Harvest Monday

Pandorino cherry tomatoes

Harvest Monday is a great blog hop to show case what you are harvesting and doing in your garden each week. Host by Dave over at Our Happy Acres it's a lot of fun to visit the other gardens, even if I can't go there in person.

I picked 11 pounds of cherry tomatoes last Friday. I am really enjoying the Pandorino, a grape tomato from Italy. They make large clusters which almost all ripen at once, making for very easy picking. They also taste good. Will be planting more of them for sure next year.

Lancinato Kale

Scarlet Kale

I picked  a good amount of  kale, which is  a staple seller at market.Some customers look for the Lancinato, aka Dinosaur kale and others like the Scarlet. I will probably try some new ones this fall. I also picked a small amount of chard, but didn't take a picture. I used to wait and let the chard grow large and put it up in bunches but most people like the smaller baby size leaves.

Albino, Golden and Ruby Queen Beets

green onions

I picked some beets, the Albino and Golden beets grow very slowly compared to Ruby Queen and Chioggio.  I also picked some green onions.

Straight neck, Gold Rush zucchini

I picked a lot of squash this week, this was just one crate full. I have 10 different kinds and pick the patches clean on Friday, so generally even the largest ones are only a week old. Even a lot of the large ones still have very thin and tender skins.

something eating the melons!

Still some good ones!

Until recently nothing had bothered the watermelons, but now something is eating them. There were still some good ones to pick though. I am really disgusted with things though. It looks like I won't get any cantaloupes. Now the birds and squirrels are eating them before they are hardly half grown. Seriously considering pulling all the melon vines out as soon as the last watermelons are ready to pick and planting something else.

Black Beauty and Black from Tula tomatoes

I picked some ripe and almost ripe large tomatoes. Bird pecks, squirrel bites, blossom end rot, growth cracks, they were sure ugly and only about half were edible. But they sure tasted wonderful. I'll be brainstorming over the winter how to protect them better next year from all the wild life.

herbs and flowers

Of course I picked herbs and flowers. I don't sell that many fresh herbs so bring them home and use them myself or dry them. I am still trying to figure out how to keep the flowers longer, especially the dahlias. By mid morning at market the stems are turning black and the flowers are wilting. I am wondering if it's because I tie the bunches together and maybe the stems are getting crushed. I think next week I'll try just making the bunches in individual containers and not tieing them up and see if that helps. I also think the heat in my house is not helping. I sure need a walk in cooler!

On Sunday I picked all the apples off a small tree because the birds were attacking them like crazy. Out of the 19 pounds about 2 pounds were half eaten. I saved them to make vinegar out of.

This weeks harvests:
7-5 Cherry tomatoes  1# 13 oz
      Large tomatoes     3#  6oz
7-6 carrots                  1#  2oz
      lancinata kale       2# 8oz
      green onion          4# 10oz
      scarlet kale           4# 7oz
      beets                     6# 0oz
7-7 curley parsley             8oz
      Italian basil                 4 oz
      Thai basil                    2oz
      Cherry tomatoes   11# 0oz
      Watermelon           20# 10oz
      squash                    67# 0oz
      chard                            12oz
7-9 apples                     19# 4oz

TOTALS
cherry tomatoes         12#  13oz
large tomatoes             3#    6oz
carrots                          1#     2oz
kale                               6#   15oz
green onion                    4#  10oz
beets                              6#     0oz
herbs                                       14oz
watermelon                   20#  10oz
squash                           67#   0oz
chard                                      12oz
apples                            19#  4oz

GRAND TOTAL    143 # 5oz

Harvest Monday

Mountain Rose Potatoes

I dug the Mt. Rose potatoes up this week. The vines were getting really wilted in the heat. I can see where if we had had a bit cooler and damper weather I probably would have gotten quite a few more large potatoes. But I got about 15 pounds from about 25 -30 sq feet.

Mt. Rose inside

They have pale pink swirls inside.

Mt. Rose and yellow potatoes

I cooked some up with the yellow potatoes I harvested from the pots on the patio.

Sunflower

A couple of sunflower seedlings escaped the birds and are blooming.

Black from Tula

Another first this week was a Black from Tula tomato. This variety is from Russia and I got the seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange.

Black from Tula

The bottom side did have a couple of holes, I don't know what caused them they were dry inside so not fresh bird pecks. This tomato weighed in at about 6 ounces.

Tula sliced

Having never had this variety before I ended up eating the whole thing. It was not sharply acid like some tomatoes but not actually sweet either. Very nice and juicy.








You can check out my post from yesterday, to see my poultry, melons, squash and more. Linking up for Harvest Monday, a great blog hop sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions. Hop over and check out what gardeners around the world are harvesting.