Harvest Monday

Golden Ball Turnips

I"m a bit late getting in this Harvest Monday post, have had a crazy few days at work. Harvest Monday is sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions. Join in the fun seeing garden harvests from around the world!

In addition to the usual mix of salad greens, which I'm sure you are getting tired of looking at, this week I harvested some of the Golden Ball Turnips planted last fall. The plants had gotten off to a rocky start, showing a lack of iron &/or nitrogen, but a couple of feedings of fish and seaweed helped them along and they are finally sizing up.

I also harvested another bunch of carrots, but I forgot to take a picture of them. I cooked up the turnips with their greens and some of the carrots in some chicken stock then added some shredded chicken. The turnips especially were sweet and tender.

The chicken stock was made by boiling up a 10 pound bag of leg quarters that I got on sale, removing the meat, then boiling up the bones with some bay leaves, onion and a a bit of celery from the greenhouse. This is my first experiment in growing celery and I was afraid that I planted it too late and that it would bolt before getting big enough to be useable. Celery is a bog plant and the four best looking plants are in a large tub

Celery

of peat based potting soil in the greenhouse. (I mixed potting soil and compost together and added some rabbit manure to it). Plants in other containers and in the greenhouse bed have not grown as large nor are they as dark a green. These large plants are making little offshoots and that is what I am harvesting right now. I tend to use celery more as soup seasoning than as a vegetable, so for future reference will probably continue to grow just a few plants in large tubs since that seems to be the best.

Do you remember that Yellow Marble tomato plant that gave me tomatoes in Dec & Jan? Well it's still hanging in there, putting out a bit of new growth and some blossoms. (If you are just joining me, you can see pictures of it in this post)

Yellow Marble tomato lived all winter

The other day I cut out the other, dead plants from the pot and clipped off the dead branches off this plant. That clump of leaves in the middle of the pot is a Stella d'Oro daylilly.  I gently loosened and removed it, I filled in the hole it left with some vermicompost then curled the tomato stem back up and around into the pot. Tomatoes will root all along their stems if they are touching the soil. I actually covered part of the stem with more vermicompost to encourage it to take root. We'll see how it goes.

The Yellow Marble after trimming

In addition I've been starting seeds in the house on the heat mat; tomatoes, peppers, lemon mint and others; I"ll try and do a whole post on that later this week.