Harvest Monday

It feels like the past month or so, I've only been posting about my harvests and CSA shares... Things are growing along out back, not a lot of changes, but I realized a few weeks ago that I'd been spending way too much time on my computer. Most of my free time was being spent in front of this screen, reading about things that interest me like cooking and baking, canning, self-sufficiency, and best of all, all of your blogs! I've decided to cut back on the screen time to get through a few books I've purchased (about said interests), and also getting back into crocheting the blankets I'm making for the boys. Once Boy Wonder goes back to school in three weeks (Do I squeal with excitement, or faint from the realization of having an 8.5 year old going into third grade?), I'll have more free time (ie brain power) to think of creative things to talk about and write about.

In the mean time, here's what I brought indoors this past week...
Wednesday... I still have one plant producing a few nasturtiums. The others have all died from the heat.
Did you know you can pickle nasturtium seeds? Me neither! I had a lot that I saved for next season, and stopped gathering them up. Here's another way to pickle them from Old Fashioned Living, with other nasturtium recipes.

I couldn't remember if I'd purchased red or yellow Tumbling Toms, and now I know! The yellow tomatoes are the first Tom's of the season. They were sorta bitter. Par for the variety's coarse? We shall see...

There wasn't time on Wednesday to weigh the harvest, so I ended up combining that day's harvest with yesterday's harvest, shown below.

The beans are separated into two piles to show the difference between production based on where they're growing. The purple and few green beans are from 12 plants (south facing, sunny most of the day) growing in front of my melons, and the spindly pile is from 50ish plants (west facing, 6-8hrs of afternoon sun) in their own bed. Crazy, huh?

Oh, and those red specs next to the tiny orange sweet pepper? They're my first Thai Hot chili's. They were fruits that were on the pods when I brought the plant home. I popped one of those lil guys in my mouth, and they pack quite a punch for being so small! I can't wait to have more! I see a Spicy Thai Shrimp dish in my future...

I decided to remove them so the plant would produce more.

Below are my first cut flowers. Zinnias and "10 week stock" (I think). I thought I'd bring some indoors before they bit the dust. Like the vase? It's a cleaned up tequila bottle, lol.

This week's harvest total...

Bush Beans:  4.8 oz

Basil: ~1 oz

Baby Belle Peppers: . too small to weigh, doh!

Viva Italia tomatoes: 9.3 oz

Tumbling Tom cherry tomatoes: 1.7 oz

I didn't bother weighing the nasturtiums or Thai Hot's.

I used the basil to make this Basil Vinaigrette (I halved the recipe, used white balsamic, and only 1/2 cup oil). It's a very nice dressing that is low in actual vinegar flavor, so both boys are enjoying it too. Today the purple basil had "stained" some of the roasted garlic pink, so it looks a little better than this picture.

Remember that melon plant I'd successfully saved? Yea, well, I ripped it out yesterday in an attempt to allow more sun to reach the Thai pepper plant. Priorities, ya' know?

Last Monday I mentioned a new addition to the melon family--the melon in the upper left of the below photo, and when I was peaking at my plants from the dining room window (the only way I can see their backsides w/o climbing back there), I noticed a second newcomer hiding behind leaves! Now the total is 6 pantyhose-slung melons growing on 4 plants.

I'm feeling the urge to do another video update... The next set will be more detailed, and I'll try to go slower, I promise. It's a lot quicker and easier for me to do right now than take pictures and write about them, so stay tuned!

Please stop by the wonderful blog of our Harvest Monday hostess, Daphne, to see what she and other gardeners are growing and harvesting this season.

Harvest Monday

I'm running a little short on time today, and want to get these up while I can, so please forgive my lack of intro, and all that proper blogging stuff... ;-)

All but one of my potato plants have died, so I decided to clean the buckets out. These were found on Wednesday in the first round of buckets I planted back in February. Close to half a pound there...

This morning I was going to get rid of the last two buckets...

...but decided to keep the one plant still half way thriving after discovering little potatoes growing up the stem!

I didn't find any potatoes in the bucket above, but the other bucket held around a half a pound of potatoes, mostly russet mini's, bringing this week's potato harvest to 1 pound. 

I spent some time snooping around the bush beans on Wednesday, and found these.

Here are a few pictures of the beans. It seems like each time I lift the bean leaves, there's new growth to be found...

I picked these yesterday, bringing this week's bean weight in at 12 ounces.

I'm thinking I'll pan fry the beans and potatoes with a little olive oil, thyme garlic and onion for a side tonight.

I also harvested some basil. The leaves on the left are standard Italian, and on the right are Italian Cameo. I'll talk about how I used these in this week's "CSA Wednesday" post.

I don't know if this is considered a "harvest" or not, but my Whirlybird nasturtiums are going to seed, so I've been saving the pods when they readily fall off the stem...

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

Harvest Monday

Yes! I get to participate in this week's Harvest Monday! I didn't think I would have anything, but I ended up being able to squeeze one tiny harvest out of the garden last week. Yay!

My Whirlybird Nasturtiums are in full bloom... I find it interesting that out of seven possible shades, I have two colors on four plants. Hopefully the last two plants I'm growing this season will reveal a different color (or two)...

I wanted to try using them in something besides a salad, but I had no idea how to use nasturtiums. It's not really an ingredient typically found in recipe books or recipe collection sites. Thank goodness for the internet! Googling yielded a few suggestions, and I decided to go with making a Nasturtium Leaf Pesto recipe I found over at Poor Girl Gourmet's blog.

Being a pesto purist (for a simple lack of pesto branching out, really), I was a little scared to try a straight-up nasturtium pesto, so I decided to add a little bit of basil to the recipe. I snipped a few Cameo basil I started from seed, and some of the Italian basil I bought from a nursery last week. I didn't weigh the harvest because it was so small, but I ended up with 1/2 cup nasturtium leaves, and about 1/8-1/4 cup basil. Oh, I also added homegrown garlic to the mix too.

(I think I over-blended)

I was surprised by how much of the nasturtium's peppery flavor was lost when making the pesto, but still tasted good. I really enjoyed using it to make Creamy Pesto Shrimp (BTW, this is totally bad for the arteries and hips).

I froze the rest of the pesto on parchment paper in 1/2 tablespoon portions then transferred to a freezer bag. I plan on using it again tomorrow in this Pesto Polenta Lasagna.

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

Harvest Monday

This weekend's harvest was the second to very last of my spring plants (only garlic left now), and my last harvest for a while. I'm glad I was able to get a few extra weeks of growth out of my Sweetie Baby Romaines by shading from the afternoon sun. A couple were showing signs of bolting (look at the front left head), so they needed to be pulled...

A few also had guests...

I think these were cabbage looper eggs since there were one or two hanging about...

My total harvest from that bed came in at 7 ounces. Sure, it isn't anything like Villager's pounds of lettuce, but it'll give us several meals worth of greens.

I took leftovers from my Mexican themed dinner on Saturday, and turned them into Southwestern chicken salads for DH and I. Nom!

I also harvested some greens and flowers from my Whirlybird Nasturtiums. They added a nice zest which complimented the vegetarian Southwestern Egg rolls (on the left of the pic), and salsa "salad dressing" perfectly.

While we were eating dinner, a grasshopper stopped by to hang out on the window screen. I caught him in a bug holder-thingy, and each boy was allowed to share a piece of their lettuce with it.

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

Roots, Fruits, Yucks, Blooms

Monday marked the first day of hardening off my second round of seedlings--beans, cucumbers, melons, two more sweet peppers, and one more tomato.

With the exception of my last tomato plant (I can't remember if it's Pearson or Viva Italia), everything was grown in the newspaper pots I made.

I don't think I'll need to worry about the roots having trouble getting through the newspaper walls. HA!  I must point out though, that these pots are one sheet thinner than the instructions say to use...

The plums are coming in nicely... From what I can tell, it doesn't look like we'll have as large a harvest as last year.

We also had some pretty windy rain earlier this week which knocked some fruits off. The LO loves gathering them for me which gives Momma time to get some uninterrupted work done. Yess!

There's one cluster of branches that are infested with aphids (yuck!), but it's a lot better than the whole tree being covered like last year. I'll spray with water and release ladybugs since that worked well last time.

This is my neighbor's nectarine tree, which partly hangs over our patio. I suspect this is peach leaf curl, and is the second season it's occurred. There were no blossoms on the tree this year. I'm frustrated that it's not being cared for. I mean, come on. The tree is obviously sick. I rarely ever see my neighbors, let alone talk to them, so I can't exactly bring it to their attention, even though it is right outside their back door.

Well, let's bring the mood back up, shall we? My first Whirlybird Nasturtium bloomed this week. I used to think I wouldn't grow it unless I could eat it, which to me meant no flowers. Now that I know I can have them and eat them too, I'm just giddy!

One of my Pearson tomatoes has it's first blossoms also...

Enjoy your weekend!

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!

Wordless Wednesday--Babies

Indoors

Sown 2/10

Whirlybird Nasturtium

 Viva Italia Tomato

Pearson Tomato

Cameo Basil

Creamcicle Gazania

 

Outdoors

Hyacinth

(if only pictures could smell)

"Paternal Twins"

Carrot sown 11/5/09; Sweetie Baby Romaine sown 1/22/10

  

Plums

Meyer Lemon

PS If you've followed for a while, I thought I should let you know that my two Meyer Lemons shown at the bottom of this post were killed in the line of duty (either by children, or by my careless moving indoors during a few frosty nights in December).