Harvest Monday; Finally Substantial

I'm so proud to finally have what feels like a substantial harvest come from my garden. Here are the highlights of our homegrown goodies from last week.

These shallot shoots were technically harvested on the 16th, but I didn't use them until the end of last week, so I'm counting them in my harvest now. These shoots went into a vegetable quiche which you can read more about on my cooking blog.

I was kicking a ball in the yard with the Little One (LO), and on a whim I pulled one of the few remaining oranges off the tree, peeled, and ate a slice. Wouldn't you know it?!?! They were sweet! I mean, they weren't bitter at all, and they weren't all dried up inside like they were this time last year (maybe all the rain helped in that regard). Anyway, I'm proud to say we had mouth-wateringly sweet oranges with several meals last week, and I'm sure we'll be having them throughout this week too. Yay!

On Wednesday, I trimmed my three Cameo Basil plants for the first time. Besides smelling the leaves until I felt intoxicated, LOL, I threw the leaves in a spaghetti sauce. Nom!

I also harvested the rest of my Green Arrow peas throughout last week. Not the best picture I took, but look at those little fingers trying to sneak more peas while I was taking pictures! LOL. The LO couldn't get enough of them, and kept asking for more, like he does with cheese (He's a little cheese freak. His favorites are Feta and blue cheese. Weird for a 2yo, right?).

We had some pretty high winds on Wednesday night/Thursday morning which blew many of my pea plants off their trellis. This worked to my advantage by revealing another batch of peas, about the same size as shown above. Today I removed the pea plants and the remaining mature pods. The grand total for this week's pea harvest was... You ready? 8.2 ounces. HAHA... Well, it's enough for us all to have as a side...

And for my grand finale, my Short & Sweet carrots from the salad table. I pulled these yesterday.

Below, the carrots on the left side were the few mature carrots that grew in front of the peas...

Without the tops, the carrots weighed in at just under 11 ounces. Woohoo!  I'll make these into Honey Glazed Carrots.

I probably won't grow peas again simply because they take up so much space for so little harvest, and I had to throw a lot of immature pods away since they can't be eaten. I have to say though, that I love the resiliency of the peas within the pods. The peas ended their season covered in aphids, and there was evidence of something laying eggs within the pod walls, but the peas themselves made it through unscathed.

I'm happy that I finally grew carrots, and I'll definitely grow them again this fall. Production for the space is great, and they're fast growers when grown under the right conditions. Fresh carrots are so scrumptious, and the LO can eat them because they're slightly softer in texture than regular store bought carrots.

Each week Daphne hosts Harvest Monday over at Daphne's Dandelions. Check out her page to see what other's have been munchin' and crunchin' on this week.

Potting Up The Leggy Ladies

On Sunday I potted up my super leggy tomato plants. I went to the dollar store on a whim a while back and found 5 of these pots for $1. I should've bought more...

Here's what the plant's roots looked like after 40 days. Pretty healthy, yes? I repotted the plants in a mix of seed starting medium, compost, perlite, and a smidgen of Epsom salt and all purpose slow-release fertilizer.

After the tomatoes were done, I potted up my nasturtiums with the Little One's help. Here he is stirring the mix...

And then he helped fill the pots with soil...

Oh yes! My carrots are really taking off now that I'm shading them, and we're in for cooler weather than last week so I think they'll have a fighting chance now!

Have a terrific Tuesday!

Garden Update

It's amazing how much things have changed in the 10 days since I was last in the garden. It feels like I missed out on the last part of spring, and stepped out into summer! The past few days have been in the 70's, but throw in the blazing sun on my south facing concrete garden, and my soil's temps are around 85 at the peak of the day.

I spent a large part of my free time (ie the LO's nap) outside yesterday cleaning up, and clearing out. Here's what's goin' on...

I hilled up my 1st round of Russet mini's. They're already almost to the top of the bucket! I may need to come up with a way to extend the bucket's height. Maybe by cutting off the bottom of another bucket and attaching somehow. Any suggestions?  The rest of my potatoes are slow-going thus far... 

The left side of my SFG: Garlic, onion, shallots. I've trimmed all of the alliums several times over the growing season, and they look wonderful, don't they?

Close up of the shallots...

Yeah, above ground, they're pretty, but these two shallots (from one seed) are what they looked like when I pulled them out. I don't know what went wrong here. I even fertilized them once--maybe twice with a diluted solution LOL.  I also pulled a garlic plant, and it looks the same.

I'm feeling a little defeated by the alliums because I planted them back in October, and they should be ready around now. Either way, I'll have to pull them in a few weeks to make way for my tomatoes.

The right side of the SFG growing the peas and broccoli... I don't know why, but the left two broccoli plants grew very large, but not a SINGLE florret grew on either one of them! What the heck?

My peas are becoming infested with aphids. I think it's due to the heat and the compact space. I also have carrots squeezed in between the broccoli and peas, so in an effort to get the peas and carrots to mature, and because I was tired of the broccoli not producing, I pulled the broccoli...

Here is my last brocooli harvest of the season.

My lettuces in the salad table bolted some time last week. *sigh* This was my most productive part of the garden this season, so I'm really sad to see it go. I've cleaned out the lettuces, and moved the table to a shadier, cooler part of the yard to see if my carrots will mature. I pulled one, and it's the length of my index finger, but as skinny as a pencil. Here's hoping they'll fatten up a bit!

 I've decided that this coming fall I will probably either grow only lettuces or a combo of lettuces and cover crops to improve my raised beds soil.

Starting 2010 With Rain, Growth, and Blogging

First, thank you to those of you who contacted me to make sure everything is ok, and to those of you who have encouraged me to get back into writing. After being gone for two weeks back in October, I fell out of the writing and gardening groove. Having the holidays thrown in there didn't help much either! One of my New Year's "Do Better's" ("resolutions" seems so extreme, and tend to drop by the wayside faster than "do-better's") is to get back in that groove!

So, here's what have been growing around the garden. I have two sets of most pictures. The first of each are from 1/11, and the second from today, after we've had a week of rain (gasp).

Below: Salad table, and current hot spot for producing life! Left (sown 11/5): Summer Crisp Lettuce. Right, back to front (sown 11/23): French Breakfast Radishes, Short & Sweet Carrots, loose-leaf lettuce mix.

Cilantro. After all the rain, I have fungus gnats--bad. I drilled more holes at the bottom, and will treat with BTi once the rain tapers.

SFG, right side: Peas and broccoli, and hidden behind the broccoli, under the peas are carrots. The carrots were more of an experiment after my carrot seed mats sown in my west-east running raised bed failed due to lack of sun, and slugs. The peas are taking up so much more space than I anticipated. I added a wire "fence" to try containing them, then I added more trellis string I had and tried tieing them back, to no avail...

At least the peas are beginning to bloom.

My broccoli is beginning to flower! YES!

SFG, left side: Looks like a bunch of weeds, yeah? Garlic and onions are in the back, with soggy onion scapes taking over the empty spot on front right. Shallots in the front left. I dug down in the dirt to see what's happening, and nothing is happening. Nothing to match the growth on top at all. I'll give them until April when tomatoes need to go in (yes, tomatoes, but more on that another time) to show me they're worthy, or they're gone.

 

The orange bush/tree is doing really well. This year there are a lot more but smaller fruits growing than last year... Interesting...

My hyacinths and crocus' (croci? hehe) are coming up. Early I think? They aren't very picture worthy at this point since the flowers that haven't been decapitated by slugs are spread far apart...

Hope you've enjoyed!

PS Many thanks to Mom and Dad for my new camera! Now I just need to learn to use it to it's full potential!

Finally Getting Back Into the Swing of Things

Wow! It's hard to believe I haven't blogged in a month! Time has gone by too quickly...

The day we returned home from our two week vacation in VA, the LO ended up with croup (I'm still extremely happy he didn't start his barky cough on the plane!), and as soon as he started recovering, I came down with a nasty cold turned sinus and eye infections with laryngitis, and now Boy Wonder is sick. I sure hope this is all we see of the sickies this season!

The next few days my posts will be focusing on updates around the yard. Today I'll do a mostly pictorial post of the growth and changes that have occurred to the plants I blogged about on 10/8. DH was kind enough to take pictures on 10/21 while I was gone.

SFG, right side

(back to front) Lantana, Green Arrow Peas, broccoli, radishes

 10/11

10/21

10/31

Today
(the line in front of the peas will be carrots)

SFG, left side
(back) Lantana, Garlic, Texas Grano onion (front) French Red & Dutch Yellow Shallots, Lettuce mix, and Musclun mix
10/21

10/31

Today

Cantaloupe

10/11

10/21

10/31

Today

Right raised bed
Sweet potatoes, musclun/lettuce mixes, carrots
10/21

10/31

Today

Dwarf Meyer Lemons
 9/23

10/5

11/7

During my next post, I will talk about the changes I've made to my garden plans, and a few issues I've been having around the yard.