Harvest Monday: First harvest of Spring 2012!

Ok, so it's just a bunch of spring onions but it's something!  Thanks to Daphne for hosting Harvest Monday (and giving me an excuse to get back on the garden blog horse).

I had decided to pull these and eat them instead of just pulling and replanting...the bed they were in needed about 6 more inches of compost so I could plant herbs.

Spring onions, cleaned and ready to slice.

These are a couple of the thinnings from my radish bed.  They are about dime-sized, and the one on the left is a watermelon radish.  Not much I can do with them though.

I sliced into one of these and they smell strongly of garlic.  Originally I thought it might be onions growing on my hillside, but now I think maybe garlic growing from composted store-garlic.

End of the Season Garden Pictures You May Have Missed Since I Didn't Post Them.

Here are the end-of-season harvests and garden pictures taken during my blogger hiatus:

Six types of eggplant!

It's hard to see what happened here, but this is my row of huge bushy tomatoes after it fell over.  The welds on my tomato cages just gave out and collapsed into a mess of metal stakes and hoops.  Clearly I need to use something else next year.

Harvesting in the rain gives everything a nice glossy look.

This was definitely the year of the pepper.

Carrots in buckets were a complete success!

The kids were very excited about the different colors.

They would BEG to go harvest carrots.

I really don't remember what type these are, but they tasted good and were 4-6 inches long.

I will buy another packet of these rainbow carrots to keep the kids interested, but they honestly didn't taste much different than the orange carrots.

This year's pitiful onion harvest.

The broccoli is actually still sending off shoots that we pick now and then.  The weather here in Pittsburgh has been unseasonably warm.

One of the last harvests.  There were a ton of baby peppers on the vines when the first killing frost hit.

My Turkish Orange eggplant took FOREVER to ripen anything.

The harvest when we pulled most of the pepper and tomato plants.

Heirloom tomatoes in various stages of ripening.

A small, late garden harvest.

This is the final "harvest" from mid-November.  Beet greens, a few peas and carrots (even ball shaped ones) that I missed earlier, a handful of mostly-ripe Turkish Orange Eggplants and some peppers that somehow survived multiple killing frosts.   I'm not sure those broccoli plants will ever die.

I know I missed quite a few harvests, but this is a good overview of those last few months.  The weather that was so uncooperative this past spring really seems to have worked out well in terms of garden production this fall.  We could have planted several things that I just didn't think we'd have time for....oh well.

Harvest Monday: Short and Sweet

The last few days have been a little crazy so I haven't been able to do much actual gardening or write ABOUT gardening.  We did take pictures of our harvests this week though, and you'll notice quite a few massively split tomatoes.  We've been getting a whole lot of rain, which is great but some of the plants don't really know what to do with it.  The volunteer Black Prince tomatoes from last year are splitting the worst, which ironically is exactly why I didn't purposely plant any this year.  Ah well.

We are also totally done with all of our early planted summer squash and zucchini varieties, and the ones I've planted more recently are showing signs of the same yellow downey mildew that killed the others.  I just planted two types of squash in potting soil out in the back yard to maybe get a small crop in before frost...it all depends on the weather, and after this spring and summer I believe anything is possible.

On to the harvests!  After checking out this week's haul, please scoot on over to Daphne's Dandelions to see what the rest of the blogosphere has harvested this week :)

August 9th Harvest

August 11th Harvest

August 13th Harvest

August 15th Harvest

Harvest Monday: OMG Tomatoes Edition

So many pretty tomatoes this week!  I know there would be quite a bit more if the plants were healthier, but it's hard to complain too much when so many others have lost more plants than I even started with.

We also yanked our broccoli today in favor of some fall kohlrabi since it was practically done putting out side shoots, and we got the super-diseased squash out to make room for more beans.   I would still like to attempt more summer squash, but will likely do so in the back yard in buckets to avoid the squash-killing plague that is totally out of control out front.

Anyway, on to the harvest!  Thanks again to Daphne for hosting Harvest Mondays...it's always fun to see what the blogosphere is harvesting :)

Wednesday's harvest (that big guy is our first pineapple tomato).  The kids LOVE the tiny little orange sweet peppers there. 

Friday's Harvest.  Our first totally healthy cabbage!   Last year they were all destroyed by bugs...this year I only grew one but wish I had a bunch more!

Sunday's Harvest.  This picture was taken with the wrong camera setting so it's much darker than it should be.  That is the last green zucchini from the downey mildew infected squash plants.

Today's Harvest.  The banana peppers are still afflicted with some weird disease that acts like blossom end rot except the spots uniformly form an inch or so ABOVE the blossom end.  Very weird. 

Harvest Monday ~ Muppet Edition

This week's harvest was dominated by tomatoes and peppers.  The summer squash are all dying out, the cucumbers already died and the eggplant are still lagging from the flea beetle damage.  We also harvested two pieces of okra...though I am embarrassed to report that this northerner hasn't so much as even held or cooked with raw okra, so I have no idea whether we should have picked it already.  It could be way under-ripe or way over-ripe...no clue.  

Thursday July 28th harvest.

Friday July 29th Harvest with our first and only White Wonder cucumber.

Last of the yellow summer squash and green burpless cucumbers.

Sunday July 31st Harvest.

First Okra?

Kermit Eggplant!  I should be able to pick it in a couple of days.

Check out other gardener's harvests this week over at Daphne's Dandelions!

Harvest Monday ~ Eyeball Cucumber Edition

  This week will see the last of the beans, cucumbers and yellow squash unless the seeds I plant over the next few days actually grow in time for a fall crop.  It may be a little late in the season, but last year we wore T-shirts while trick or treating with the kids so we just might just be OK.  We got maybe 4 cucumbers total from the 12 seeds I planted because their bed gets irregular sunlight and the vines all crowded into a thick mess on one end of the trellis.  I could have guided them more and maybe it would have worked out better.  Who knows, but I'm giving that area to the fall peas and trying a few fall cukes in buckets that have been vacated by jalapenos and broccoli so it's something to think about for next year.

On to the harvest!  Thanks again to Daphne from Daphne's Dandelions for hosting harvest Monday!

July 19th brought us our first ever broccoli!  The kids were out of their minds with excitement.

(also from July 19th) This has been the week of peppers.  Last year we had maybe 2 peppers a week starting sometime in August.  What a change!  We have noticed more and more of the banana peppers with necrotic spots that could be blossom end rot, plus the leaves are getting kind of pale, so I will be amending with blood and bone meal plus a little powdered milk.  

We got our first small black krim tomato this week!  The plant seems to have beaten back the blight a little bit...I know I committed garden sacrileg by letting a sick plant stand, but my growing area is so small that it's pretty impossible for me to beat things by isolation and crop rotation.  Next year we'll be looking for resistant varieties and growing a surplus to hedge our bets.

The second broccoli cutting!  We have three plants total and were floored to have a harvest at  all considering the heat.  All three plants were harvested this week and we are now eagerly awaiting side shoots.

This is the harvest from Sunday.  I pulled the beans up completely after that and will be planting more beans and other fall veggies.  Probably half of those banana peppers have a small brown dead spot.

Today's harvest.  That green tomato is a black krim knocked down by yesterdays storm.  The red tomatoes are Early girl  and that yellow ball is the ONLY cucumber set on our tangled lemon cucumber vines.  It's quite creepy looking in person but was the best tasting cucumber I've ever grown...very mild with thin skin.

Our one lemon cuke before slicing.  It's like a peeled eyeball (thank my 6 year old for the description).

A side view of the eyeball cuke.  I totally hope I get some of these from the seeds we just planted by the end of the year.   It was SO good.

Harvest Monday: First Ripe Tomatoes Edition!

I'm putting up my Harvest Monday post a little late because I was hoping to have pictures from today to add.   Unfortunately the sky turned dark and rainy by the time we were finally able to get out side and the kids elected to save the first broccoli harvest of the season for tomorrow.  This harvest marks the turning point of the garden where spring stuff is either tapping out or coming into harvest for the first time, and fall crops are just being planted.

Lots of peppers this week, along with squash, beans and eggplant.

The hot banana peppers are VERY hot.

The beans are still going strong and have filled an entire shelf of the fridge.

More beans from a different day...the flat green ones have a very tough string that I am removing before freezing.

A few onions were knocked down by an animal walking through the bed so I harvested them early.   The tomatoes are both early girl and probably could have used an extra day on the vine but we wanted them for a salad.  They were a bit tart.

Go Craigslist!   The box was never opened.  Now all I need are more bags and I can start putting stuff in the  deep freezer.

Now go check out Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions to see what everyone else is harvesting (or to add your own harvest to the post!)

Harvest Monday

Tiny Carrots.  Tiny tiny carrots.

Beets, golden beets, and tiny carrots.  The golden beets didn't get nearly as large as the red beets.

A Numex Big Jim pepper and the last of the spring planted kohlrabi.

Two gypsy bell peppers, a space miser zucchini, two Ichiban eggplants and  so many beans that they wouldn't all fit in my stock pot.  

Bush beans:  Royal Burgundy, Yellow Wax, some kind of green, and some kind of rare heirloom yellow shell bean that you can eat like a string bean if you pick it young and green (those are the flat green ones).  I'll have to look up the actual names of the things I planted.  

In addition to the above, I harvested another zucchini that was given away and everything included in this post from last Tuesday.  This is my first week participating in the awesome Harvest Monday over at Daphne's Dandelions, so be sure to pop on over there and take a look at what everyone else has harvested this week!