2010 Harvest

To see the photos up close, visit my flickr page for the Harvest 2010 Set.

To see progress photos from April through August 2010, visit Le Jardin on Shutterfly.

Harvests

8.8.10


8.13.10

7.20.10

Le Jardin on Shutterfly

To consolidate and back up my photos, I uploaded all my garden photos to a share site on Shutterfly. If you want to see all my garden photos that don't make the cut here on the blog just visit lejarden.shutterfly.com

7.6.10 Harvest

Harvests

6.30.10






7.2.10


7.5.10





Here's the current tally:

• 62 pickling cucumbers
• 11 pattypan squashes
• 16 fairytale eggplants
• 30 summer squashes
• 9 handfuls of pole beans

I've cut the kale out entirely to make room for my eggplant. Also, they were getting eaten by some pests which I didn't want to infest the rest of my crops. I've also cut the pole beans back. They were getting so tall that it was shading some of my other plants. Next year, I will make a tall teepee for them.

6.28.10 Harvest

Hi all! We just came back from New Orleans! It was a real blast, but I'm happy to be home. While we were there we tasted all the delights of Nola and I look forward to making some of my very own gumbo and seafood boil.


Although I harvested as much as I could before we left, we still came home to all this! None of these cucumbers or squashes were there before we left, so I was surprised to see many of them. I pickled the smaller of the cucumbers and made salad with the larger ones which had gotten a bit more tough.


The zinnias are really blooming now and I'm seeing more and more patty pan squashes. I pick the squash even if they are on the small side because it's supposed to encourage the growth of more squash. They taste better when they are small too.


This squash looks like one of those trolls from the 80s.

The raised bed is overflowing. I cut my tomato plants back a lot! They are really tall too and I see lots of tomatos developing. The pepper plants are also starting to develop more. The cucumber vines have climbed over and through my neighbors fence. I hope I will still be able to harvest them.

6.22.10

Today there was lots in the garden to harvest!


The tomato plants are surprisingly tall and beginnin to fall over. They are taller than the supports, so they will be needing some extra tall stakes.


Basil and I were checking out the summer squash plants.


Here's the raw harvest. I harvested the summer squash while it was still small (which is recommended) for several reasons. They taste better and will encourage growth of new squashes.


Washed and trimmed. I cooked the pole beans and packed them up for lunch. I used the squash and eggplant in a pasta dish. Then I made pickles with the little cucumbers.

6.20.10

Things are emerging each and every day. I can't keep up!


The fairy tale eggplant is starting to emerge. These are great drizzled with olive oil on the grill.


19 pickling type cucumbers! These will make a variety of pickles.

My First Harvest

After 3 days of rain and a spike in heat this weekend, it was time to harvest the cold weather crops. I didn't want the heat to cause the heads to flower.


Kale, 6 brocolli heads, parsley - You can harvest the outer pieces of parsley and as long as you leave the baby growth in the center of the parsley (the heart), it will keep producing. This is awesome because parsley takes weeks to germinate and then it grows all at once when the heat spikes up. Buying nursery started parsley allows me to use it in recipes for a longer period of time. Truthfully I don't use a lot of parsley in the summer because we're grilling. My mom freezes it, so I'll try that too and reserve my parsley for when I make our special Seafood Sauce.


I read that broccoli is harvested at 4-6". On the plant, the head didn't look that big but once I cut it from the plant, the head was quite large as you see in the supermarket. I took this same picture 5 days ago and you can see the difference in growth in as little as 5 days.

Celery - I'm going to make soup with this! I read that you can havest the outer stalks and leave the center for a longer harvest. I thought the celery was very leafy. I think I was suppose to "blanch" them by burying them in a trench as it grew.

One last look at the garden bed before I harvested my broccoli and kale. I moved things around and planted my tomatoes finally. Broccoli really sucks the nutrients out of the soil, so I'm going to pick up some more organic humus to side dress my tomatoes. I moved my Kale and Eggplant around, because the kale was blocking the sunlight and shadowing my eggplants.

Bright Lights swiss chard - I have gotten a bunch of yellow colored ones so far and 1 red one that didn't make it. I really want to get a pink or fuschia one in the mix to brighten up the garden bed. I'm going to sow some more seeds and see if I can get some pink ones.

Since we are now safely out of danger of frost or really bitter cold weather, I am going to transplant all my squashes, peppers, watermelon and sunflowers. I also need to harvest my spinach and other greens and replace them with my herbs. I'm going to plop some Nasturtium seeds and marigold seeds into the garden bed as well. I'm going to start some more Dill near my cucumbers. I hope they reseed for next year too. The zinnias are doing fantastic! I'm looking forward to this summer!