Harvest Monday 1.5.15

It's 2015 now, and this is the first Harvest Monday of the year!

The last few weeks have been super busy here. I'm sure it's been busy for everyone but here the last 2 weeks of the year are crunch time. Time to fill the freezer with red meat and the pantry as well. I keep finding some good pickings out in the garden and keeping up is not even possible. So for now "m playing catch up and will get ahead again sometime in February when I start preparing for tomatoes and warm weather veggies.

This weeks harvest from the garden:

Loads of greens and some citrus.

We harvested 2 gallons of pecans. Meager pickings compared to years past. Enough for a few pecan pies and really, what more could I ask for? Also pulled the sweet potato bed up. I harvested an additional 4 gallons worth of them. Weight wise I have no idea, but my 5 gallon pail was almost filled to the top. That of course feels great after pulling what I wanted out of the bed all summer it's a pretty nice haul.

Unfortunately sweet potatoes don't cure well here so they don't get nearly as sweet. However, the good to that bad news is that they make truly fantastic chips. My mandolin and I will be good friends the next 2-3 months./ :-)


See you soon!
 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 10.24.11 !!!

It's Harvest Monday and I am FINALLY BACK! Linking in to Daphne's our most gracious hostessat Daphne's Dandelions. Don't forget to check her site out and see what everyone is harvesting and maybe even what they are doing with their harvest!  

 Scarlet fever is a real bear at 30 something (OK more towards forty but still thirty something darn it!) It's something that doctors don't normally see any more and when they do they see it in kids - not adults. HA! Well leave it to me to throw a wrench in that. I've been gone a couple week so I do have quite a bit to share. LOADS of Limas, a few bells, tomatillos are back on the menu, too! Hot peppers of course, and also back on the menu are green beans. Unfortunately there aren't very many of them just a handful - but enough to appreciate. A couple little deformed but yummy cucumbers and some Okinawan spinach while I am waiting for the real deal to germinate.

 

Basil made a come back and PESTO has been eaten - a LOT of it I might add. :-)

The rice peas are done for the year. In an experiment I cut back the bushes (REALLY LONG VINES) to see if they would start again but hope is dwindling and I'll be pulling them next week if no growth has been spotted by then. The night time temps have been dipping into the 50's each night and they don't like that at all.

Since I've been laid up the last few weeks there has been lots of soup- and I declared one day GUMBO DAY! Okra, bells, hot peppers and onions from the garden safron rice and meat from the grocers - and yummo!

Lots of seeds have been sown. Carrots and radish, spinach, cabbage and onions are all beginning to sprout. S~L~O~W~L~Y.... but hopefully surely. Oh, and I have tomatoes on the vine again. YIPPEE!  It's almost time to finish clearing out the beans and put in the rest of the winter veggies. I'll have to update with pics soon.

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 4.4.11

Joiing in at Daphne's Dandelion's for Harvest Monday!!!It's Monday again, and I am sad to say that all the rain did do a few bad things. One bad thing was that it took away the opportunity to take pictures. It managed to ruin a few crops. I had strawberry mush puddles to clean up. Talk about a sorry sight!
 But, mostly I was dashing in and out of storms and cleaning up afterwards.
I only managed one skimpy picture with my cell phone.

A few small heads of cabbage the very end all be all. These are the small heads that were produced by the plants that were left simply as space savers - thanks to a suggestion to leave them that they might bear smaller heads. They did just that, and quite well, too! Had the main heads been taken earlier in the year, or our cool season been longer I think these heads would have been rather impressive. As it is I'm counting them impressive because they are my little bonuses! :-D 2.5pounds worth!

Also pictured a half pound of spinach, a few garden peas, a couple radish. Not pictured is 2 heads of black seeded simpson and a colander full of Green Ice lettuce. I was harvesting the salad greens in a hurry between downpours. They were being beaten to death so I was scrambling! I also harvested a handful of side shoots form the broccoli plants, some green onions, a couple key limes, and a few shoots from the beans for a stir fry. I couldn't help myself, and it was good. YUM>

With any luck the spinach and lettuces will come back, but it is getting into the mid 80's each day now and the humidity is creeping up. The poor plants are battered and bruised and ending their life cycles early may not be out of the question. I trimmed them all back to just the inside leaves, they look pathetic. I'll clean the fish tank this weekend and give them one last hopeful feeding. *sigh*

All else seems to have survived fairly well. The zucchini plants are slightly torn but overall super healthy still. Tomatoes dropped some of there many flowers, but the set back is more in the need for tying up earlier than normal. I'm unprepared as of yet, so a trip to the store tomorrow for me! The peppers did really well and are beginning to show their first buds. To tomatillo laid down and were buried, but are no upright again. They will need tied as well. Some corn is broken - but all and all we came through very well. I did realize something I wasn't quite prepared for though. The way the yard drains - is straight into the area of fence garden. I guess it's good it was delayed. If it had been planted everything in it may have washed away. Now I need to consider the need to have a wash for the water to run out. That or be prepared to lose the plants each late summer tropical storm....So I have to design a culvert of sorts. Only problem I see is there is a fence there, so how exactly is the water going to drain properly???? URGH.

Rambling again. Sorry.

Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 3.28.11

Happy Harvest Monday!
Linking in to Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday. Macke sure to stop by her place to check out everyones info on what they are harvesting and how they are using their harvests! It's spring and things are really starting to perk up.
My harvests are starting to diversify. This is good news. Even better news is this -
IT's RAINING! It hasn't rained here in a month, and I am so glad to say that not only is it raining today -there is a chance of rain ALL WEEK! Whoot! Of course after jsut a few days of rain I will be ready for the sunshine again. But, for now I am celebrating the rain, and so are my plants.
This weeks harvests includes a bunch of green onions, strawberries, english peas, lettuce, spinach, radish, broccoli, carrot (not plural HA!) and I'm pretty sure I've forgotten something - but here are the pictures that I remembered to take...

I also harvested this: A bowl full of tabasco babies. These were just the ones that were in with the tomato plants. Not all through the garden. These little gems are being saved. OK well, not all thousand of them are. 21 are claimed already and 23 are potted in cups and slated for the Tampa Plant trade. :-)  I ran out of dixe cups believe it or not. But, never fear, ANYONE who wnats them is welcome to them. My garden seems to have plenty for all who want them.

Here are some of the things I am doing to use my harvests:

Pizza Fresca

Breakfast Quesadilla's and fresh Coleslaw

I am wondering where the rest of my pictures went, but meanwhile these are what I have. Not everything managed to make it into the pictures, and low and behold I forgot to weigh most of the harvests. I've got to start remembering now that things are ramping up again.

Check in tomorrw- 'cause I've got a (small) project to unveil and a few pictures to share of what is blossoming in my garden this week.

Did I mention it's raining!? WHOOHOOO!!!!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 3.14.11

Once again joining in the fun over at Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday!

This week I harvested nearly a pound of radishes, 4lb13oz head of cabbage, 3oz of broccoli, 2.5oz of lettuce, and 3 oz of spinach plus a few handfuls of strawberries...that never made it inside.

Small nod to the suddenly frantically prolific garden peas.
:-D the perfect blooms are making momma happy. The pods are popping out all over and I'm drooling just waiting for the peas to fill in the cases. MMMmmm like finding a jem!

Join on in on the fun. Link in to Harvest Monday's and show us what you are harvesting or how you are using your previous harvest!

Can you guess where the cabbage is heading? After all it's only 3 days until St. Patty's! Luck O' the Irish be with ya!



'Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 3.7.11

Harvest Monday, already? Linking in to Daphne's Dandelions once again. Stop on by her place to see how people are using their previous harvest, and what they are harvesting now!
I do believe I got all caught up in the bees and flowers and forgot to harvest much anyways. I had some thinning to do and made a nice salad of radishes and baby spinach and lettuces, but failed to take their portraits. I did however manage to take the photos of these behemoths.

Though they may not look that large the small one is the size of my thumb and the larger one like a small lemon. Such a pithy pity.  But also the only things I could really weigh. I spent my time this week attempting to fix sprinklers. That didn't work well. AT>ALL. I assumed that bigger was better as the smaller sprinklers were not covering enough territory and my poor little plum tree was suffering for it. Well. now my poor little plum tree is suffering for TOO much water, and it's watering the tree instead of the roots. It's also watering the neighbors yard and his oak tree. NOT my intentions by far. SO next week I'll be off to search for another set of sprinkler heads. Until then I simply have to pray that the plum can either withstand the massive sprinkler head or handwater. *sigh* Either way not ideal.

Hoping to have a better report next week. My row of radishes are going crazy and they are ready to come out of the ground so you are sure to see those at least. So come on back - ya'hear?!

'Till next time!

Barbie~