Monday, September 24, 2012

Harvest Monday, September 24th, 2012

The larger bok choy really makes the Chinese cabbage look small. It isn't. It weighted 2.5 lbs, so was fairly large for one called Soloist. It is meant to be small but the reality is that it is short not narrow. And it would take more than one person to eat a head. I gave all the above away. I still had some of all of it in the fridge. I've found they don't hold well in the ground once they are ready. If I let them sit there too long they will start to rot. so better to harvest and find a good home.

My beans are still coming in strong. Again I gave them away. Last week I picked two pounds. So this week I'll have to finish those up. I find I eat about one pound a week given the option. Beans have been a real feast or famine crop for me. I wish I could get them to produce steadily. The peas however just aren't producing enough. Those are all mine.

This is a big cooler filled with huge leaves of chard on the bottom and kale on the top. I kept about two pounds out of seven of the chard. The rest was hard to give away, but with a little here and a little there and some help of friends of my townhouse mates, I succeeded. The kale I tried with, but with no success. I think I'll have to freeze it for the winter then. It is that or the compost pile. I couldn't leave it in the ground either. Basically I'm thinning my plants. I want them 16" apart and they are at 8". So half had to come up. I haven't finished thinning the whole bed either. More will have to come out in future weeks.

As many of you noticed I harvested my sweet potatoes last week too. Those are not yet in the tally. I'm going to cure them first. Then figuring out their weight will be tricky. There is significant insect damage on some of them. I'll be canning those. I might weigh the bad ones then guesstimate how much I have to toss. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

I've been very happy with the total poundage that has come out of the garden this year. I will probably beat last year's total even without all those tomatoes. Even with growing mustard seed. And even with some bad management of one of my beds. The heat we got this year had made the summer crops produce very well. Usually we get a lot of high 70Fs to mid 80Fs weather. This year we got mostly mid 80Fs to mid 90Fs in July. We did get three days in the 70Fs and three days in the low 80Fs, but that is it. So abnormally hot in our section of the country adds to the production. The early spring probably helped a lot too. Our ground unfroze about three week early with the warmer than normal winter. I wonder what next year has in store for us.

  • Beans 2.09
  • Cucurbit 1.33 lbs
  • Greens 19.18 lbs
  • Peas 0.17 lbs
  • Tomato 1.13 lbs
  • Weekly total 22.90 lbs
  • Yearly total 549.04 lbs
  • Tally $991.86

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

41 comments:

  1. What a haul of sweet potatoes! I had always thought it a crop for a warm climate. But you in Arlington? I guess you ARE growing it in your summer.. perhaps I should give it a try at my new patch in frosty South West slopes of NSW.

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    1. And that is just part of the harvest. Yes we live in the northern US. Our growing season for sweet potatoes is from the beginning of June until early to mid September. So we have about 100 days of growing time for them. All the ones I picked were short season sweet potatoes. This year we did have an unusually hot summer so they produced better than I expected. I keep wondering how they will do in a normal year here.

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  2. Beautiful greens coming out of your garden. It's funny that you had difficulty giving away kale. It is one of my favorites. It looks like the sweet potato experiment was a success! They look lovely all lined up.

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  3. Peas are never enough here too. I can never grow compact head for napa cabbbage, although I tried each year. I am also giving away our chards. Because it will be a waste many starting to flower now we enter spring. Congratulation on the big sweet potato harvest. They must have like the summer heat at your place this year. Your harvest look much much more beautiful compare to the market ones, healthier and safer to eat.

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  4. That sweet potato harvest is fabulous! Really, really impressive stuff. Hope you like them...

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  5. Your harvest looks so good! Nice sweet potatoes! I've never grown them but I love them. You make it look easy.

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  6. I am so jealous of your sweet potatoes harvest. The critters got fat on mine. My first patch yielded many partially eaten ones, going to dig the second patch this week, not sure what I will find.

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  7. You grow the prettiest chinese cabbages and bok choy. I am having a mounting battle with slugs to keep my fall asian greens from going down.

    Totally impressed with the sweet potato harvest. Wow!

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  8. Nice sweet potato harvest! And the other stuff isn't shabby either :) Bummer about the insect damage on the sweet potatoes but I'm impressed at the quality of you greens (and their lack of damage). If I recall correctly, you grow them under cover, so obviously that works great...

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    1. There is some flea beetle damage on the leaves. My row cover doesn't keep the flea beetles out, but I consider that pretty minor.

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  9. Really gorgeous harvest of asian greens and sweet potatoes. Too bad about the insect damage. What varieties did you plant that grow in short season?

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    1. The ones in the photo were Beauregard. I also had Garnet, Purple, Korean Purple, and a couple of unknowns. Next year I want to try Georgia Jet as it is supposed to be the most productive in New England.

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  10. Your sweet potatoes are simply gorgeous! I didn't get around to giving those a go this year and I am sad for it! Ah well! Can't wait to see what it all weighs in at :-)

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  11. Great harvest this week. The sweet potatoes look really good! We have a hard time growing them in our area because our season is so short. Our peas are really slow right now too. I think that is just how things go with fall planted peas.

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  12. Your greens and sweet potatoes look really good. I need to get more chard and other greens planted for chicken food. They love having fresh greens, the ducks love them even more. Only one of my sweet potato plants made it and it's not very big. I seriously doubt there are any potatoes under there. Ah well, always next year.

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  13. Beautiful harvest, awesome sweet potato harvest. Mine is not that large but I sure am excited about it. It is my first decent sweet potato harvest!

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  14. Congratulations on the magnificent harvest of sweet potatoes! I'll be interested to hear more about canning them. We never seem to be able to grow fall peas and have given up, and our second planting of green beans stopped producing way too early — as you said, feast or famine...

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  15. It's nice to see all the greens coming from your garden. The cabbages look so nice and hole-free. How did you accomplish that? My Brussels spouts and collards just got decimated by worms while I wasn't looking. Some of it is loopers, but there is another larvae on it that I believe is the European corn borer. They never attacked other vegetables before but this year they are everywhere in the garden.

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    1. I always grow my brassicas under a row cover. The row cover I've been using doesn't keep out flea beetles (and there is some damage on the bok choys, but not horrible), but it does keep out root maggots and the caterpillars.

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  16. Oh to have that many sweet potatoes to feast upon.

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  17. That´s a really nice harvest! I am a bit jealous of Your nice squashes/qourgettes! Have still not been able to taste one of my own this rainy year! Nice asian greens as well and lovely sweetpotatoes. Have a nice week! :) Mia

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  18. Amazing harvests again. The wacko weather really seems to have helped you this year. I think you need some chickens to help with the excess greens, that's where I get rid of the kale that I don't want to eat at this time of year. Maybe you can find someone who has chickens who will trade chicken treats for fresh eggs?

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    1. I've thought that too. If only I had chickens I'd be able to get rid of the extras. But I just don't want to keep chickens right now. I've not seen any chickens in the neighborhood.

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  19. Wow, beautiful and bountiful harvest, envy envey!
    For some reasons Mr Linky does not show up on my screen.

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    1. Sometimes it flakes out. I put yours into the list.

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    2. Thank you, it happened last week at Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard also. I still don't see the link from both of you, wonder it's my computer.

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    3. Dang now I'm having trouble with Mr. Linky. I hope it gets back to normal.

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  20. Your Bok Choy and Chinese Cabbage look so good. I have never tried them but guess I need to! Nice looking beans too. I am hoping for more sugar peas also. Only picked two so far! I also wonder what next years weather will be like! Nancy

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  21. I always love to see what you are digging up, it's always different than what we have growing, and an inspiration to try something new! For most of the greens though, we have to wait for winter (which is basically your fall and spring), I get jealous looking at all your greens!

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  22. One of the farmers down here (Mobile, Alabama) said she thought it was going to be an early winter this year down here. It IS cooling down faster than usual (thank goodness.)

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  23. Daphne,
    I find out what's wrong with my computer. I switch browser from Firefox to Explorer and Mr. Linky shows up. Hmmm....I have been having problems with FF lately.

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  24. I think I need to try sweet potatoes next year. Yours look beautiful!

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  25. See, I published my blog last night and forgot all about Mr. Linky. I'm just destined to always be last! Your sweet potatoes are beautiful, and the total puts my *one* to shame! Oh, I know I have maybe 5 or 6 more out there.....but I'll just let you brag about yours and I'll brag about my butternuts :-)

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    1. But last is moving up in the world. Last this week in in the 30s. And your butternuts are to die for. So many of them.

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  26. Daphne you are still really pulling the crops in. Great stuff there.

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  27. I am tempted to grow sweet potatoes now! I'm in Zone 4, and limited in crawl space, so do you think I could grow them vertically? Also, where and how do you find starters(slips) for sweet potatoes. I don;t need much to start with.

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    1. Well I'm no expert since this is my first year growing them. I got slips from a fellow gardening blogger and I grew my own on the windowsill. You can take a sweet potato, put a few toothpicks around the middle and suspend the bottom half in water in a jar. The potato will eventually grow slips out the top (provided you put it right side up which I occasionally had trouble with). You can buy them from commercial sources too. I find that way a bit expensive for a small area, but a good way to get some interesting varieties. You need at least 90 days of hot weather to grow them.

      I think sweet potatoes would do well grown vertically. I also think they would be great in hanging baskets if the basket was big enough for the tubers.

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  28. Thanks Daphne! I will surely try growing sweet potatoes next year! We only need at most 8 or so in harvests:) That would make a couple of dishes for our family and also fun to just grow something new next year!

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  29. I haven't seen Chinese cabbage before. Seeing your post I am also lured to have a great harvest.

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