Monday, August 12, 2013

Harvest Monday

Here it is Monday again and time to join in the weekly garden show-and-tell hosted at Daphne's Dandelions where gardeners everywhere are sharing what they harvested this past week.
 With all our partial shade here, I do better with greens than many other veggies. Kale is still producing nicely. This batch went into a large kettle of kale and bean soup, made on an unusually damp and chilly day last week, a day that felt more like late September than early August.
 I have finally managed to grow some reasonably heat tolerant lettuce so we are still having salads, with home-grown tomatoes even! The heat tolerant varieties I'm using are Nevada, Pablo, Anuenue, Jericho and Concept. I think I am happiest with the Pablo, but they are all staying relatively sweet (certainly not like the early spring lettuce, but enough to enjoy) and only just beginning to bolt.
And look! A couple of little carrots! Maybe I will get a carrot harvest after all if I can only be a little patient. The broccoli keeps giving many side shoots and I also harvested my remaining early cabbage, which are being turned (I hope) into sauerkraut.
 The picture above and the picture below show the gist of what I've been bringing in this week. The tomatoes are still ripening maddeningly slowly while the plant disease is moving maddeningly fast. Cucumbers are coming in at a good pace and this year we have refrigerator dills again. Yay! And though the photo is a bit unclear, at the top of the basket there are two zucchini! They are from the second planting of zucchini after the failure of the first. Not a lot, but still...
 The yellow Gold Marie Vining beans keep coming in like gangbusters. Pounds of them! This variety is definitely a keeper for me and since my bush green beans have been a bit sluggish this year, they are keeping us in beany goodness. The two light colored trombocino squash are not done justice in the photo. Each one is almost two feet long and they each weigh close to 2 pounds apiece. And there is the first eggplant of what will probably be a very small quantity this year.
Lastly I present a small bunch of basil and a few scallions! The scallions were a part of my interplanting experiment. They'd been planted between early cabbage and I expected the scallions to be ready before the cabbage got large, but it went the opposite way around! The cabbage were all harvested and then the scallions began to get larger.  Still, I'm glad of that outcome because I have some nice scallions to use now for salads and recipes. That's my week here in eastern Connecticut where the weather is getting more like typical August now! Check out all the other great harvests at Daphne's Dandelions!

24 comments:

  1. Very lovely harvest! Love the greens and beans, and very interesting variety of squash. Let us know how it taste!

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    1. Thanks Jenny! The trombocino taste like zucchini, but they grow on a long vine like winter squash. They are making up for my lack of zucchini this year.

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  2. Everything looks wonderful. We planted Nevada lettuce this year and have been super happy with it! It has been nice to have fresh lettuce for salads in August!!

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    1. Thanks! You are so right about the lettuce, it is a real treat to still have those salads!

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  3. Wow what a great harvest this week! That is a great looking yellow pole bean. They look like they would be stringy, but if you keep picking that size they must not be~

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    1. They aren't stringy at all. I pick them when they turn yellow which is pretty much when they get large but are still flat. I cut them into smaller pieces to cook.

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  4. Great Harvest, the trombocino look really interesting I think I will give them a go this summer.

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    1. Thanks Sharon! The trombocino really filled a need when all my zucchini failed.

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  5. Looks great! How nice to be getting greens during this time of the summer. I still have kale planted but it isn't growing much right now.

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    1. Thank you! I think the kale will be winding down soon. The fall kale plants are tiny but I hope they will take off and give us some in the chilly weather.

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  6. Your Kale and Lettuce look delicious! Even little carrots are yummy and you have a nice little variety of other things. I have not tried refrigerator dills yet but need to. I did do up some freezer dills. Nancy

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    1. I've never heard of freezer dills Nancy! Have you posted about how to do them? They sound interesting!

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  7. Is the long green squash also a tromboncino? That's a beautiful basket of kale.

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    1. Yes Norma, that one is also a trombocino and it looks more like the others I've harvested. I have two plants and I think the long light green ones are from one plant while the darker green shorter ones are from the other one. Same seed packet!

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  8. Wow, those trombocino squash are quite comically long! I hope you save some of the seeds to share with others! They look like fun to grow :-)

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    1. Welcome Ben! Yeah, they are pretty funny looking and I even had some trouble fitting them in the fridge. I hadn't thought of saving seed, but maybe I will because they are a non-hybrid.

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  9. The Gold Maries are a good looking bean, where did you find the seeds? It must be frustrating to have lots of shade in your summer garden, but it looks like you are doing well in spite of that.

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    1. Hi Michelle, the Gold Marie Vining beans come from Baker's Creek seeds. I hope they keep carrying them. I would say that my limited sunlight is the biggest frustration I have as a gardener! We simply have too many trees on our property. My husband sometimes takes some down for me, but he is getting older and those trees are getting bigger :-)

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  10. Congratulation on that summer lettuce! That is always a challenge for me. I've not heard of Pablo, I'll have to check it out. You've got a lovely variety of veggies there!

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    1. Thanks Dave! I got my Pablo seed from Fedco. It's a Batavian lettuce, a pinkish variety, similar in color to Red Sails.

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  11. You have some really beautiful lettuce. I need to get some summer lettuce varieties.

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    1. Thanks Daphne! I'm on a constant quest to extend the lettuce season and it's slowly getting somewhere.

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