Harvest Monday

Zucchini, Rond di Nice

 Thanks to Daphne's Dandelions for hooking up gardeners all over the world for Harvest Monday!

Another first this week, the Italian zucchini Rond di Nice (round from Nice). This one weighed in at 1 lb, 2 oz, the next one was 2 lbs, 6 oz. I ate the first as a salad, chopped with salt and pepper and a sprinkle of balsam vinegar. The second I sold at the farmer's market.

Red Pontiac and Mountain Rose

I dug all the Red Pontiac potatoes left and grubbed gently around some of the other varieties. The others aren't really ready yet but I found a few Mt. Rose. They are the bright red ones. I don't know if they will hold onto that bright color as they get more mature but if they do then I will probably switch to them for a large planting next year. They will probably sell better at the market than the lighter colored Pontiacs.

Princepe Borhgese & Snow White tomatoes

I picked over 4 lbs of small tomatoes, mostly the Princepe Borghese, with a few Snow White and Red Currants. I sold most of them at the farmers market; no one else has any tomatoes yet. But people are looking for slicers so next year I will try and get my big tomatoes planted much earlier and try and have tomatoes in early June.

I forgot again to take my camera to the market so no pic of my table. I didn't sell any chard or greens this week but two other venders also had greens. I did sell a couple of herb plants and will try and get some more cuttings taken and potted up, especially of my different mints.

The broken branch from the peach tree that I put in a jug of water in the kitchen softened up all it's peaches, there were 28 altogether.

strawberries and plum

A few strawberries trickled in and a few plums with bird pecks were blown off the tree in the wind.

Rainbow carrots

A few small rainbow carrots. These are Lunar White, Amarillo Yellow and Purple Dragon. I love the look of the Dragon's when you slice them, bright orange insides with red/purple outsides.







And YAY! we finally got some rain. Our last rain was March 18. Sat. afternoon a huge storm rolled in and we got .2". This morning the air smells so good and fresh. I love it when it rains. That storm was a total surprise tho, it wasn't on our forecast! and totally unexpected. I'm hoping for more very soon, that would be a big boon to the garden and really help with the water bill!

Harvest Monday

snow peas, chard, strawberries

Another Harvest Monday! I so look forward to this each week, I love seeing what gardeners around the world are harvesting. I get to learn about unique foods, novel methods of preparation and get some great gardening tips! Thanks! Daphne's Dandelions for being our gracious hostess!

The lettuce has mostly pooped out in the heat, or rather just shriveled up. There are a few seedlings coming along but with 100+ temps I have serious doubts they will amount to much.


While I skipped harvesting the Mammoth Melting sugar peas a few days so they could set some seed, I've been harvesting some of the newer pods again as the plants have set quite a bit of seed; probably enough for a couple of years.  I got this nice handful of strawberries the other day; apparently my trick of setting ripening berries up on top of the plant is working because none of these were eaten on. The chard is coming along well; most of what's in right now is the 'Perpetual Spinach' which has fairly short small stems. I do have about 30 rainbow chard seedlings to plant out though.

I will have to make a note that things are thinning out this time of year and I really should have planted a lot more stuff a couple of months ago. In fact I'm thinking that the next time I plant corn or potatoes or anything with wide spacing I should plant lots of lettuce or something in between at the same time.

Perfect Strawberry!

Purple Mums

These purple mums don't seem to know they aren't supposed to be blooming yet!

Rose Granada

My $2 rose, Granada, has put on a grand display. While not as strongly scented as Cecille Brunner, it does have a nice scent. And the pink and yellow blooms are beautiful.

greenhouse

The greenhouse changes almost daily, as seedlings are potted on or put outside and new things are brought in. The yellow down on the center left are some California poppies and the clump of green past them is a red oriental poppy and some bolting cilantro.

New Ladybug

The cilantra certainly has attracted the ladybugs this spring. There were quite a few larvae on the plants and now they are hatching out.  It's funny, for all the warm weather we had this winter, I've just now seen much of an aphid infestation. This is on the tips of some mustard which is flowering. I think the aphids were encouraged because the mustard is growing in a tub which is getting pretty dried out and root bound.

new greenhouse bed

I spent some time on Sunday hauling in some partly composted manure for this new bed in the greenhouse. It's been watered well and I'll check tomorrow for any sign of the manure heating up, then add some finished compost to the top and get ready to plant it.  In the meantime, some squash seedlings which germinated under lights in the house (for bird protection) are enjoying a day out in the sun.
These are Trombonccino, Baby Blue Hubbard and Butternut.  The Tombonccino are going on top of a large compost pile next to the rabbits, to run over the fence and shade the cages. I'll probably plant the Butternuts here in this bed so they can run on the trellis. Haven't made up my mind where I'll put the Hubbards tho.

Harvest Monday

little artichokes

Well it's Harvest Monday once again. Many thanks to Daphne's Dandelions for bringing us all together!  This week I harvested these three tiny artichokes. There are a couple more buds out there, but I'm afraid they might be even smaller. I don't think my soil is rich enough yet. Maybe next year they will grow bigger.

Chicks in the garden.

I've been terrible about remembering to take harvest photos! But there have been lots of eggs, my usual salad mix, although less of it and of course the mache and claytonia are long gone. Some greens for cooking, red mustard, chard and lambs quarters mostly. Since it's warming up I did spot some red root pigweed the other day; this is a wild amaranth and the leaves are good greens.

Sometimes I let the chicks out in the front garden, they are still small enough that they don't do too much damage to the larger plants. They have a great time chasing bugs and taking dust baths.

On Sunday I harvested a some laughable broccoli shoots and finally more than two strawberries.

Broccoli and strawberries.

This fall I will get the broccoli started a lot earlier, give it more manure and more space. That should take care of getting decent sized heads next year. Although the taste is fine, it's a bit embarrassing to be an experienced gardener and have your broccoli turn out like this!

My posting from Sunday will give you a virtual Garden Tour.

Harvest Monday

homegrown salad!

Well now another Harvest Monday rolls around; gosh some weeks just seem to be flying by and I'm not always taking a picture of every harvest. Linking up to our hostess, Daphne's Dandelions, hop on over and visit with gardeners from around the world.

Of course I harvested salad this week, although the lettuce harvest is a bit light, there being a slight gap between the old lettuce getting too bitter to eat and the new baby lettuce being big enough to pick. Besides lettuce there is sorrel, lambs quarters, chives, radish and viola blossoms.

first strawberries

The straw mulch helped keep these strawberries from rotting, but some kind of bug or maybe a small bird was tasting them. However they were ever so sweet and delicious. Can't wait until I have more plants and can get more than a taste!









Besides these of course there were eggs, some greens for cooking (red mustard, lambs quarters, chard) and lots of peas now that the bed of Mammoth Melting Sugar are producing.

storm damage

And the storm we had a week or so ago caused some shredding of the plastic on the greenhouse.  You can see the Dwarf Grey Sugar peas here. They are even more pathetic looking now. I've been picking off yellowing seed pods and when I've got most of them then I'll feed the vines to the rabbits and chickens and plant something else in the tubs.

You can see more stuff going on around the garden in my post from Saturday and the one from Wednesday.

Also, I've gotten my harvest totals, feed totals and chicken page all caught up. A quick scan of this month's harvests tells me that we are likely going to be at about half of what we had in March. I think this is mostly because I don't have my lettuce succession down yet, so will need to work on that.

Around the Garden

strawberries

Well I lost the first strawberries that tried to ripen in the greenhouse to rotting. They were touching the soil and were buried under the henbit and chickweed. So I cleaned up the bed and broke down and bought a bale of straw $11, ouch. But I mulched around the berry plants, the potatoes that I planted in Jan that are sprouting up and sprinkled a bit on one of the beds on the terraced garden.

Cantaloupe seedlings

The cantaloupe seedlings in the greenhouse are doing well. I'm going to have to thin them down to just one or two plants tho! Also sprouting up are some nasturtiums and there is a California poppy peeking in.

corn seedlings in soil blocks

I've started some Golden Bantam Improved corn in soil blocks. I usually don't start corn until May, but we are already having May type weather so decided to go ahead. I start them in soil blocks because of the birds, they are so terrible, pulling pea, bean and corn seeds out of the ground. This way they seedlings won't have root damage but will be big enough to hopefully escape the birds notice.

Eggplant seedlings

 I have 10 eggplant seedlings that I started indoors weeks ago. There is a hybrid eggplant that is a shocking pink called Neon. I grew it a few years ago and saved some seed. So these will be all different forms and colors. I'll pick my favs and save seed from them again, eventually developing my own. Of course I"m hoping for a shocking pink open pollinated eggplant....

volunteer pepper seedlings

 Remember the Yellow Marble tomato plant that lived all winter? Well apparently when I tried to get it to root on it's stem I broke the stem and it died before rooting. But it looks like there are some pepper plants of some sort volunteering from the compost I put in the planter.

Amish Paste tomato seedlings

I have about 25 canning tomato seedlings, about half Amish Paste and half Italian Heirloom. They will be going into the ground soon.

Little green plum

The plums are getting bigger, although we did lose some in a bad wind the other day, there are still a lot on the tree.

Dwarf Grey Sugar peas making seed

It is getting so warm that the Dwarf Grey Sugar peas are growing faster than I can keep them picked. They have also billowed out into the walk way at the bottom so bad that I can't really reach the tops without breaking the stems along the bottom. So the tops are loaded with pods going to seed. Which is ok, I needed to replenish the supply.

turnip seedlings

I have a small patch of turnips and thinned them out this evening. I tossed the greens in with some chard, lamb's quarters and spinach and cooked them up with bacon and onion for dinner.

one part of the front yard

Here is one part of the front yard, left, some Princepe Borghese tomatoes, some green onions and sweet alyssum. Buried in there are a few new strawberry plants. On the right behind the wire trellis are bunches of Italian Red Bottle onions, in front of it are more green onions and sweet alyssum. Oh yeah, one lone pea plant that the birds missed. The mass of green in the front is madder, a red dye plant.

Headboard trellis & Victorian cloche

Next to that bed is this one. I haven't planted the main part of it yet. On this end is an old head board I picked up off the side of the road. My cute little Victorian cloche is now protecting some watermelon seeds.

terraced garden

Over on the hillside terraced garden the first snapdragon is blooming. You can see I've added some straw to help keep the soil moister and to prevent erosion when it rains.  I've also added some more herbs to these beds, a citrus flavored thyme and two sages, a purple and a golden.

native penstamin

Around these terraced beds are clumps of native penstamin. They really attract bumblebees and hummingbirds.

Tall bearded iris

Here's a close up of my tall bearded iris.

sweetpeas

More sweetpeas began blooming this week. I can get high on these things, they smell soooo good! I planted all sorts of seed, some I collected from a garden fence I walk by sometimes, some from several old seed packets. I'm always attracted by labels that say "highly fragrant" and "old fashioned".  I just wish cameras could capture that fragrance to you could enjoy it too!

No Monocrops Here! May 8, 2009

No Monocrops Here!

May 8, 2009 at 5:41 am 

A mono-crop is what you have when you have a solid stand of just one thing. This is how commercial farming works, just one thing in each field. But nature doesn’t do things like that and neither should gardeners! You get much more production from a given space by planting intensively.
A case in point, this is my strawberry bed. It was planted with strawberries last fall, the plants are in staggered rows, each plant with 12 inches between it and any other strawberry plant. Then I planted bits of different crops to try out over the winter, chervil, carrots, spinach, cilantro, mache, claytonia.  That big bushy clump in the back is the cilantro going to seed. The dainty white flowers are pretty and supply necter to many beneficial insects. And the seeds are the spice you know as coriander.
This is the chervil, also going to seed now. Chervil tastes like a very mild black licorice. I haven’t decided if I like it or not, sort of like cilantro, it grows on you over time.
Here’s a bush bean seedling. After eating up a lot of the greens in the bed, when it got hot I started the beans in soil blocks and put them out in the bed about 6 inches in all directions, more or less, where ever the bed was pretty empty. Strawberries and bush beans grow well together.
and just look what I found hiding out here. This year the few strawberry plants in this bed will barely give us a taste. But this fall the large plants will make runners and by spring the bed should be full of fruit producing plants.