that before and cut the wrong one at the last minute. My spring crop suffered horribly for this. I nearly cried myself to sleep as I had 3 beautiful Jarrahdales that has sized up nicely on. I'll keep you all posted as to how this turns out. Not only to share the info, but for future reference for myself as well. I like being able to look back and see what worked and didn't.

'Til next time!

Barbie~